Vineraire Part 7
In May 2023 like the old stories, I found myself alone for the first time in twenty years in the Prairie des Femmes.
I sat in the pasture and relied on my work with this plant to soothe, preoccupy and heal me, and she did all of these things in abundance. I told myself over and over that I was growing this plant to seed for the ladies down the bayou. This gave me hope. I checked on the different plants and their progress, even watering them by hand over a six acre patch. The more I wandered crying aimlessly, the more my tears acted as prisms to magnify her presence. When I watered one plant, another appeared larger in the path before me, until I had found many who were competing with the overgrowth of our uncollected coton jaune. I celebrated every new plant, complimented her, called her "darling", manicured the caterpillars, cleared the weeds and protected her from poison as well as from man's cruel blade. The plants multiplied and they got bigger. From 2022-2023 I had gone from 3 volunteer plants to over 200.
In utter despair at the illusion of a twenty year life I was brutally waking up from, in complete disarray I called on horticulturalist Big Bill Fontenot, who is like an uncle to me. Being from my own hometown our families had connections across the centuries. Over the years of my questioning land and plant memory and “herbal adventuring” Bill had become a trusted mentor. I was completely humbled flat at the turn my life had taken, namely I was divorcing, but Bill was able to clear the weeds for me and show me that through this utterly unbearable pain, there was God. “God is as easy as fallin’ down,” he said.
If finding God was as easily as being near the earth, I was there both mentally and physically and it felt terrible. Big Bill offered me the idea that God sent me this plant as a gift as well as and an offering to the intellect and senses I possess to receive her in perfect timing, or at all. God was in the essence of this plant, after all we are all manifestations of God, and if God loves the humble, she was most loved.
Bill also offered that it was strong medicine and required a strong person to handle it properly. I took these offerings and kept him supplied with the dried rabbit tobacco, a spray and a balm I made. In this way survived the summer of 2023.
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