A Wortcunner - to know plants

I learned a new word recently. "Wortcunner"  A wortcunner, a simpler . Wortcunners were those that lived with and understood plants on another level. These were the folks, the wise women who truly understood all the ways of plants. Not just what they were useful for but the magick of them as well. They learned and knew how to engage the "spirit" of the plant and see beyond what was seen by the naked eye.

I have always loved and been forever enamored with plants. I grew up in the city but we had a lovely garden and our neighbour, Mr. Wilson, had a double lot and grew flowers for the florists in Vancouver. Chrysanthemums by the hundreds of every colour and variety. Our home was always full of flowers. My mother always had spring flowers and lots of roses in the garden. We had a weeping cherry tree in the front yard and I can remember countless hours spent lying under the graceful, bent down branches. It was like a living tent that hid me in the garden and allowed my spirit to roam free.

My mother has often told me what a "vivid" imagination I had. I was always communicating with living things and telling my mother the stories they were telling me. Lucky me that my mother never told me to "stop that nonsense !" My mother has always thought that I would become a writer and I guess in a way I have. I have many stories inside me.

It is interesting that as I become older I am also remembering and retrieving memories of "simpler" times. As an adult I went to school and studied herbal medicine and have taken countless courses to learn as much as I can about plants and how they can help us. But my "true" love has always been the "magick" of them. What they can tell us if we move past the physical reality and see beyond, into the ethers.

Plantago lancelata - Ribwort plantain 

Plants are SO much more "connected" than we are. Of course they are ! They are "rooted" into the earth and grow under the influence of planetary forces and so much more. They are here to help us this much I know. We cannot live without them. 

grows under the influence of Venus. 

I have spent a lifetime trying to figure out what I really want to be when I grow up. "EUREKA" I have found it, in the definition of this very appropriate word, wortcunner. I am an aspiring wortcunner and still have a lot to learn. The plants will teach me and I am doing  my very best to be a worthy student. 

Stay tuned :-)