reality check | finding resilience in troubled times
THE NATURE OF REALITY INSPIRED BY A CONVERSATION WITH PARSLEY By Deb Rodney look delicious?” After that in the veggie section of the supermarket, there it was a little louder. A whole bunch was saying, “Take me. I’m yours.” “I hid the stems deep down in the garbage, thinking
I was surely going crazy and afraid my addictive behavior, which couldn’t possibly be explained, would be discovered by my family.”
For weeks, I bought parsley in multiple bunches, washed and ate it alone standing at the kitchen sink. I hid the stems deep down in the garbage, thinking I was surely going crazy and afraid my addictive behavior, which couldn’t possibly be explained, would be discovered by my family.
I
t was just a garnish. A little, lacy green sprig I snatched quickly before the waitress whisked away my empty plate and headed for the dishwasher.
Then my mind would teeter in another direction. It was perfectly natural to eat a lot of parsley. It tasted good. It couldn’t hurt me. It’s a green vegetable, right?
“One simple, crunchy mouthful was the beginning of what came to feel like a haunting, a possession, or an irrational addiction.”
Plants are medicine. How did we first discover their medicinal properties? Imagine one of our early foremothers in the forest foraging for food. She trips and cuts her arm. It begins to bleed badly. She decides to try and stop the bleeding with some leaves she puts on the wound. But it continues to bleed and she runs from plant to plant trying this and trying that until she finally grabs some yarrow leaves. She presses them to the cut and the bleeding stops. She passes the information to everybody she knows and soon yarrow leaves become known for stopping the flow of blood.
Parsley. It tasted so good. In fact, it was better than the entire meal. One simple, crunchy mouthful was the beginning of what came to feel like a haunting, a possession, or an irrational addiction. It turned out to be a simple message. Before you read my musing to its conclusion you will think I’m surely delusional, or my story will resonate somewhere in the depths of the truth you know. You’ll sigh and say, “Ahhhh, yes, I know that, too.” There are parallel realities. One that says it’s impossible (and ridiculous) to have a conversation with parsley. And one that knows that the unseen (and unacknowledged) in our world speak to us in many ways—even if we only hear them in big moments we call miracles. Well, parsley started speaking to me in a whisper without words. The communication felt more like an impulse. “Taste me, don’t I 10
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Or did it happen like this: The first women and men knew that plants communicated. After all they lived in intimate proximity with them since before they could communicate among themselves. They cut a carrot, looked at its center, and it resembled an eye. So, they knew carrots were good for eyes (which they are). A tree in the Amazonian jungle has a bark that resembles snake’s skin and is a known cure for snakebite. Today, we know that the inside of the heart looks like the chambers of a tomato, which is nutritionally good for maintaining a healthy heart. Maybe our early ancestors looked at
