Berry picking has a special place in my heart. During a peace meditation in 1990, a meditation facilitator directed us to think of a single thing we'd like to be doing if we could only do one thing throughout eternity. I chose picking berries, specifically blackberries.
There is nothing like the adventure of gathering fresh fruit right off the vine. You may run into unexpected animals, weather problems, and other folks gathering. Its a new experience everytime. Its also fun to do with friends and family and as a way to meet people. In urban setting, I've found random folks enthusiastically joining in once they figure out what's going on.
Once you've got enough fruit gathered, the next step is what to do with it. Its always great to make wild berry ice cream, pie, pastries, or candies. Some folks dry them. Some folks can them. But, mainly there aren't many people that don't love fresh berries. There's an enthusiasm for them shared by most of humanity.
Have a great day and may your bucket always be full by the end of the day!
There is nothing like the adventure of gathering fresh fruit right off the vine. You may run into unexpected animals, weather problems, and other folks gathering. Its a new experience everytime. Its also fun to do with friends and family and as a way to meet people. In urban setting, I've found random folks enthusiastically joining in once they figure out what's going on.
Once you've got enough fruit gathered, the next step is what to do with it. Its always great to make wild berry ice cream, pie, pastries, or candies. Some folks dry them. Some folks can them. But, mainly there aren't many people that don't love fresh berries. There's an enthusiasm for them shared by most of humanity.
Have a great day and may your bucket always be full by the end of the day!
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Re: Meditating on Berry Picking
Tue, July 20, 2004 - 7:53 PMI also view berry picking as a very special and sacred act.
It can lead you into a further understanding and appreciation of what all is edible to us and provides us with sustenance.
Even while humping ghastly loads through the bush, those berries would always bring a smile to my face, and I had to stop and grab some. The smell, mmmhh ambrosia, the taste, mmmmhh ambrosia, the thorns, ggrrrr satanic. Having to navigate around them or through them for years, man they were a nuisance. But those few weeks when they are out in all their glory, those berry canes are forgiven for all their aggravation. I got to know where every patch was for endless kilometers around, and I harvested from them all. I knew I was competing with every other critter in the forest (name one animal that doesn't also go after them) but my shit looked like that every other critter in the forest, purple.
It also leads me into meditating on the indescribable incredibleness of seed dispersal by plants. Talk about plant consciousness.
I've been harvesting a bunch lately. What to make of them all. Been getting lots of mulberrys.
I think foraging for berries is also a kind of reconnecting with our earlier forager instincts, that sadly are completely non existent in many people today. It just plain old puts me in touch with the Earth Mother. The doobage helps a whole lot too. -
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Re: Meditating on Berry Picking
Sun, July 25, 2004 - 10:38 PMthis rings so true for me as well, there is something folkloric and familiar about gathering berries -- it's one of my happy memories as a child with my mother, when we'd pick berries then come home and make jam, and then again in college with my roommate we'd go all over the bay area picking strawberries, raspberries, blackberries... even in Russia where it's practically a national past-time, and right now my daughter and i breakfast on the blackberries growing in our driveway every morning.
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