Gathering Moss

Magnified tenfold, the complexity and detail of a single snowflake took me completely by surprise. How could something as small and ordinary as snow be so perfectly beautiful?

An Onondaga elder once explained to me that plants come to us when they are needed. If we show them respect by using them and appreciating their gifts they will grow stronger. They will stay with us as long as they are respected. But if we forget about them, they will leave.

Ownership seems a uniquely human behavior, a social contract validating the desire for purposeless possession and control.
To destroy a wild thing for pride seems a potent act of domination. Wildness cannot be collected and still remain wild. Its nature is lost the moment it is separated from its origins. By the very act of owning, the thing becomes an object, no longer itself.

Was this what they meant by an ecological restoration? A flower bed?

Mosses have an intense bond to their places that few contemporary humans can understand. They must be born in a place to flourish there. Their lives are supported by the influences of previous generations of lichens and mosses, who made the rock into home. In that initial settling of spores they make their choice and stick to it. Relocation is not for them.

Just by continuing, I honor the lives of my ancestors and form the foundation for my grandchildren. We are profoundly responsible for one another. When we gather and dance in the elder’s footsteps, we honor that link.

It’s the time we should also turn our thoughts to our own responsibilities. In the web of reciprocity, what is our special gift, our responsibility that we offer to the plants in return?
Our ancient teachers tell us that the role of human beings is respect and stewardship. Our responsibility is to care for the plants and all the land in a way that honors life.

If each plant has a particular role and is interconnected with the lives of humans, how do we come to know what that role is? How do we use the plant in accordance with its gifts?

The urban landscape is not the native habitat for mosses or for humans and yet both, adaptable and stress tolerant, have made a home there among the urban cliffs.

There is a home for everything, the puzzle pieces slip into place, each part essential to the whole. The same cycle of disturbance and regeneration, the same story of resilience, is played out at a minute scale, a tale of the interwoven fates of mosses, fungi, and the footfalls of chipmunks.