Daucus Carota
The other day Rebecca Lerner and I were prepping for one of our Urban Foraging 101 walks when I spied a regular carrot in somebody’s sidewalk garden. Domestic carrots will rapidly interbreed with wild carrots. Saving carrot seed involves vigilantly eliminating nearby wild carrots (aka queen anne’s lace). I said, “Maybe we can point this out for comparison to wild carrot. You know, if you leave the domestic carrots alone they just revert to their wild state, like, really quickly…hey maybe that is a metaphor! Becky helped me figure out exactly what the metaphor might be which is this: The instinct for rewilding is within each and every one of us. Think about it: Why do we like grilled meats so much? Why do children build forts of sticks and dirt? Why do millions of Americans go camping on vacations? Why do most of our hobbies involve pursuits like hunting, fishing, gardening, and making crafts? If left alone, unconstrained by laws that prohibit wild living, schools that break our spirits, and brainwashing by the media that tells us we need to purchase more consumer products, how quickly might we too begin to revert to a more wild state?! If you have any more ideas about the “rewilding instinct” please share them here.
Many a tree is found in the wood,
And every tree for its use is good;
Some for the strength of the gnarled root,
Some for the sweetness of flower or fruit;
Some for shelter against the storm,
And some to keep the hearthstone warm.
Some for the roof and some for the beam,
And some for a boat to breast the storm;
In the wealth of the wood since the world began
The trees have offered their gifts to man.
-Henry Van Dyke
If we look at this behavior from the standpoint of human evolution it may help. The human species has basically been the same for the last 40,000 to 60,000 years with only minor phenotypic variation not significant enough to draw a distinction. Even before that, up to 200,000 years ago, we were strikingly similar to our predecessors.
All that is to say that it is only within the last 10,000 years that the human condition has changed. With the advent of stationary agricultural techniques that provided a food surplus, our species was able to develop specialized roles for individuals beyond providing for basic needs and primitive creative endeavors.
Then comes science and applied science (technology). If we look at the last 150 years we see, at least in western culture, civilization going from homesteads to high-rises, from horses to hummers. Is it any wonder that kids build forts of sticks and mud, and parents yearn for a simple camping trip? We have not evolved within this environment that we surround ourselves with.
I support science and science education. I just feel we need to bring our focus back around to sustainable existence.
Oh, I happened across your blog today while doing some blog-to-blog clicking. Might have to put you on my blogroll.
how to know its wild carrot. so much details. there ist this bearclaw some poison ones. i dig one out here in karlsøy. i love u in friendly way.or i feel love and respect for u. i wanna become a woman like u. challanging im a guy.
here in the north its differnet. whish u all the best. hope to have time to read ure posts. the wise woman herbal conference look big amazing! i wanna be such a wise woman. it makes me sad not to be such a wise woman. i killed a fish with my hand again. i cry a bit. where is our healing. the fish dies for us. i skind the fish. he like my friend. other people throw nearly ll of the fish away. wissh u wishes for a futuere and for love and nice times
wish ure happy where u are. wish u could write something to rewilding jung woman, she had a hard time she is,…
santa clause is living close o us. if u have a wish i can tell him. if he comes along.
Thanks for the observation/info, Emily.
I’ve seen and thought something similar with a few cultivated hawthorn trees in my area (SE England). The altered ‘parents’ have fatter, redder fruits and a different leaf shape, but the ‘children’ growing thick and bushy underneath have reverted completely, so far as I can tell, to the wild form. In one generation!
Like you say, it takes vast amounts of energy, continually applied, to break this rewilding tendency in all living creatures. Once that energy runs out… ?
Best wishes
Ian
Wild carrot = Queen Anne’s lace, right? Easy to tell it, then: those umbrella arrangements of white flowers usually have a tiny dark purple flower right smack in the middle of the arrangement. They tend to grow at the edges of parking lots and roads if they haven’t been Rounduped out of existence. They’re pretty.
yeah, i kinda feel that way about the whole human project right now.
i live in a city (vancouver) and if you look around, thers wildness just busting out of everywhere: that which cannot be controlled in constantly, intrinsically pushing towards its neccessary expression. I looked down a storm drain by my work the other day and there was licorice (or some other fern maybe) growing down in there under the grate!!! in an industrial area of this huge city.
does this relate to humans? I think so. We have these wild places in our minds, hearts and bodies that aren’t gone at all. they’re not worked/programed out of us, its just a conditioning. But i think that it is, ultimately, superficial.
I think the propensity to go feral is immediate, but the conditioning, suppressing, controlling system is heavily entrenched.
Yay Wild Carrots!
Hello miss Emily , I hope that you will get somethin out of this , being that we are from such different cultures and geographic areas . Now i live on the border of Arkansas – Louisana in the deep ,deep south . Here it goes hope i do not sound to silly . Wild hoggs used to be domestic hoggs down here ,there is a very small chance of getting a true blood razor back hog any
more . I have seen many a wild hog with black an white patches an some pure white running around in the bayou wild and free . They live very well out in the bayou here many hoggs have been let loose to bring in hog hunters . Domestic to wild it happens real quik out here for a hog .
And ” queen anne’s lace ” she grows very thick here . Shes a good friend of mine . Hope that might help some to you all. For the fellow who wants to be a women , Hey go for it man you only live once..I think it would be great to have more women around ……… REWILDING……