Lessons with Bramble (or Blackberry bush)

Making space for new plants in the garden-to-be means cutting and digging away at bramble. While Bramble used to make me furious by clinging to my clothes and hair with its thorns and pricking in my skin in a mean way, there is now a mutual sense of understanding.

On the practical level I’ve learned to read the bramble thorns to see which end has the ‘mother root’ and which end has just rooted itself in the ground – in order to sprout more stems. I’ve also learned that I can maintain the bramble (I’d like to think: *almost* domesticate it) and enjoy juicy blackberries at the end of the summer.

But there’s a deeper level to my connection with Bramble as well.

I got curious about the fury I got into with my first encounter with the bramble. Where did it come from (aside from the obvious frustration and pain…)? Mutual ignorance of each others’ intentions, and we were at war with each other. But with some explaining (“I want to create a garden here”) I received a response from my thorny enemy (“I protect”). And suddenly we had established a connection by inter-species communication.

I now see that the bramble protects the Earth from erosion, and it protects the animals living inside its thorny fortress from their predators.

Getting to the Root of this Life lesson: connect/communicate with your living surroundings – plant, spirit or animal, humans included – and you’ll understand the magical Web of Life better.
Understanding it makes you a participant, rather than a disconnected fool wasting his or her energy (as I realised by experience…).

Connect, understand, participate, flow…be the co-creator of existence, together with all its other parts.

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