Sumac Staghorns

Speaking of Rhus, today i drove by a big patch of staghorn sumac, brilliantly red in the gleaming low sun.

Coincidentally, i bought a pint of staghorn "berries" to make tea at the Farmers Market in September. Recently, i decided to add sumac to my daily green tea. Delicious, herbal, and it might even be a remedy. A few years ago, i made sumac staghorn tea because it is high in vitamin C. Now i'm trying it as an anti-itch potion.

Right now, i view sumac as healing; i used to think it was a weed tree. This type of either/or thinking blinds us to one side or the other. The answer is both/and--a place where the mind does not rest comfortably. Both? Both.

Homeopathic Remedy

After trying every anti-itch salve in the house for my poison ivy, my acupuncturist told me about the homeopathic remedy Rhus Tox. Rhus is sumac and toxicodendron is poison ivy, so i'm not sure exactly what is actually in Rhus Toxicodendron, but i can tell you this: It works. Itches went from front-row fiery to distant pings. How tiny sugar pills can do that remains a mystery to me.

Mindfulness can have that effect. We sit down with worry, anxiety, or sadness. We begin to watch our breath or sensations in the body. If we can keep our attention circling around or near our meditation object, those dark thoughts become like scattered clouds in the sky with periods of sunshine. We recall some sweetness in our lives--gratitude, love, or kindness--and taste that tiny taste.

Smile.

Is Sumac Really a Weed Tree?

In the past month, 3 people have said to me, "Sumac is a weed tree. I've got to get rid of it."

Sumac is a weed tree? Sez who?

Sumac has many wonderful benefits:

• It has beautiful red, yellow, green foliage in the fall.
• The sumac staghorns provide food for birds all winter long.
• The 12-foot tall sumac provides a nice intermediary between the 3-foot tall garden and the 60-foot trees in the woods.
• Sumacs have an interesting airy architecture. They are a nice background tree.

Yes, sumacs sucker, but around here, i seldom see vast stands of sumac. Mostly, i see small patches.

A weed is something growing where you don't want it, but are you really going to plant a garden in the place where the sumacs are? They are usually growing in a waste place, a place no one has paid attention to for quite a while. Are you the one who is going to roll up her sleeves and pay a lot of attention to that area? Really?

Saying what everyone else says might be true. Or it might not. Investigate for yourself. Inquire deeply into what is true for you.

Investigation is the second factor of enlightenment. We look deeply into the delusion that is all around us, and call it by its true name: Delusion.

Burning Bush vs. Sumac

Leaves are turning red and yellow and orange. One of the reddest reds (besides sugar maples) is the invasive shrub burning bush. I can talk myself blue in the face trying to convince people to rip out the burning bush in their yard because it's reseeding itself all over the woods.

"But i love burning bush," they say. Or, "I'll keep an eye on it." Ha!

Meanwhile, native sumac turns brilliant red, orange, yellow, and purple (!) with a tinge of green. I like the calming airiness and regularity of sumac leaves.

But sumac has a bad reputation as a weed tree. I like it because it's an intermediate tree, forming a background to a flower garden and a step up toward the tall woods trees. No matter how i sing the praises of sumac, i cannot rehabilitate its reputation among my friends.

"I want to chop it all down," they say.

The bad boy wins, and the beautiful native loses.

The bad boy can seem very glamorous, but we delude ourselves if we think we or he can get away with something.

Parade of Wheelbarrows

My neighbor and morning meditation friend, Whit, turned 70 yesterday. Whit is not so fond of big parties or surprise parties. Nevertheless, his wife cooked up a surprise based on her gift to him of a new wheelbarrow.

Friends planting the Birthday Hillside

Last fall they had cleared a hillside at the back of their backyard. The hillside needed to be planted or else it would return to its native goldenrod-and-sumac-and-lots-of-weeds state. I loaded up my truck with various native groundcovers and met my neighbors with their wheelbarrows at the top of the path leading down the edge of the cleaned-up hillside. We filled each wheelbarrow with one kind of plant--a wheelbarrow of Canadian ginger, a wheelbarrow of Allegheny pachysandra, a wheelbarrow of Solomon's seal, a wheelbarrow of black cohosh (bugbane), a wheelbarrow of Jerusalem artichokes.

Neighbor Connie played Happy Birthday on her trumpet as we wheeled down the hillside into Whit's backyard. He was surprised, all right. Pleasantly surprised. And in half an hour, the 10 of us had planted the hillside in the drizzling rain.

Happy plants. Happy friends. Happy Birthday, dear Whit.
Happy. Happy. Happy.

Sumac Tea--High in C

My friend Trudy gave me a staghorn of sumac 2 months ago, and i used it yesterday to make sumac tea, which is high in Vitamin C. Just the remedy for my drippy nose.

The flavor of sumac is almost lemon-y, and the color of the tea is pink. I'm drinking my sumac tea hot; i'm drinking it cold; i'm using it to flavor fizzy water. Hydrate. Hydrate.

Thanks to the generosity of Trudy, i can enjoy this cold remedy from the wild.

Eat Your Weeds

My friend, Trudy, age 88, recently self-published a book of her watercolor paintings of edible weeds. She offers wild weeds as a free source of organic vegetables. Her freezer is full of nettles, sorrel, and fiddlehead ferns. She digs up dandelion roots and keeps them in her refrigerator crisper drawer where they sprout green leaves all winter. Her kitchen is a veritable den of red clover blossoms, sumac staghorns, and who knows what else.

Nature can be our outdoor grocery store. Shall we eat healthy, natural food? Or shall we consume junk food?

What healthy "food" are your senses consuming these holiday days?

What "junk food" of TV, shopping, internet, etc. are your senses of sight, sounds, touches, smells, and tastes consuming?

Take a walk outdoors, perhaps a mindful walk. Look at the weeds alongside the road. Eat/see/feel your weeds.

Sumac Tea

My friend Trudy served  sumac tea and stinging nettle soup for lunch the other day. She's a great forager, so her freezer is full of wild things. She sent me home with a staghorn of sumac so i can make my own lemon-y tasting tea.

To make the tart sumac tea hot, take the sumac "berries" off the stem. Otherwise the boiling water will leach tannin from the stem into your tea.

Sumac trees are often considered to be weed trees, but i have come to like their short height (8-12 feet) and lovely shape as a backdrop to the garden. And their fall color is spectacular crimson.

Birders also report seeing robins and bluebirds eating the sumac berries all winter long.

We all have "weedy" thoughts that we'd like to chop down and get rid of. Sometimes they form the on-going backdrop of our mind. "What you resist, persists."

Let's love those weedy thoughts.
Name one or two of yours right now.
Irritation. Impatience. Lust. Frustration. Procrastination.

Then say,
I love myself as i am, irritated.
I love myself as i am, impatient.
I love myself as i am, lustful.
I love myself as i am, _____________. (Fill in the blank with whatever unlovable qualities you think you have.)

Yes. I even love myself as i am, feeling unlovable.

This is one way to make lemonade out of lemons.













Photos from trustedearth.com and teaandfood.com