I wanted to be all natural and stop using products that had chemicals in them. So, I went out onto the side of the highway, because I was too afraid of bears to hike alone through the bush, and I picked the flowers and plants that I recognized – or at least that I thought I recognized. I gathered Labrador, yarrow (or what I thought was yarrow but now I think it might have been a weed that looked like yarrow). I picked rosehips, fireweed, dandelion and peeled the dried sap from the trees. I even collected the small ripe green buds off the alder tree in spring. The only thing I stayed away from was wild mushrooms.
I worked with this potent mix with my bare hands, placing bunches of dried leaves and flower petals into small pieces of mesh cloth that I cut and tied a pretty ribbon around but I soon realized that the inhaled scents were making me sick. I was so suddenly ill in fact that I had to lie in bed for an entire night and day until I felt like myself again.
This is how powerful nature is.
I didn't know what types of medicines I was working with and the potency of each different type of plant seeped into my skin and my airways which, I believe, ultimately poisoned me.
It would have been proper protocol for me to have taken the time to ask an Elder to teach me about the different types of plants and medicines that I was searching for and to say a prayer and give thanks when picking, but I thought I knew what I was doing all on my own. I knew that Labrador was good for you, but only in small doses because it is a narcotic, but I didn't know that when combined with other plants it could have the power to make me fall ill. From this, I've learned that the earth's floor contains such powerful medicines that have equal toxins to remedies and it's best not to go out on the land and start gathering unless you are absolutely sure of what you are doing.
When I was lying in my bed sickened from my own foolishness, I wondered if maybe I was sick from the left-over arsenic contaminants of the Giant Mine mess that spread out far and wide over the land and water. What if maybe I didn't go out far enough from the vicinity of the mine when gathering plants? What if the plants I gathered were contaminated from the days that the smokestacks were producing such high levels of inorganic arsenic that it was ultimately settling in the sediment and soil of the land and water and eventually landing right into my hand?
If just a teaspoon of arsenic is enough to kill a person then I couldn't even fathom what cumulative impact it can have on nature when out of its natural element. You can imagine that my fear of arsenic poisoning was set into a full panic when lying in my bed sick from the potency of the plants that I handled. Thankfully, I survived whatever poison I came into contact with that day.
If there's one thing I've learned from that experience, it's that the power of nature is not to be meddled with or taken advantage of.
Needless to say, I gave up on my dream of becoming a horticulturist, chemist, or all-natural beauty supplier.
When it comes to all of the above, I'll put my trust in the local traditional knowledge experts to know the lay of the land.