I have been hand picking milkweed plants from the hay field because I don't want them cut and baled in the hay, I have some new awareness thanks to the milkweed.
Milkweed flowers attract bees.
Milkweed flowers produce a sweet alluring fragrance.
Each milkweed plant is unique.
The pulling up of each milkweed plant requires me to adjust the hold and angle, twist and pressure in order to smoothly remove the milkweed rather than break the stem.
Despite my best efforts, careful positioning and use of breath, core energy, and intention, some milkweed plants resist uprooting more than others.
Milk of plants and animals is sticky when drying on my skin.
Milkweed leaves are a courting or mating venue for some small bright, matte-finish red (not shiny red) beetles.
My left hand has a stronger grasp than my right hand.
My right hand is equally effective when grasping and pulling milkweed when I lower my center and move from my center rather than move my hand and arm as I'm uprooting each plant.
Although I first found tremendous ease when creating a triangle of my two feet and grasping hand, I later found it didn't matter which foot was forward.
A very, very few milkweed leaves have been eaten by something in the field.
Milkweed tend to grow in bunches in certain areas of the field, and not at all in other areas.
I am not compulsive about removing every single milkweed from the field.
The guineas are on bug and tick patrol in the field despite the height of the grasses growing there, more easily heard than seen.
I can remove the milkweed plants only one at a time.
There is always another milkweed plant to be pulled up.
Getting quiet internally and feeling gratitude for these plants does not guarantee they will yield to my efforts any more than when I pull unconsciously.
2 comments:
I like this lesson. I spent a lot of time this year picking buttercups out of our pasture when I learned that they were poisonous to horses. Not that my girls aren't smart enough to know that, but it drove me crazy to see all those yellow flowers where there could be yummy grass growing. I especially like your last paragraph.
I could have written this post, only substituting the word "pokeweed" for milkweed.
Its amazing the ways your mind wanders while you're performing a mindless task like pulling poke (or milk) weed, or driving home from work, or shoveling manure for the 54,682nd time, or stacking the 8,439th bale of hay.
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