Curiosity, Ingenuity, & Hope
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Hello friends, Last week, I talked about encountering foxglove on a city sidewalk, and asked how your heart was. But the foxglove also got me thinking: Who first figured out it could be used to help with heart disease? I’m always amazed at the ancestors who figured these medicines out. Who would think that these lovely pink bells would be useful for more than their beauty? Who first figured out we could cure olives and eat them? Who was it that experimented enough to know that the bark of a willow tree helped headaches, or that spider webs could be used to reduce bleeding? And don’t get me started on mushrooms. So many varieties! So many are edible! So many are… very much not. The thing that strikes me about human ingenuity, is that it is filled with curiosity and hope. Ingenuity is not just a human trait, of course, we see the same in crows, chimps, octopuses, and many other animals. Sometimes curiosity and hope are driven by necessity, but other times, by a sense of play or simply wanting to figure something out. When we embrace hope and invoke curiosity, a new world opens to us. All of a sudden, things that may have felt impossible are filled with possibilities. Excitement may arise, or determination. The thing that does not arise? Apathy or a sense of defeat. What helps keep you curious about the world? What compels you to tinker or experiment? And last: What helps you embrace hope? Best wishes — Thorn
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T. Thorn Coyle
Hello friends, It’s a rainy summer solstice here in beautiful Portland, Oregon. The sun is hiding, but, as I move my way around the city, I still see all the ways in which things shine. There are roses in full bloom everywhere. People don’t call this Rose City for nothing. Some roses are fragrant, others, not so much. But each flower is gorgeous in its own way, whether pink, red, yellow, or white. What else is shining? The glint on a crow’s beak. Rain on the sidewalks. People. Yeah. People....
Hello friends, These are tough days, aren’t they? At least, they are for anyone paying attention to the world. In Portland Oregon where I live, a dedicated group of activists have been holding it down outside the ICE facility. This is a privately owned building, and another group of activists is pressuring our city council to revoke the lease, so ICE does not have a holding and staging area in our sanctuary city. Especially not next to a school and apartment buildings. Last night, the...
Hello friends, I spotted some foxglove on a walk yesterday. It was a funny spot to find it, too, on a sidewalk just off a very busy street in a semi-industrial area of the city. The pink, spotted bells called me to come closer, to listen to their whispers as traffic rolled by. As a sometimes-writes-cozy-mysteries author, I know that foxglove can kill. But historically, it has been used to heal. It still is. Digitalis—foxglove—is used to treat many heart illnesses. This made me want to ask:...