The Briar Philosopher- Iron Weeds

It’s funny the things one remembers so clearly from childhood. For me they are often things that most would think insignificant or silly. Take my first real look at an ironweed bloom, for instance. It doesn’t seem likely that such a small thing would be so completely imprinted in my memory but it is. I don’t particularly remember how old I was. I just remember that I was quite young and quite short and that it was fall.

It happened like this. I was out walking in the large field beside the house, as I often was, when I noticed the most amazing purple flower just down the hill, growing beside a telephone pole. It was my vantage point at the top of the hill that allowed me to see the brilliant blossom. Had I been nearer my shortness would have prevented the sight. I had to get a closer look so I walked on down the hill.

When I finally reached the place where the astounding flower grew it towered so far over my head that it was impossible for me to even see anything except for the bottom of the flower head. I stood there for quite some time trying to devise a way I could get up high enough to see it but that wasn’t going to happen so I began to figure on a way to get it down to my level. I didn’t want to break it and thus kill the beauty so I reached up the stem as far as I could and slowly brought it down, moving out as it came lower so as to bend the stalk without breaking it.

Eventually I had the flower down even with my face and I could see the magical blossom in all its glory. I was transfixed by it for what seemed like a long time. It had my complete attention, which is probably why I remember it so well. It became etched in my mind and I still carry that memory with me. I revisit it every time I see ironweed blooming. It was a mystery to me how something so beautiful could be considered a weed. I was quite young but I already knew that weeds were things that people didn’t want, unlike flowers and vegetables and things people found useful.

Years later, as I entered the larger world beyond the farm I would discover that people also get judged in the same way that we divide weeds from flowers. I would also discover that I was considered a weed, initially for my poverty but later for the fact that I refused to stop questioning absolutely everything. It is true, in this culture that poor people are not thought to be valuable and it is also true that people who won’t just accept what they are told are not considered valuable. We are the weeds of the world.

As I grew older and learned more about weeds and flowers of both the plant variety and the people variety it was these judgments that I came to question most of all. I learned, for instance, that at one time ironweed was considered quite valuable for its use in making lovely dyes as well as for it’s beauty as an early autumn flower. It was also used by Native Americans for medicinal purposes.

It was only the movement of time and the movement of culture away from a time when people made their own dyes and medicines and their own decisions about beauty that brought the label “weed” to this magnificent plant. I also learned that ironweed was named not for its weedy habit but for the strength and stubbornness of its roots. As I will have to thin some of them from my orchard this spring I can attest to that iron like quality.

What I learned about people was similar. Cultural judgments of who is a flower and who is a weed are arbitrary and have no real meaning. Take the people of Appalachia for instance. There was a time when being able to make your own life and fill your own material needs was a thing that was valued. Not having to depend on a job outside the farm was valued. Not depending on a credit score was valued. Being able to think for yourself and not depend on others to make your decisions for you was valued.

Then time and culture moved on and those very things that had once made us flowers now made us weeds. We are judged by our credit score and how much we are able to consume. Those judgments have become so ingrained that we, ourselves, often think we are weeds, without value and worthless to the larger society.

It may be time we got back to the “iron” part of what we are and remember the value and strength of our roots. It may be time we stop thinking of ourselves as weeds and learn to grow again into the beauty and usefulness which is our birthright, beyond the judgment of a culture that only serves mammon.