Eat This, But Don’t Eat That…on the path of learning with a toddler

One of my favorite things to do is to spend time with a small child while they explore.  It has been a while, since my boys are 15 and 22.  I had the pleasure of spending a day last summer with my great-nephew, a non-stop bundle of joy, energy and independence.  He was then not quite two years old, and his verbal repertoire included about 50 words and many high-pitched squeals.  He is a good walker, but still subject to toppling over on a small stair, steep hill, or stiff breeze.  I have always been fascinated with watching how children learn, when left to their own devices and not steered or coached. I love to walk behind while they toddle about, and enjoy letting them make their own path, offering an occasional finger to hold when needed for a step up, and a pick-up and redirection if they are headed for a thorny bush or the edge of a pond.  I enjoy letting them stop to investigate whatever little thing catches their eye, and spend as much time as they want watching bugs, inspecting a stick, and circling the yard for the umpteenth time…

We were at the home of my in-laws, where every corner of the property has a secret treasure.   Fruit trees and berries and vegetables, trails and trellises, ponds and bridges and waterfalls, flowers, bunnies, birds and butterflies.  It was a beautiful sunny day, and there was plenty of time to wander about.  My nephew established a track, and we traveled it in circles, over and over.  We picked cherry tomatoes and scarlet runner beans, eyed the not-quite-ripe-yet grapes, sucked nectar out of nasturtiums, and spent time with a pile of quince, while he moved them in and out of small plastic bowls, piled them, tried to balance them, buried them in the dirt with a small trowel, and dug them back up again. I could almost see the synapses firing, and the learning pathways forming.  We picked dried seed pods from plants, and opened them to see what seeds were inside.  He knew, from previous explorations, that some of the things we picked and played with were edible, and he would make tiny lip-smacking sounds to indicate that he knew it was food.  He had no interest in eating the tomatoes, but wanted to just carry one around in his little hand, like a perfectly sized ball.  He would tote it around until it started to ooze seeds, then look at me for permission to jettison it.  On the next trip past the garden, he would pick a replacement, and it would accompany us on the next circuit around the yard.  We talked about which ones were ready to pick, and learned that the green ones should stay on the bush, and the red ones were good to pick.  He had no interest in eating the beans or quince, either, but they were fun to pick and then toss. As we talked about what things could be eaten and which things were to be picked only for inspection and dissection, I wondered how he was keeping track of the difference. On each orbit of the yard, he would stop at the same spots, and other than the dog treats on the porch, he never tried to put anything in his mouth that had been declared off-limits for eating. I was fascinated that he was able to remember which was which.

I don’t learn very fast myself, apparently. On a recent walk with my husband through a wildlife reserve, I edged off the trail to take a closeup picture of something. My husband commented that I was perilously close to the nettles, and I brushed his comment off. I leaned in closer, and felt the familiar sting as the nettle brushed my ankle. Just one tiny barbed hook, but annoying nevertheless. A microscope would show a picture of nature’s Velcro, and our skin makes a perfect base. Nettles are a valuable food and natural remedy source. I wonder what made early gatherers want to pick this prickly plant, figure out how to prepare it, and then eat it? You would think that the trial and error phase with nettles must have been unpleasant, to say the least. There must have been a similar version to “Hunger is the best ingredient” for the early gatherer groups…has everything been sampled at least once? And if so, how many people had to suffer consequences that ranged from mildly unpleasant to fatal? Quite a few, I suspect.

In my wanderings with my nephew, I thought about how early hunters and gatherers and indigenous people must have passed on vital information about plants and animals, and which properties of each would serve as food, medicine, shelter, clothing, dyes. How important it must have been, truly a matter of life and death, for children to quickly absorb and retain that information. I also thought about how, even with as much as I do know about plants, that little bit of knowledge would not stand up in the event I needed to know what could be useful for surviving off the land. How much knowledge has been lost since the age of medicine women and men, since the time when if you didn’t know which plants could be eaten, you could starve or be poisoned? It was not that long ago that life depended on that knowledge about our interaction with the natural world, weather, the flora and fauna of a region.

The learning curve of natural remedies must have also been steep. How does a plant become known to be a natural remedy? Once tested and considered proven and reliable, how was that knowledge shared? Were there annual conferences of Medicine Persons? I picture seasonal gatherings of tribes, on a beach during clamming season, or in a mountain meadow during huckleberry season, the elders with this knowledge sitting together away from the bustle of the gathering activities, and sharing what they knew with each other. But how did they figure things out in the first place? A medical emergency or prolonged illness would have an undercurrent of urgency and desperation, a “try anything and everything” mentality. In a small group, in a remote place, people could only rely on themselves, and the supplies that they could readily put their hands on. Imagine you are out, and away from your shelter, and you trip over a rock and impale yourself on a stick. You may not be carrying anything that can be used to stem the flow of blood. Maybe you reach for a pile of leaves, or some plants to stuff into the hole. You notice that the bulk of the plant fibers plugs the hole, but also seems to coagulate the blood. You make a mental note. You travel on, but you begin to get feverish, so you stop at a stream for a drink, and gather some plants to steep for a tea. Your fever subsides, and you catalog the plants you ingested, for future trial and testing. You travel some more, and come across a tree with honey bees. Being hungry and fatigued, you eat some of the honey, and in a “why not?” burst of intuition, you rub some onto the wound, which has become red and festering. Soon, the antibacterial properties of the honey heal the infection. You make another mental note, and so on. When your life depends on it, you pay very close attention to the details. After you get back to your tribe, you seek out the Head Person With the Most Experience in Such Things, and you relate the details of your misadventure, and describe each thing you tried on the way. The Listener, who is probably intuitive, of high intellect, and a skilled observer, adds the information to their mental catalog, and the wisdom trust is now expanded.

In an era when you can look virtually anything up in an instant, what would happen if we lost that ability to connect to the wisdom trust? If we had to rely on the expertise and knowledge of those in our immediate circle and geographic proximity, would there be anyone with enough knowledge to save us in a time of hunger or need? In a time when even the homeopathic remedies come packaged in plastic vials, neatly labeled with suggested uses and instructions, have we lost the ability to observe, listen to our bodies, and make those cognitive leaps from questioning through intuition to knowledge? Are we too used to being clean to be willing to rub ourselves with plant juices and honey and mud? If we were in the habit of using a natural remedy that had been imported, and made from tubers from Peru or roots growing in the forests of Japan, and those were no longer available to us, would we be able to search our neighborhoods and find a substitute? Would we be brave enough, and open enough to experimentation and trial and error to relearn the properties of each plant, to regain the knowledge that our ancestors suffered to obtain, and that we have now all but forgotten and ignored? Would we still have the ability to learn as fast as a toddler, and would we survive long enough to find out?

I wonder.

Photos by Tamara Brockman and Susan Berry