The things we take forward
Happy New Year. So all the way back in 2025, I was attending a Zoom conference and we were asked the following question: If you had the power to take anything forward into the future, to save it from being lost, what would it be?
No prizes for guessing what my first response was but I was beaten to it by one of the elders on the call. He said, “Herbalism. I think it’s going to be very interesting to see what role herbalism and plants have to play in the decades ahead.”
If I could’ve reached through the screen and hugged him, I would’ve.
I’ve thought a lot about his response since. And I realised something. One of plants’ greatest strengths is their ability to adapt. Sure, it’s still within certain tolerances but they’re far tougher than animals. Which is why you have plants like Dandelion and Plantain all over the freakin’ planet but leopards? Not so much.
What will happen to the plants?
Sometimes I wonder, in a world that seems to be warming, what will happen to the plants? Some might die out. Others might develop spines or become so bitter nothing will want to eat them. Plants that haven’t been medicinal might suddenly become so. Others might lose their healing properties.
Living beings are tricky like that.
That’s why it’s wise to never think that we know it all.
But back to that beginning question. On the face of it, the Christmas/New Year period was just full of more bad news. But what if there was one thing that each of us valued and had the power to take into the future? What would yours be?
Let’s heal something
Plants aren’t the only masters of adaptation in this world. We could all be the custodians of something that makes the place better, even if it’s just within our close circles.
I think it starts and ends with community. Forests understand this. More and more of us are realising it too.
Here’s to a 2026 that we can make just a little bit better. Let’s all roll up our sleeves and heal something.
