Meet the plants: plantain
“If you’ve done something wrong to someone else and you genuinely don’t know what you’ve done wrong, you’re not going to be able to adequately apologize. You’re not going to be able to say the things you need to say to create a path toward recovery.”
–Bryan Stevenson
Plantago Major
Your average bug bite is no match for a spit poultice of plantain. Plantago Major is not to be confused with a cousin of the banana, this anti-inflammatory wonder grows low to the ground in unassuming posture. The history of plantain treating a spectrum of ailments goes back thousands of years. The earliest known account of plantain’s healing potential was written between 40–90 AD by Pedanius Dioscorides, a Greek botanist in the Materia Medica. Plantain is used in treatment of constipation, coughs, wounds, infection, fever, bleeding and inflammation. Bruised or crushed leaves can be applied directly to the skin to treat insect bites or stings, nettle rashes, skin irritations, and small wounds or cuts.
Rarely cultivated plantain is not native to North America but grows abundantly because of a trifecta of plant strategy– each plant produces thousands of seeds, it does well in compacted or disturbed soils and can survive repeated trampling. The plant has followed European colonization around the world. Native Americans called it "white man's footprint" because it thrived in disturbed areas around European settlements. Plantago major’s superpowers pull what is stuck, stingers, poison, mucus, uncomfortable histories, all with the intention to fully heal. Plantago Major has followed European colonization around the world, and Native Americans called it “white man’s footprint” because it thrived in disturbed areas around European settlements. A witness to the history of colonization, Plantago Major has a lot to say about abolition and healing.
Plantago major in the wild.
Confronting our past is a process of accountability. Culturally accountability is under practiced in the west, but it is an important tenet of abolition. As Bryan Stevenson reminds us, We have committed ourselves in this country to silence about our history, to ignorance about our history, to denying our history. And that’s the first part of this relationship that has to be repaired. We’ve got to be willing now to talk honestly about who we are and how we got here.
Plantain medicine draws out the poison from under our skin allowing us to move in the direction of healing. What historical, emotional or energetic poisons have been festering just beneath the surface of your awareness? What would it mean to draw them out?
What mechanisms or community members serve as the “plantain” for these processes? If they don’t already exist can you see their value and begin to build?
Plantain spit poultice to draw out infection.