Hello blog, we meet again.
Today was a special day for we as college students had the opportunity to go on a field trip! I had the greatest time today walking around in the woods and listening to the vast plant knowledge that Professor Titus offered enhanced the hike by ten fold. I don't know what it is about nature, but I feel so much more connected to it than to the hustle and bustle of a big city. If I could I would build a log cabin in the middle of nowhere, catch and grow my own food, and write sad, sad music/poetry like Bon Iver and Henry David Thoreau did. But sadly I have responsibilities and cannot be the next Grizzly Man. I'm getting a little off topic, but like I was saying nature, just gives me this feeling in my stomach like there's so much out there to explore and find and it's a great feeling to not know what's out there.
I kind of feel that is like some of these early Americans felt exploring the wilderness before there were roads and highways and even railroads. You just packed up your family to head west in a wagon and just went, the unknown always at the back of your mind. They would have to live off of the land to survive, picking plants they may have never seen before and using them in weird ways for the first time. Like we were saying about the Pulpit plant, how did the Native Americans know that if they boiled and treated that plant they could ingest it? People found all of these new and interesting plants like we did on our hike and said hey that looks like it could cure my stomach ache and it worked and I find that so fascinating.
And, I feel like that fascination of the unknown also helped people to sell product at medicine shows. You advertise this plant that most people who may have never even heard of it before and people are bewildered. What is this plant? Can it really do what they're saying it's doing? I'll take five! The unknown gives us a child like wonder and I can really see how people fell for some of these sometimes scams and or medicines that actually cured.
Actually, being a pioneer was pretty terrifying. Nature was a thing to be civilized as quickly as possible, because it could and would kill you if you didn't. The idea of nature as a haven or escape didn't happen until the 19th century. Thoreau and his friends helped with that, for sure. Consider the class reading and discussion also. It wasn't fascination with an unknown _plant_ that sold patent medicine. After all, it was a largely agrarian society then. It was the association of a labeled bottle of mystery substance with far-off and exotic _places_, and exotic people like Native Americans. Your post was thoughtful and fun to read, and would have been stronger if you anchored your good thoughts more explicitly to class reading and discussion, and the larger concepts.
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