It is often written that organically-grown foods contain two to three times the amount of known vitamins, minerals and other essential health-giving nutrients as foods grown with the help of herbicides and pesticides. But what is unfortunately heard less often is that wild-growing food, that being, foods that spring forth from the power of Mother Earth alone, meaning no fertilizers needed for the soil, no hybridizing, no chemical sprays, no human intervention whatsoever, just natural rain cycles, Sunshine, and whatever soil these awesome plants can sink their roots into, contain more life giving and life-enhancing qualities than even the ‘best’ store-bought organically farmed foods do. Not just vitamins and minerals and all the other scientific discovered elements, but real life-force energy. These are Natural Superfoods. Eating these foods always brings a smile to your face. And that’s the best thing ever!

Imagine if we city dwellers could be so privileged as to be able to include such jewels in our diet. Well we can! Yes, right here in these sprawling giants known as Toronto or Montreal, we have a plethora of high quality foods just waiting for us to discover. City green spaces, thickly forested areas, little back laneways, front lawns, backyards and even our own flower beds and pots, all play host to a wide variety of wild foods. So what are these Magic Wonders? Let’s take a closer look.

Lamb’s Quarters is an incredible green leaf vegetable that Loves to grow from the base of fences in little laneways, usually more prolifically so on the Sunny side. It has a wonderfully salty taste that is NOT bitter. Fresh in a salad it’s dynamite. By mid-June it’s in full swing and lasts that way until well into September when the plants begin to seed. The seeds can be eaten raw and have a great spicy flavour, or they can be boiled for making a breakfast gruel or ground into flour. This plant just Loves to give. Given the right conditions this generous bush can grow up to two meters tall – spilling out into all directions. (Someday it will be illegal to cut this plant down). Lamb’s-quarters is very high in vitamin A, calcium, potassium, and phosphorus and is also a good source of protein, trace minerals, B-complex vitamins, vitamin C,  iron, and fiber. (And it tastes great, too!).

A great salad companion to the above mentioned is Wood Sorrel. What’s so amazing is that this little Gem can often be found sprawling about on the ground right around the base of Lamb’s Quarters. Isn’t that convenient? She’s so wonderful! Wood Sorrel boasts a delicate lemony flavour, capable of giving any salad an original twist. As an added bonus, this plant can more than likely be found right in your own flower bed, box or outdoor potted plants. (Its seeds usually come downloaded for free in most bags of potting soil. Lamb’s Quarters, too! So you don’t have to go far. But please take note, if you find Lamb’s Quarters growing in potting soil that has been artificially enhanced with nutrients, it is not advisable to eat it, as Lamb’s Quarters are very adept at drawing nitrates from the soil and will therefore contain an unnatural balance of minerals.)

Let’s move on to one of the most power-packed foods Mother Nature has to offer. Dandelion! Yes, the scourge of many a Lawn Lover, is actually a True Gift. Often thought of as a bitter horror, dandelion can be quite palatable when the leaves are picked young. I’m told the flower buds pickled are great, too. Baked and ground, the roots will deliver an interesting coffee. And if you’re into juicing, even more mature leaves can be used. Combining four to six dandelion leaves with celery, cucumber and an apple makes a splendid juice, chalk-full of nutrients. Dandelion is a proven diuretic and revered liver cleanser.

The great thing about these wild foods is that you know how fresh they are because you picked them. No more wondering about how long they’ve been sitting in cold-storage or on the side of the highway. You can even stand there and eat them straight away. It’s a total blast. I literally do this regularly throughout the Summer in Montreal.

Another dainty treat are Daisies, not only are they exquisitely pretty, but the lighter coloured green leaves are great in salads.

Plantain, is about as common as grass and clover, and can be used in salads, too. But just make sure to use the young tender leaves, as the older ones can be quite stringy. Much has been written of the healing virtues of Plantain and a wealth of information can be found at www.botanical.com in an essay entitled A Modern Herbal by Mrs. M. Grieve.

In only slightly more wild areas and later in the Summer, the velvety red fruit clusters of the Red Sumac shrubs can be used to make the most fantastic ‘pink lemonade’. Gather entire fruit clusters then rub gently to bruise the berries. Soak them in cold water for 15 minutes then strain the water through cheese cloth and chill. Sweeten with Agave nectar or maple syrup and voila, you have a perfect summer drink. It really is good and it’s that easy!

City green spaces are amongst the many great places for finding all the different varieties of clover. They are rich sources of protein and can quickly turn any salad into a visual splendour. The fun just never ends! (Just get there before the lawn mowers do!) Red clover also contains minerals such as calcium, magnesium, chromium, potassium, and vitamins such as niacin, thiamine and vitamin C.

Well that should serve as a good Wild Food in the City primer, but I’m sure there’s probably a lot more goodies springing up between the cracks for us to discover. As wonderful and wholesome as I believe the practice of wild food foraging to be, a gentle word of caution is necessary to share at this point. One must be aware of dogs and their need to pee, seemingly at random, when they are out and about. So, use your best judgement, be particular about where you forage from, and when picking from plants growing along fences, choose leaves from higher up on the stocks.

I really believe that foraging for wild food, even if we are walking along a concrete sidewalk to get there, truly connects us to the energy of the planet or at the very least, heightens our awareness of our home, The Earth. The Earth is warm, giving and vibrantly alive and these qualities are passed unto us to a greater and greater extent the more we engage in a close and caring relationship with Her. The environmental impact of eating wild foods can be profound. Every little bit counts. I’d just like to write that again – every little bit counts. Consider how much of the fresh produce that we in Canada purchase daily, is actually coming all the way from California in a truck and is packaged in plastic. We can collect wild food on foot and it requires no packaging. When you’re finished there’s nothing left. That’s it, that’s all! If those who feel the slightest want decide to take a stroll next Saturday morning down the back lanes behind their homes, they will definitely come home with some interesting goodies for lunch. You might even come back with a whole salad and some herbs for a soup. (Just the other day I came across a substantial amount of Wild Garlic Mustard in the forest on Mont Royal in Montreal. I didn’t even know that garlic mustard existed until I bit into it. And I’ve since been back for more). Now that’s seriously delicious stuff. You can go a long way with that!!

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…the next few days were spent building little doodads to improve my situation, one of which was a bamboo platform for the looha. The design involved tying several pieces of bamboo, each lying side by side, to two main pieces running perpendicular to the rest. Although I successfully completed the first of the two foot rests, I’d felt that I’d wasted a lot of string aimlessly wrapping each piece erratically around the cross beam and a back over the top and under and blah, blah, blah. I wanted an efficient technique for tying. Later that day, while I was practicing Meditation, I was suddenly blessed with a vision. I had an overhead view of myself tying the bamboo together in a much more efficient manner. Remembering what I’d seen, I tried it out and, yes, it worked perfectly!

After about a week at my new place I was really feeling good. Those wonderful, ‘hug my body’ sensations kept coming and coming throughout Yoga and the rest of the day. A warm glow emanating from my Heart outwards. After meals I was beginning once again, to feel really smooth as I had experienced In The Beginning, after eating spinach in the kitchen on St. Denis Street. This was something that had quietly left me as my strength diminished and weakness set in.

I’d done two twenty-four hour fasts since moving to my new place, both of which had much to offer. Although getting going early in the morning was tough on both occasions, once I set myself in motion the energy I experienced was phenomenal. I worked the entire day on both occasions, either foraging for food or blazing a new trail, the latter being a thrill I would never have imagined. I couldn’t believe the excitement of creating a path. Charting my own course through the mish mash of trees, bushes, and vines. Absolutely dynamic. Finding freshly fallen passionfruit on the trail the next morning was icing on the cake.

Throughout my first two weeks living on the mountainside it rained on and off, I would say, all day and everyday. The gentle showers at Sunrise were a special delight. The yellow gold rays lit up the rain as it fell upon the grass clearing in front of my home. This was it. This was beautiful.

However, as it pounded down on the tarps with tremendous force on some occasions it was downright terrifying. I imagined the outcome should one or more of the ropes or grommets give way. I’d be soaked in the middle of the night desperately trying to repair the situation. And with very little Sun light during the day throughout this period, how would anything possibly dry?

Although I was at least about fifteen meters away from a practically dry stream, my fears again had the best of me as I envisioned a flash flood from higher up in the mountain turning my campsite into a river. Considering the isolated nature of the showers, there was really no way of knowing how much or how long it had been raining at any given location.

But all fears were in vain, and I suffered neither of the catastrophes I had imagined.

One night however, while writing in my journal during yet another heavy rain shower, I felt the seat of my pants becoming wet. I turned around to see that the pathway that led to the outhouse, which was situated on slightly higher ground had become a canal of sorts and was now channeling the rainwater right into my home. With lightning speed I began digging small run off ditches along the pathway. This quickly solved the problem. There’s no such thing as laziness when something has to be done, is there?

As Christmas 2000 was fast approaching I was about to begin what would become one of the most dramatic cleanses I’d ever experienced to date. As I was walking towards the washroom at the Phraharuthai evening Christmas party, held for students and parents alike, I did a little hop down a step and noticed an unpleasant sensation in the lower left area of my back. I hadn’t experienced anything like this since the more serious days of my back problems. I hopped on the same foot a couple of more times, just to test it. Sure enough there was something amiss. Because only recently the overnight temperatures had dropped quite sharply I assumed it had something to do with this, that is, the whole ‘changing of the seasons’ thing that Dr. Sullivan had told me about back in the ‘begging for Unemployment Benefits’ days.

Concerning my back, nothing much happened over the next few days. But a bit after Christmas, on my way to third period, I took a pee. Nothing out of the ordinary. After the usual introductory ritual at the beginning of class I sat down in my chair to flip through the day’s lesson. Oh Heavenly Goodness Glory That Be. The most incredible sensation of Love came over me. I was enveloped in Beauty. Everything felt so right. The class was a roar of incredible enthusiasm. Mine was a face of delight. Rather than attempt to conduct the class on my own, I quickly asked the yet to be nicknamed, StarLight Wonder Girl, who was a student I felt to have an incredibly special energy about her, to come to the front of the class and ask the other students some of the questions from the text. She jumped at the opportunity. The vibration in the room was that of Super Light. As the StarLight Wonder Girl held the fort with a smile a mile wide, I sat in my chair in a state of euphoria practically rocking back and forth with my arms wrapped around my upper body. As the students were on a high themselves and paying closer attention to the temporary substitute teacher than to me, my movements, I assumed went unnoticed. The words ‘Oh, I Love myself’, ran through my head. This was it. This was the Garden of Eden like I’d never experienced it before. There I was dressed up in a tie, holding down a job in of all places, a school – a situation that I would normally have avoided like a plague. Yet at this moment living just felt so good. It didn’t matter where I was. This was the Kingdom of Heaven.

After a fairly normal night of sleep, by far the best since coming to India, I decided to head out to Betul by rented bicycle. After polishing off the first ten-kilometer stretch from Benaulim to Mobar in excellent time, followed by the ferryboat crossing into Betul, I asked around about the ‘secluded idyllic beach’ that I had read about and was told it was four kilometers down the road.

After covering what seemed like roughly four K’s, which included a very steep incline at which point my left knee began to speak to me, I spoke with a woman who was walking by the road in the middle of an area that most people would liken to ‘nowhere’. She assured me that the beach lay ahead. Just follow the road for another ten to fifteen minutes. That’s odd, I thought. The book had said it was a half-hour’s walk from Betul. I was beginning to think that perhaps I’d missed the beach that the book had written of and was being directed to another. Oh well. I continued riding on what felt like a raised plateau. I eagerly awaited the drop in altitude that would take me down to the Sea.

Finally it came. I descended into a more humid and jungle-like atmosphere. The beach couldn’t be far now. Unfortunately, the road began to climb back up. The outside of my left knee was really beginning to act up, forcing me to walk the bike. After a painful uphill hike I found myself on the plateau once again. No beach. The landscape was burnt and dry. I was feeling more like I was in Spain than in India. Onward I biked. After riding for at least another ten minutes I stopped to speak with a woman who was waiting at a bus stop. Like the first person, she assured me that the beach lay ahead. Just keep biking in the same direction, she motioned.

With the Sun climbing ever so close to its peak in the sky, across the parched plateau I continued. Now my knee was hurting all the time. But on the flat the pain was minimal so I just cycled at an easy gentle pace, all the while telling myself that the pain was not real, or at the very least, that it was insignificant. I believed that the time I had was as good or bad as I would make it. The knee situation could be made irrelevant by the right frame of mind. (more…)

…such striking Beauty.

The huge boulders that decorated the cove in front of my hut offered a front row center seat for watching the setting Sun. As if I’d not been dazzled enough for one day, the Sun threw out its brilliant colours of wine, red and purple as it dropped out of sight. I was loving India!

The next two days were spent exploring the surrounding area. It’s beaches, rivers, hills and sandy flatlands were all so special and easily accessible with footpaths leading everywhere. So much more so than in any of the other countries I’d seen, walking was a popular form of transport in India. Tens and tens of people could be seen doing the three-kilometer walk from the village to the town market every day.

On the morning of the Full Moon I awoke with a trip to the toilet much needed. This had been the case for the last two days as well. But what left me that day dwarfed the others by comparison. Much bigger than any BM that came first thing upon rising, before the daily watermelon flush.

I laid back in bed for Pranayama. It felt so good and I waited several minutes before beginning my breathing routine. I felt such Light.

After Yoga I decided to have breakfast on the beach. Upon finishing, the toilet called once again. Although not very sizable, this release was rather foul smelling. Immediately it was obvious something of significance had left me. I felt very good.

Finishing up I headed into my hut. That’s when it hit. The feeling was tremendous. I felt to do nothing but pick up a sarong and sit by the Sea. I sat cross-legged feeling super. I don’t know if I could say that my body had ever felt so good. Description is difficult. When I was very young my favorite little toy was a small stuffed rabbit. In hindsight, that morning I think I felt similar to how it felt to touch and hold this bunny in my hands. So beautiful was this sensation that I felt that morning. Warm and soft. Gentle to the touch.