The Little Things
I've always had a fascination with the small things, the things most people do not see. Perhaps it has something to do with being tall(i'm trying to be funny here), perhaps it has something to with being a lonely child and becoming friends with nature. I was a lonely child, felt misunderstood, was sensitive to cruelty, I mean... I could and still can, feel the pain of animals and people. My happy place is among trees where as a child I'd use my magnifying class to watch trails of ants and spiders weaving their webs. I was picked on for being this way of course. A tall girl who was painfully shy and would rather spend her time searching for eel in the creek than talking about crap I do not care about, like the latest Barbie doll, fashion and pop stars.
So now I'm much older and still it is the little things that I delight in the most. The resident male blackbird that pecks at my cat's food bowl after he's finished eating, the mushrooms that mysteriously pop up, but only for two days, before they head underground again. The bees that populate the old fashioned rose, the giant fennel that is almost as tall as me now... where it came from no one knows. Ah! The little things.
This love comes through strongly in my writing... the characters are small versions of humans(I guess) or are humans large versions of elves, gnomes and faeries. I mention herbs a lot, simply because I'm a herbalist they're such a massive part of my life and they'd be a huge part of my characters life naturally anyway, in a world where there are no drugs or sterile hospitals.
The herbs I refer to are wild and many people would consider them weeds, except to one who lives in the forest, these herbs are life savers. But where are the herbs and the fruit and the vegetables without insects, the little things.
Below is a 'weed'called Shepherd's purse. the name comes from the purse-shaped seed pods. This herbs/weed grows wildly on waste lands and in paddocks, and stands only three to four inches tall, yet it could save your life if you were in the middle of nowhere. This little herb, contains powerful constituents that reduces fluid flow. Taken even as a fresh plant, in fact many believe it is more powerful as a fresh plant, it will reduce bleeding from a wound and reduce fluid from dysentery. Both conditions(depending on severity) without treatment could lead to all sorts of problems, even death.
Sometimes a little thing could be so huge.
R.L. Holmes is the author of the Little Wings, Blackstone and Saturn's Child Series. She's Medical Herbalist, nature lover and avid reader. If you'd like to read any of her books, head to her website by clicking on the book below.
