Scotch Broom Therapy

Scotch Broom has a very bad rap of being an invasive plant. Yet I wanted to give a little information about Scotch Broom or maybe why it takes over so much. I first like to share an experience I had about this plant one hot summer day sitting in a field of Scotch Broom in Marin County. I like to roam the hills in Marin finding different wild flowers, sometimes I just sit with a plant being very quiet and still. I like to use close observation of how a plant grows, the shape of its flowers, the color and the smell of its flowers. I look at everything! This is how you find out what the plant's creative purpose is, which is called a plant signature. Well this day was super hot and as I quietly sat there all of sudden I heard a snap, crackle, pop sort of sound and I wondered what this was. It didn't happen just once it sounded like a popcorn machine was going off. Then, I noticed these very dark seed pods growing on the Scott Broom were actually exploding from the heat of the sun reseeding itself at an incredible speed, thus why it is invasive. A few days later I came across a group of people that were part of a Native Plant movement in Marin organizing a Scotch Broom pull and they asked me to join them on Saturday. There is so much Scott Broom on the hills of Marin that every so often groups of people join together to pull it out to give more Native plants a chance to live. So here I am learning about how to weed Scotch Broom and what I find out is, the plant screws itself into the earth by its root, so to pull Scotch Broom you unscrew the plant and pull. Yet something else started to take place. I saw people processing how much they hated Scotch Broom and a few people were going on and on about how much they hated this plant. It was not a mild dislike. I have you know it was a 15-20 minute conversation of anger towards Scotch Broom. I began to put all of the events that had taken place in the last few days, being introduced to Scotch Broom dark seed pods exploding on a hot summer day, to people processing their hate and negative attitude towards this plant and then I had an Ah! moment. Scotch Broom traditionally was used to make brooms that are used to sweep your home clean. I realized the plant was cleaning the group of people at the Scotch Broom Pull of their suppressed negativity in their unconscious mind, which could have been anger, hate, and a baggage of unprocessed emotions. The plant signature was those very dark exploding seeds!.. Living in the human condition we all need to find a constructive way to release unresolved emotions, Scotch Broom was Mother Nature's therapy Everyone walked away from the Scotch Broom pull that day feeling much better about themself for the good worked they had just accomplished, Yet I walked away with the understand what an incredible Selfless service Scot Broom gives humanity. I love Native Plants, and I also love Scotch Broom. Its latin name is Cytisus scoparius it is a poisonous plant. Traditionally it was hung in a home for protection yet never brought in the home when flowering was thought as bad luck in Scotland. I thought about this folklore for a while and I just wondered if it brought up too much negativity with its potent flower for a family to process, maybe better to do such a thing outside in the open air. One of my favorite things to do after processing all this Scotch Broom purpose was I walk through a field of Scotch Broom gently touching the flowering plants thanking them for their service . I always got the feeling I was being swept clean in the process of doing this a gently yet very powerful way to approach a field of Scotch Broom consciously.