Eating a cattail & wearing a shirt dyed with black walnut husks
Welcome to First Ways, where you can join me in unlocking the ancient secrets of wild plants all around us. You can follow my daily adventures on Twitter! @UrbanForager, become a fan of this blog on Facebook and subscribe to my YouTube channel!
My name is Becky “Wild Girl” Lerner and I am a journalist based in Portland, Oregon. My goal is to inspire and empower my fellow human beings to experience the joyful remembrance of who we really are. I have a passion for learning hunter-gathering living skills and sharing my journey with all who are interested. In addition to this blog, I write for online and print magazines and teach urban foraging in person.
Foraging can be a catalyst for consciousness-shifting transformation of vision, a new way of seeing and relating to the land around us. Learning to connect with those plants who exist of their own volition — without human intervention (or despite it) — allows us to tap into our collective ancestral roots and to recognize ourselves as a part of nature. Modern life has caused many of us to feel separate from the wilderness, but it isn’t external — it’s within every heart.
This blog covers feral foraging for the city dweller, with info on the history, lore and medicinal properties of wild plants, plus journals of my wilderness adventures, interviews with pre-eminent thinkers, and a dash of primitive skills, herbalism, anthropology and my own philosophy thrown in for good measure.
Most recently, this blog appeared in the documentary “2012: Time For Change”. I’ve also been covered by ABC News, Top 40 radio, the Boston Globe, Ad Busters magazine, the Utne Reader and other members of the media.
Q & A:
Making wild chamomile tea / Photo by Blair Ryan (BlairRyan.com)
Where are you from?
I was raised in a manicured suburb of Princeton, New Jersey, a place where the lawns are routinely sprayed with herbicides and pesticides and organic food is considered hippie woo-woo stuff. My neighbors didn’t have gardens and the closest thing I could find to the wilderness was drainage ditches. I always loved nature but I didn’t understand my place in it until I traded my newspaper cubicle for a tipi in Ithaca, NY, in 2007. I got a gig working on the Turtle Dreams organic farm as a WWOOFer and met some amazing herbalists who opened my mind to a whole new way of experiencing the world. (Now I live in the city of Portland, OR).
How did you learn about foraging?
I first learned about eating wild plants in the woods as a student in a nine-month apprenticeship in wilderness survival skills with Primitive Pursuits in Ithaca, NY, in 2008.
When I moved to Portland, OR, in fall 2009, I grew even more passionate about studying wild plants and met Emily Porter, a great botanist and herbalist who was happy to teach me how to identify a great number of plants growing in the city. But nothing motivates me to learn a subject inside and out like knowing my life could depend on it! In May 2009, as a gonzo journalist, I survived on nothing but wild plants in the city of Portland, OR, for two weeks and wrote about it for the peak-oil website Culture Change.
By some estimates there are at least 250,000 species of plants in the world, so learning about their uses — and mastering wilderness skills in general — is a lifelong process.
I am an autodidact who is continually studying plants with an eye toward practical and holistic applications. For blog posts I consult more than a dozen different books, ranging in subject from field guide to herbalist how-to, field and ethnobotany, wilderness survival, culinary edibles, folklore and mythology across cultures.
Do you eat wild food all the time?
Yes. I love adding weeds to salads and smoothies, eating berries and black walnuts from the street and cooking with flour made from acorns and chestnuts. I also like making herbal teas, tinctures and other medicines from wild plants to heal myself when I get sick.
However, foraged food is by no means the exclusive or even bulk source of my diet — honestly, it couldn’t be, living in a city. As I’ve learned from experience, modern-day wild food foraging is not a realistic way for a city dweller to get the bulk of her calories — at least not without a lot of other people constantly helping out with harvesting and processing, a large supply of wild land no one else is competing for, and plenty of time. But weeds do offer a free, healthy and local way to supplement your diet, and they’ll come in especially handy if you’re broke, lost in the woods or potentially dealing with a peak-oil emergency down the road. I enjoy wild plants as a supplement to a diverse diet that includes all kinds of food, from organic farm-grown produce to burritos.
For me the most fun aspect of wild food is the process of foraging, the wildcrafting. It’s a great way to develop a deeper relationship with the land around me and a sense of the changing seasons. And not just the land — I like to experience wild animals as my peers and feel a commonality with the ancestors who lived before me.
What’s your formal education?
I have a BA in philosophy and evolutionary anthropology from Rutgers University. I’m presently an MFA student in creative nonfiction writing at Goucher College.
Where can I read your investigative work?
I am a registered member of IRE (Investigative Reporters and Editors). You can browse my portfolio at www.RebeccaLerner.com
How do I get in touch with you?
I love to hear from readers. Write me at RebeccaELerner@gmail(dot)com
Thanks for visiting! Please tell your friends about this blog and come back soon!
For links to other great blogs, check out the Resources page.
Posted by Tim Corrigan on August 23, 2010 at 11:03 am
I’ve a growing interest in wildeness survival skills. I intend to head out into the wilds for a year with only what i can carry on my back. Anyone else’s experiences along these lines would be appreciated.
Posted by Robert on August 20, 2010 at 11:01 pm
You’re cute. As far as “survival” situations are concerned, I think you would be an excellent ally, both for advice and as a morale booster.
Posted by marygood on May 10, 2010 at 2:45 pm
so happy to have found your blog! i have just recently begun a series on my blog called “wild in the city: foraging fridays”…featuring a different edible/medicinal plant each week that can be found in SF or surrounding areas. so exciting to find other gals doing this! what a pleasure…i look forward to your further adventures. best, mary
Posted by jed on March 8, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I hadn’t visited one of my usual haunts, Reality Sandwich, in a while. Guess I’ve been focusing more on my “homesteading” skill set work these days and seemed to have taken a break form my consciousness work. But something drew me there today, maybe curiosity, maybe a nudge from the creator, who knows. But I am thrilled that I felt and followed the nudge because I got to find your article and now your site.
This spring, I am really focusing on my suburban foraging skills and your site will come in both handy and motivational.
Thanks for taking the time to document your travels,
jed
Posted by Edwin Ouellette on February 20, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Hi Becky!
Nice pictures!
I’m glad you got in touch with Blair.
The video should be up by Tuesday afternoon (fingers crossed)!
Posted by Sample Press Release: Wild Food Week « Rebecca Lerner on February 9, 2010 at 5:48 am
[...] more information about the May experiment, please visit http://www.FirstWays.com/About and [...]
Posted by Varun on February 9, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Becky,
You are doing an awesome job.In this busy world most of us don’t care about nature.But you are spending lot of time for our nature.Great work.Keeep Going.
Regards,
Varun
http://varunl.wordpress.com/
Posted by kyle yonan on December 7, 2009 at 10:47 am
hey- great job bringing the notions of basic human skills to the masses via writing. keep it up. stay in touch- us types should stick together. i practice survivalism- actively and for the sake of spending time in the most beautiful (and coincidentally? harshest) alpine territories. been doing it my whole life, with a mountain-loving family, boy scouts, and the company of friends (indigenous and otherwise) who wouldn’t be restrained by civilization or hindered by luxury. i am a strong advocate of primitive ways, individually and as a society. i have some writings you might appreciate.
oh, and to add to a point i read here, i am a vegetarian and fare just fine in the alpine of the rockies. winter requires more discipline if you want to remain at altitude, but it’s doable. field grains become a staple- which means work.
Posted by Dennis on November 28, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Way to go Becky !
Keep it up ! Everything we need is out there….
Posted by Abe on November 22, 2009 at 12:11 am
Rebecca,
I found your stories through Culture Change.
Thank you so much for what you are doing to show us that there are other ways to sustain oneself. To help show that we can subvert the dominant paradigms.
What struck me most about the KOIN news video footage linked on your home page; was how you come across so absolutely beautiful in demeanor, in contrast to the (I hesitate to disparage) superficial news-women.
Very simply: you are beautiful.
Sincerely.
Posted by loveyourwriting on November 20, 2009 at 3:59 am
Looking forward to reading your updates. Good Luck!!
Posted by Marian on October 20, 2009 at 10:00 pm
You are amazing! Keep up the good work and enjoy the journey!
Posted by Le on August 1, 2009 at 12:23 pm
As a caution: You may want to test plants taken in urban environments for heavy metals as well as other sources of unban pollution. Some plants are great at removing nasty things from the environment, but by storing them in their structures. Plants that are not harvested and removed, will dump the metals, etc. back into the local soils to be recycled year after year. Systematic removal each year can reduce the toxins, but the plants may not be edible or useful.
Perhaps a study of urban pollution and plant recyling and removal might make a great project? Or a study on which plants resist uptake of toxins and which do… and what toxins? Anyway would be useful for unban foragers.
Posted by claude on June 7, 2009 at 2:18 pm
we are doing the same as you but in the country and as a family and… in french : Québec !!
Time to polish up on Molières’s language… well worth it !
Lets get our experiences together.
here is the web for the school http://www.formationspiedsnus.com/
Posted by unthinkish on June 4, 2009 at 4:19 am
it is amazing to know that you are doing this foraging thing this could really be the next extension if we keep active unaffluent and real about it, though pinapple sweet tea i have yet to beat
Posted by DAN 1 on May 29, 2009 at 3:39 am
Greetings Becky Lerner, “Wild Gal”. I have followed your reports in Culture Change and admire your dedication to survival through plant foraging. It appears that, although wild plant edibles can be found almost anywhere, there would be “preferred” areas for this activity.
I would imagine that along rivers near coastal areas would be optimum for vegetarians. Do you agree? It seems like the higher mountain regions would offer less opportunities for vegetable sustenance. To live higher one would have to eat meat and poultry. (Deer, Rabbit, Squirrel, Turkey, Quail, etc.) But these creatures can be found lower near the rivers and sea coast too. I think the Coastal Range Mountains along the Northwest Coast would be optimum for food variety and there are “semi-wild pockets” where one can avoid communities, if one were so minded.
Protein is very important. Can you do some articles that would teach which plants equal beans in nutritional value? Particularly ones found in the Pacific Coastal regions of North America?
I value your work very much and appreciate your sharing of your sacred and pragmatic knowledge. I hope you succeed in gathering dependable tribe around you. Would it be Matriarchal in structure?
Respectfully, DAN 1 “The Tribeless” 64 year old bald white male, who has long dreamed of being part of a good tribal people.
Posted by rebeccalerner on October 11, 2009 at 2:33 am
Dan 1, That is a fabulous idea. I put the idea out to my herbalist friends…so far no one I talked to knew of wild beans in the Pacific NW. Maybe this is why the indigenous people of this region were not vegetarian. They ate a lot of salmon and deer. In fact, I’m not sure it really is possible to be vegetarian without using agriculture.
Posted by D on May 28, 2009 at 11:10 am
Hey I have a pellet gun Let me know if you want a dove, duck, or squirrel.
Posted by Anna on May 27, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Congrats to you! I have been wondering about foraging in the woods out here in the Northeast–often I’ve felt that my leafy greens from the store is quite limited. How did the Indians live here, I’ve asked. So glad to see your blog! I’ve tried purslane with sauteed with olive oil, it’s delicious!! Also I have tried a burdock tea with fenugreek, dried licorice, and some other ingredients I don’t remember at present. Also, burdock root is great sauteed with mushrooms, carrots, in olive oil. Olive oil has got to be good with a lot of dark leafy greens.
But watch out for wild carrot; it could be confused with the poisonous hemlock.
Posted by Vivienne on May 20, 2009 at 7:29 pm
A few years back I was onto the peak oil situation and took comfort in keeping my garden. Then somehow the energy drained away and I found myself looking with delight at the dandelions that were now populating my beds. I was thrilled when friends knowing my love of nettle tea began bringing me my own nettle plants. The first one gifted I kept inside for a while so I could just admire it’s beauty. I live on a floathome and I had got into the habit of feeding the chickweed that filled my planters to the ducks now I am eying it up for salads.
Thank you for taking on this adventure with wild plants I look forward to learning from you and being inspired to go more wild myself.
I believe it is wise wild women like us who will lead us out of this domesticated nightmare where connection with our Mother was lost. Now more than ever we must reclaim it..
Posted by Samantha on January 9, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Hey!
Excellent photos and I am longing now to fly over instead of having my wisdom teeth pulled out!! Having a good winter by the looks of it!!
Wonderful things to be doing to aright the way life is lived!!
lOVE IT!!
BLESSED BE
Samantha
http://healthforthepoor.blogspot.com/