Blackberry Nightshade – Boundary Bitch Trainer

Two days before Halloween, I was setting up a tent in my garden to test it for a longer trip. It tightened my chest. I was doing an interim job I did not like. I decided to hike long distances at every free moment, to distract myself, but I was not sure I wanted to sacrifice my comfortable bed for that. Some meters further, the broken greenhouse was overgrown by her. The previous spring, I had pulled out weeds to grow some vegetables. Whereas my brother managed to grow tomatoes, onions and radishes, all I grew was black nightshade. Like last time I lived for some time in Belgium. My brother joked that this witchplant appears only together with me. Same spirits root alike? However, she reminded me how ashamed I was that I was not outdoorsy enough, because I am not a good gardener and do not like sleeping in tents.

Once, a wise older lady recommended to me Stephen Harrod Buhner’s book “the lost language of plants”. This book has taught me that you can communicate with plants. Plants can, of course, not talk, but there are so many different ways of communicating. I did further inquiry on the web and I found the blog of @persephonespath. The blog explains how she works with poisonous plants, not by ingesting them, but by meditating next to them. I learned from her about belladonna and other plants and how they can plant images or ideas in your mind. Producing poison is setting boundaries and protection for yourself. The blog claims that these plants can also teach you about setting your own boundaries. I am a highly sensitive person and a people pleaser, so setting (and in particular keeping) my boundaries have always been like tightrope walking for me: When I was setting up that tent, I wondered if Black Nightshade was also a boundary bitch trainer.

I took my phone and asked my frenemy. Google told me she is associated with Hekate, goddess of death and birth, transformation and crossroads. Oh that is cool. She was pretty amazing, almost a rolemodel. This maiden goddess was never (re)defined as mother of, daughter of, wife of. Another story that may or may not be true: the Nightshade grows up in magical places. So this place had magic? Dark or white?

That night in the tent, I was conscious of her presence close by, and imagined what dark stories that witch plant could print in my head. Would I dream about scary old women, with swelling warts and sharp knives? She whispered about my failure, fears, that I had to suffer more. Streetlight and wind were haunting me with shadows on the canvas. A dark presence was hovering over the tent. You are just making yourself afraid, I said. Don’t be such a baby. You are camping in your own garden. What could happen? It is an open garden and anyone can enter. But who would enter? The Halloween ghosts crossed the threshold.

“F*ck this. It is not bad to be a baby sometimes.” I took my pillow and returned to my comfortable bed.

A boundary bitch trainer does not tell you how to say no. It overruns you until you throw up your own fences.