Inspirations

l i c h e n

Lichens are the essence of wildness. They are organisms that thrive only in unpolluted areas and are thereby indicators of environmental degradation in their absence and in proliferation they part of a world that is pure.

They are also not an ordinary plant in that they are symbiotic: requiring for their existence the participation on another organism. They are part fungi and part green or blue-green algae (for photosynthesis).

Lichens are evolutionarily successful. There are more than 14,000 species and are found on a diversity of surfaces in EVERY part of the planet. Under the ocean to the peaks in the arctic on stone, tree, bug backs

I like Lichens' relationship to moisture. Their colors change within a species by exposure and by levels of water or humidity. They can also amass on and alter rock. They dance well with moss. Lichens and trees together are magical.

Along with their multifarious forms and smells are where lichens evoke the essence of being part of the natural and man-made world.

Lichens can become a home, as nests, to animals. By some groups in Alaska they are eaten (once partially digested by caribou because we lack the bacterial flora to break down the complex carbohydrates) and combined with fish eggs to make 'stomach ice cream'. The interior Salish of the Okanagan-Colville language group baked horsehair lichen in pits over leaves adding wild onions, blue camas bulbs, Saskatoon berries.

Lichens have been clothing to some, usually poorer, woven with cedar or silverberry bark. Not very comfortable, especially when wet, Lichens do better as dye for wool or quills or body paint.

Lichens will return to areas that have reduced or eliminated air borne contaminants. They are a reflection of our environment.

They endure.