Sometimes fooling around with iPhone apps can result in something daft being created. This little ditty, created with my lovely friends Karen Ford of FootprintFriends.co.uk, Tracey Smith author of The Book of Rubbish Ideas, and her partner Simon.

Amazing what happens round breakfast tables!

Numen the Nature of Plants is a 95 minute documentary and is one of the most beautiful and inspiring environmental films that I have watched in the past few years. I have negotiated to give Eatweeds visitors and friends a special one day viewing…

The DVD usually sells for $25 in the States, however you can watch it for free on Wednesday, 12th May 2010. Click here to watch a 10 minute trailer, and how to reserve your place for the film showing.

Featuring stunning footage of medicinal plants and moving interviews, Numen provides viewers with a new vision of medicine and offers concrete steps to improve individual health and well-being that enhance the health of the earth.

“Numen is a magnificant depiction of the healing essence of plants. The film-makers captured the magic, the mystery, the beauty of plants and their importance as herbal medicine in our contemporary health care system. Inspiring and educational, Numen has a place in the library of anyone interested in medicine, plants, gardening and earth ecology. It’s a powerful film that I’ll recommend that everyone see” - Rosemary Gladstar, Herbalist

“The special effects and animation work in “Numen,” too, is impressive – taking us on both a micro (inside the plants themselves) and macro (consider the planet from space) tour explaining why plants matter. Perhaps the best part of the “Numen” experience, though, is how hopeful, positive, and forward-thinking a film it is. In an era when there is so much to be concerned about – peak oil, climate change, the endless “war on terror,” economic downturns, “too-big-to-fail” banksters, and that constant migraine headache that over-the-counter meds can’t quite chase away, “Numen” reminds us that the answers to many of these problems, magically enough, is growing all around us. It is our job, as 21st century citizens inhabiting a finite planet experiencing “limits to growth,” to reconnect with “plant wisdom.” If “Numen” provides the inspiration for us as audience members to root ourselves once again in the earth and amongst the plants, it will have provided an incredibly valuable service to our struggling 21st century world.” – Rob Williams

I am deeply saddened by the news that Frank Cook (plant teacher and herbalist) died on Wednesday, 19th August 2009.

Although I only met Frank for 3 hours videoing last September, that meeting had a life-changing impact on me. His gentleness and depth of plant knowledge was truly inspiring, and via e-mails he always encouraged me through EatWeeds to spread the plant knowledge.

Here are some parting words of wisdom from this gentle, peaceful plant teacher.

Frank Cook 1963-2009 by Tim Toben

Pearson Garden, Asheville NC, August 19, 2009. Just hours after his passing, Frank’s brother Ken spoke from the circle of nearly 200 friends holding hands around the garden. “I think he saw us all as plant beings and he certainly was one himself.” Muffled laughter mixed with tears. Frank Cook was the Banyan Tree.

If the name is not familiar, you’ll remember the man. Frank stood 6’3” tall with piercing blue eyes and waist length dreadlocks. He wore simple clothes and sandals and carried a satchel over his shoulder. In Chapel Hill, his home was a loft bed at the residence of Beth Williams and Alan Dehmer. He walked everywhere, once across the entire state of North Carolina, foraging for food along the way. Most of us in these modern times would die attempting such a trek. Frank feasted – both physically and spiritually.

Someone once said that we are born with two beings – one that dies and one that lives forever. That is certainly true for Frank Cook. Frank will always be known around the world for his plant knowledge and his journey to “meet” the 5000+ genera of plants. At 47 years old, he was 70% of the way to his goal. He’d chucked a promising career in computer science 20 years earlier to follow his heartsong, traveling to Namibia to meet Omumborombonga, the ancestral tree of life, and to India to meet Buckuchurbu, used to treat stomach upset.

Those of us lucky enough to cross His path were reacquainted with the native plants we loved as children. Frank could hang with the best Linnean taxonomist, but he “understood” plants more deeply – their medicinal qualities, their nutritional values, and their unique role in the interdependent ecology of nature. And he clearly loved them.

Frank would lean down and shade his small subjects with large hands and begin telling their story. The breath from his deep baritone voice seemed to lift the plantain or pipsissewa from its roots, as he brushed the leaves from around their base. “Choose me, choose me,” you could imagine them saying. In those moments, we were children again, finding a long lost love. And he was an “indigenous” teacher.

The meals between walks were just as vibrant. Reminding us that most Americans eat just 25 species of plants a year, he’d make fresh bread and soup with at least 25 species gathered during his walk. The flavors and energy in his food were life giving. He’d make teas by day and meads at night, always sharing a batch from last year in a pass- around bottle. Frank’s blueberry and sumac meads were my favorite. His gatherings built benevolent communities — families with native knowledge and skills.

His “business model” baffled most. He worked for donations. You paid what you could, and that was enough to fund Frank’s travels to meet plants across the globe. He’d recently completed a Masters Degree at the Schumacher Institute in the UK and written a book titled “Emerging Planetary Medicines.” His subject matter had expanded to include “transition cultures” – those preparing for not a low-, but a no-carbon economy.

Frank had just returned from teaching engagements in the Southwest US, and before that in South America. What he thought was travel weariness was apparently a spreading parasitic infection, which spread rapidly this week and this morning claimed his sinewy body. Thousands around the world, and several hundred in Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Asheville weep quietly at the loss of their friend and teacher. We are ever so grateful for his many gifts, for the many seeds he planted.

If he’d ever stayed in one place for more than a few months, I’m convinced that Frank’s cascading dreadlocks would have taken root, like the Banyan Tree, and grown other Frank Cooks. And if so, what a better world this would be. Then again, as I looked around Pearsons Garden this damp August night and reflected on past gatherings at LEAF and Pickards Mountain, I thought…that’s precisely what has happened.

More Information On Frank Can Be Found At…

• “On my beloved Frank’s last days and his crossing” by Mary Morgaine
• “Frank Cook Passed Away This Morning” by Joseph Immel
• PlantsandHealers.com
• Photos of Frank on Facebook
• Frank’s Facebook Profile
• Family Healing Circle For Frank
• Videos of Frank Teaching About Plants

I’m up in Norfolk over Christmas, and I have managed to grab some time to film an interview with Ian Burrows author of the best selling wild food book ‘Food From The Wild’.

This time I want to do something different, I want you to tell me the questions that you’d like Ian to answer. It can be anything about foraging and wild edible plants, so don’t be shy ask your question now by clicking here.

Ian’s book is up there with other mainstream foraging and wild food books like Richard Mabey’s Food For Free and Roger Phillips Wild Food.

Ian’s book is a lovely introduction for family foragers and survivalists alike. And I agree with what this customer had to say about it…

Ask Ian your question now here.

Wild food, that’s what hunting and gathering is all about. In this beautifully filmed and extraordinary DVD, Ray Mears takes you on a journey into Britain’s ancient way of life, as he attempts to find the foods eaten by our hunter gatherer ancestors.
More info > Ray Mears Wild Food DVD

Mark Boyle founder of ‘The Freeconomy Community’ is organising a ‘Food for Free Feast’ starting at 4.30pm on Saturday 29th Nov in Bristol. The feast will be served around 4.30pm in Café Midnimo, 163 Ashley Rd, St. Paul’s, Bristol BS6 5NX.

A sumptuous feast cooked by people such as forager Fergus Drennan, star of the hit BBC series ‘Roadkill Chef’ and Dave and Andy Hamilton, the authors of ‘The Self-Sufficientish Bible’.

The feast will be made completely from foraged, skipped and donated food, cooked and organised by volunteers. It is free for everyone.

As food prices skyrocket and shortages abound, the people of Zimbabwe are turning to foraged wild food to keep them alive.

Dr Maud Muchuweti and his team are trying to create more awareness on the value of indigenous wild plant food.

In Africa, indigenous plant knowledge is rapidly being forgotten, as the landbase is turned into commercial food production for the West.

Dr Muchuweti says that wild food plants are still not being sufficiently valued for the contributions they can make in preventing malnutrition and for survival strategies.

What shocked me while I was filming Frank Cook, was when he told us that while visiting Africa, he saw malnourished children sitting right next to edible wild food plants. The global indigenous plant knowledge around the world is being lost.

As global warming escalates, crop failures increase, food prices increase and dependence on commercial farming becomes the mainstay of our society, it is important that we do not forget our own indigenous plant knowledge.

We might not be Africa, but who knows what the future holds.

One of the off-shoots of eating wild food plants is the appreciation that comes for all the wild plants that cross your path on your foraging journey.

Needless to say, you are not by law allowed to pick every plant that you find. For a complete list of protected plants as listed under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, click here.