#feralchild

Feral child #feralchild #somuchleafs https://www.instagram.com/p/B-FO1laqIeU/?igshid=50943llqrhh3

If you’re going to self isolate them why not do it in a tree over looking your town like the feral child you are.

When I was nine years old I knew what nettles were, but I didn’t know them well enough to recognize them. I knew them from stories— like about how Saint Patrick lived on nettles before he got famous or how Milarepa lived in a cave for many years and subsided on nettle tea and wore clothing made out of nettles until finally his skin turn green— but they were just something from stories, like aiteann (Ulex spp.) from the tales of Fionn and the Fiannaor lotus trees (Celtis australis, i guess) from the Odyssey. . . . Until one day. I was out in the woods, it was summertime and I was walking miles from where I lived. I came to a river— I’m not sure whether it was the Kentucky River or Sturgeon Creek— but anyway I took off my clothes and jump in the cool water and swam to the other side. When I got out I was walking through the vegetation growing on the other side of the river and I started to feel something stinging me and I swatted at it, thinking it was these little bugs called no seeums (Culicoides) because they felt similar. But it kept happening and so I walked further from the water, further into the vegetation, and I started feeling stinging all over my body and then I realized that it was actually the plants. So I ran back to the river and jumped back in it. . . . The stinging was not so bad by the time i got back across, but currents being what they are, i was some distance downstream from where i started, from not only my clothes but also the trail home. And there were lots more nettles. But by the time i got back to where i needed to be, i had learned to recognize which plants were the nettles. . . . #wildfood #herbalmedicine #feralchild #herbal #natural

Current mood: Feral Kid 🤘Day 3 of @craig.gleason 's #seasonofthebadguysclub2 Inktober prompts! #briannaparrish #illustration #inktober #penandink #instaart #instaartist #art #artistsoninstagram #characterdesign #feralchild #illustrator #ink