We label and we objectify (as mentioned before, these are different acts).  We can label a plant a ‘Nettle’ because it helps us to teach our community about it’s stings AND it’s medicinal properties.  When we use the word “Weed” we are only objectifying and stating that we hold one being in lesser value to us, than another.  That is a subjective opinion however: it is not truth.

​

The dictionary definition of a weed is: “a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.”

​

Now, firstly, as you will know by now: we are ALL ‘wild’ so that leaves “growing where it is not wanted AND in competition with cultivated plants”

 

Hmmm....  That’s only where HUMANS don’t want that plant to be.  The plant itself wants to

be there and lots of surrounding creatures may also want it to be there.

 

So our dictionary definition is wrong on 2 absolutes so far:  1. It calls the plant a ‘wild plant’ as though we are not all wild beings, which is fundamentally untrue.  2. The plant is wanted there, just not by at least one human: other humans may want it there as much as the plant itself wants to be there.

​

So, what is a ‘weed’?  It is a nonsense: it does not exist because quite literally every plant that one human (at least) doesn’t want there I can promise you I WANT to be there - as I believe that that plant has the right to stay in it’s claimed territory - and for all we know every other human and creature around ALSO wants it to be there.  All we have in our world are wild beings and all of our different relationships with them.

​

What about “being in competition with cultivated plants”?  We are all of us, constantly, both collaborating and competing

with every other being around us, even if we are not aware of it at the time.  When we walk down the street and move aside to let someone past, we are collaborating with one another to be on our separate ways without walking into one another.

​

You could say that I was in competition with a plant that another human has planted - if I had wanted to use that space for my own agenda - but in truth I am in competition with the human who planted it there.  The same goes for the self seeded botanical: it’s desire is really in opposition to the human’s, as that was the being who forced the ‘cultivated plant’ into that spot and it’s that spot that is being fought for.  Am I a weed when I compete with another human?

​

If left alone, that ‘self seeded botanical’ and the ‘human planted botanical’ now might compete over water and nutrients in the soil and over the immediate space and the self seeded botanical might survive whilst the ‘human planted botanical’ doesn’t but that is

down to the human not winning the ULTIMATE competition: that it knew less than the plants themselves about which plants would best thrive in the space fairly and through their own free will, which should be a lesson for us humans not to force our own will onto another creature in the first place.

​

*[EXTRACT FROM THE HANDBOOK]