LANDBACK BOTANTICALS SERIES: For Everything There Is A Season

Creation in Circles

From the beginning, creation has moved in circles. The sun arcs across the sky and returns again at dawn. The moon waxes and wanes, guiding tides and cycles of fertility. Seasons turn in rhythm — seed, growth, harvest, rest.

In many Indigenous teachings, the circle is more than a shape — it is a worldview. The circle speaks of balance, wholeness, and sacred relationship. It reminds us that all things are connected: the seen and unseen, the physical and spiritual.

Time itself is cyclical. What we send out returns to us. What we take, we must one day give back. Life renews itself through death, and death nourishes new life.

Lines and the Disruption of Circles

Colonial thought, however, arrived with lines — on maps, on papers, on the land itself. Borders carved across lands, fences driven into the earth, rows of crops in monoculture fields, timelines of progress and conquest. Where the circle softens and includes, the line divides and edges harden. This shift has not only altered landscapes but also reshaped how people relate to the world — from cycles of reciprocity to systems of extraction. Grids and property boundaries replaced the fluid relationships that had long existed between people and the land.

A shift in thinking became one that is predominantly linear — progress measured as a march forward rather than the comfort of seasonal rhythms. Production replaced reciprocity. Extraction replaced gratitude. The circle disconnected to form a line, and in doing so, the relationship between humanity and this land fractured.

Yet creation continues to move in circles whether or not we remember it so. The sun still rises, the rivers still flow, and the earth still turns. The circle waits for our return.

The Thorn as Consequence — and Gift

In Genesis 1:29 we see the importance of the natural world in providing nourishment and plants as a means for God to sustain all living beings. This is echoed later when God reveals the healing properties of plants at critical moments to His prophets.

“Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”— Ezekiel 47:12

We see further in Genesis 3 that the earth is affected by humanity — its physical state impacted by our spiritual state.

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you…”— Genesis 3:17–18

Because of disobedience, Adam is told that the ground will now produce thistles and thorns, a condition often read as punishment — the earth itself turning against humanity.

But what if this passage tells us so much more about the God who created us?

As someone who works with plants to support healing and wellness, I am familiar with a concept known as the doctrine of signatures — a way of perceiving divine design in creation. Through this observation, we notice that plants have certain characteristics and often resemble the parts of the body they are meant to heal. Where they grow in nature and behave in the natural world reveals much about what they do to help us.

God tells Adam that the earth will now produce thorns and thistles — a sharp step away from the softness of creation. But what if God in His wisdom knew that humanity leaving the garden would not provide protection from illness? The modern world would view many of these plants as mere weeds; however, In the doctrine of signatures, thistles and thorn-bearing plants are not merely obstacles. They are healers.

When spending time on the land with Indigenous Knowledge Holders, I've received many teachings about plants and their uses.

• Milk Thistle — Its purple flower and spiny leaves guard potent medicine for the liver, the body’s purifier. It restores balance and strengthens resilience, cleansing bitterness and fatigue.

• Hawthorn — A thorn-covered tree whose berries nourish and protect the heart. It strengthens circulation and eases grief — the wounds we carry deep inside.

• Wild Rose — Soft petals guarded by thorns. We reach for this medicine to help soothe the emotional heart, reminding us that beauty and protection coexist.

Milk thistle, hawthorn, wild roses — all marked by their spines — strengthen and protect the heart, both physically and emotionally. What if what was once viewed as God's punishment may in fact be God's provision? It is as though the Creator placed medicine for us even within the consequences of humanity's disobedience, ensuring that humanity, though exiled from the garden, would not be abandoned to illness and despair. The very plants that remind us of hardship also carry the power to mend.

What was called a curse is, in fact, a coded act of grace. Even outside Eden, God ensured that the land would still offer healing.

The apostle Paul later wrote:

“There was given me a thorn in my flesh... but He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’”— 2 Corinthians 12:7–9

The thorn becomes a teacher — not just of struggle, but of strength.

Returning to the Circle

Modern society, in its drive for efficiency and control, has forgotten the gentle intelligence of creation. The knowledge of plants — their cycles, languages, and medicines — has been pushed aside by synthetic substitutes and industrial systems.

Yet the Psalmist reminds us:

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”— Psalm 24:1

The earth still remembers. The thistles bloom, the roses open, and the hawthorn berries ripen each fall, waiting for us to remember how to listen.

Healing — whether physical, emotional, or spiritual — does not happen in straight lines. It unfolds in cycles. Seasons of rest follow seasons of work. Grief eventually circles back to joy. Every prayer, every act of care, ripples outward and returns again.

Rejoining the circle means stepping back into relationship with creation — tending, listening, giving thanks. It means recognizing that even the thorn is a doorway to healing.

The Bible’s final vision of renewal closes the circle beautifully:

“On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”— Revelation 22:2

The story that began in a garden ends in a garden restored. Where we may have forgotten Creator's intention for plants as healers, He has not. Likewise, the land has not forgotten.

Despite the thorns and thistles, the land holds memory of the garden and stays on course with God's plan for restoration and healing. Today, many have forgotten these medicines are Divinely placed here. Industrial progress and modern healthcare have often dismissed traditional plant knowledge as outdated or unscientific. But the land continues to offer teachings of our Creator, season after season, waiting for us to return.

Perhaps our healing lies not in chasing straight lines of productivity or technological fixes, but in stepping back into the circle — remembering to restore balance. By working with nature instead of against it, we re-enter the pattern of wholeness that was never lost, only obscured. Perhaps the way forward is not another line of progress but a turning — back toward relationship, back toward the cycles of giving and receiving, back toward the Creator whose design is still visible in every plant, every season, every breath.

The thorns remain (thankfully), but so does the medicine.

Heavenly Father,

I marvel at how all Creation reveals your awesomeness. It tells the story of your wisdom - how you connect all things together. But it also tells us about your deep love and care for us.

Would you help us to rediscover our relationship to those things in the natural world that are meant to heal and sustain us? Would you remind us of the beauty and intricate blueprint of the plants you made? Would you give us a glimpse of your thoughts and feelings when you first designed them?

Please remove our pride in humanity's progress so we are not blinded to what your designs for the earth and our connection to all that you created. Help us to love the earth and creation as you do and give us the wisdom to care for the natural world - and not work against it.

Thank you that when you correct us, it is filtered through your love and wisdom. Help us to see the thorns and thistles in our lives as teachers.

Thank you, God! You are amazing!