An Ode to the Sagebrush
By Victoria Thompson
MOSS FIELD NOTE #5
Oh, dear Sagebrush, how underrated you are.
That omnipresent shrub, often overlooked, but always there like the reliable friend that it is. Ranging from my new home in the Rockies all the way to my old haunts out west, the sagebrush spans all of the habitats in between. Just like this author: native to California, but also making Montana home.
I first met the sagebrush when I fell in love with the east side. Out there, the sagebrush stands squat– just a mere few feet as it's overshadowed by the towering and jagged mountains above, making us all feel so insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Much like California, the sagebrush here looks up here to the Rockies above, speckling the valleys and meadows below.
Silver sagebrush, that proverbial bridge between present and past - and a guest at all of life’s big moments. There, on my wedding day, as we awoke with the sun to see it rise over the Eastern Sierra as the moon set over the high desert.
There, on the evening that my son was born as we watched the sun set and the full moon rise over the sagebrush from the hospital window. These memories make it seem only apt that the sagebrush was named for Artemis, the Greek Moon Goddess. Belonging to the aster family, but belonging to my family just as well.
Branches mangled and marled, standing through the test of time. Winter and snow melt to bring spring, and summer and fall, before repeating the cycle again, turning the wood of the sagebrush a weathered gray. The old growth from the previous year persistent and jetting out above the brush itself – a reminder of summers past, as the new seasons and growth build from below.
The sweet smell of the soft silvery leaves a nod to those long days of summer when the sun rises early and sets late, drowning every living being in warmth. Each of those skinny little leaves, not more than an inch or two, sparkling in the sun as late summer breezes dance across the valleys, prompting us all to slow down and to enjoy the season. One, two, three little lobes at their ends, like little hands waving you by, a reminder to us that we’re all part of something greater than ourselves.
As summer winds down and we sturdy our hearts for the darker days to come, the sagebrush fills our souls with promise of another year. Some of the last to blossom in late summer and early fall, fields and valleys filled with millions of little golden disco balls glimmering under the fading light. And when the winds blow colder, along for the ride comes the pollen and seeds, spreading the brush far and wide for generations to come.
The sagebrush, here before we all were: used for thousands of years by those whose land this is. Medicine, ceremony, fiber, and dye. Burning it down as ritual to let go of the old and bring in the new.
Sagebrush by Victoria Thompson | Watercolor
