Gray mist blurs line between land and sky, so thick you can hear it’s whisper.
Slick pavement, mud and moss. Creeping weeds emerge from concrete cracks, reclaiming their land among other living things.
Dew drops collect in palms of a cupped leaves, ready to race down veins and jump to safety in a wet grass carpet.
When the civilized world is willed to disappear, and all is quiet but the mist, the plants begin to speak in dialects you can almost understand. You are a queen in a foreign land of living green.
Hey babes. I wrote this little poem to try and illustrate how much joy I get from plants and the world of flora in general. There is nothing that brings me more peace and inspiration than walking in a quiet place and looking at, touching, smelling, chewing on, listening to plants. It is a literal orgy of sensation and beauty.
With that said, here is the last tutorial (sniff, sniff) from the Urban Foraging for Winter Hairstyles series.
We will bring the series back in the Spring, though. I am hoping that it will become a seasonal series that just keeps going and going.
This lovely hairstyle consists of a crown lace braid……Or in simpler terms, a french braid that goes around the head, adding hair in to only one side of the braid as you go. This is the difference between a regular french braid and a lace braid: When doing a french braid, you will add hair into your braid every time you overlap. In a lace braid, you add in to only one side. This creates a braid that is connected on one side but appears to be floating on the other. In the case of this hairstyle, you will add hair only to the under side of the braid (the bottom edge.)
1. Make a side part, and start your braid on the heavy side. Start with 3 braid sections, and begin adding in hair from the bottom as you braid down the side of your head.
2. Continue towards the back of the head, guiding the braid around the head. Don’t worry about it being messy or loose, it will look better that way!
3. Keep braiding towards the other side of the head. You should run out of hair to add in right around the temple.
4. Continue braiding down the free end of the braid. Secure the end with a clear elastic.
5. Now starting at the end of your braid, pull it apart from either edge. Work your way around the head, pulling apart the braid to widen it and rough it up a bit.
6. Now pull the end of your braid across the top of your head and tuck the end under the lace braid to hide it. Use several bobby pins to secure your braid to your head. Stick more pins in as needed.
Now, use sticks and leaves and berries to finish off your braid. Just stick them right in by their stems, and use bobby pins if you need to. Remember, you are queen of the plants today. You are wise to choose only plants that can spare foliage without causing harm, even forage from the ground. Be wild and free. Get it.
xoxo, Corrina and HTHG
