Wonder Woad

As farmer's daughter and an agricultural scientist of conventional farming, I was little prepared when the call of “my plant” hit me. At that time I saw myself with my own experience out on a limb and did not know that there are many “like-minded” people around the globe. Woad – an old-established crop that was grown in medieval Europe for the production of the blue indigo dye – was well known to me from my previous research work. Nevertheless, the experiences related to my woad plant hit me like a bolt from the blue. And so it turned out that I transformed these experiences into stories. As scientist, I strive to label things. And so after looking back on a series of somewhat very amazing experiences I ascertained that this is probably a private research project. With an element of humour I gave my report the evocative title of “Wonder Woad”. The essence of the report was summarized by the quintessence of woad. Especially the quintessence of woad as the key for the communication of humans with plants motivated me to make the knowledge I had gained accessible for others. It took a lot of courage to go public with the knowledge I had gained. But I can already say that it was absolutely worth it for me, because I was richly rewarded at every level. Afterwards I was able not only to accept the experience, but even to appreciate it. I realized that the serendipitous approach – not following the intellect, but the intuition – is equivalent to a holistic research approach. In the absence of – at least in the conventional scientific sense – tangible evidence, the results of my research were illustrated on the basis of stories concerning experiences with humans and plants – especially woad. Expressing the wisdom of the plants in this manner fills me with gratitude and pleasure.