Apparition

This week, an apparition.
Story starts in Year 2000. I was fresh out of college, renting a house in Swannanoa with friends and working as an assistant at the Chinese Acupuncture Clinic in Asheville. Deeply interested in the medicine, and particularly the herbal parts, I endured what clearly was not a good employment fit for as long as possible just to be around the medicine and soak up as much information as possible. My favorite place was the herb room, which contained over 300 large jars of various dried roots, barks, leaves, resins, minerals, and animal parts, categorized by their effect on the human system. Clears heat. Tonifies qi. Moves blood. Yang tonic. And so forth. I tried to memorize the names, smells, tastes and functions of as many as I could. I also enjoyed providing direct care and body work to the patients- massage, cupping, moxabustion, electrical stimulation to needles, etc. I was fascinated by the dramatic effectiveness of the the treatments. However, my sense of humor got me in trouble. I just couldn't resist the frequent opportunity to crack a joke or play a prank. My antics were harmless, and (I believed) provided some balance to the overall mood of the workplace, but I was causing too much laughter and disruption in the clinic and after a few months was moved outside to the garden and lawn. As much as I love gardening, I was disappointed. I didn't get a job there to garden or mow the grass. But that was my first exposure to the cultivation of Chinese herbs. They had a small display garden with some of the medicines growing. I don't think they had Bupleurum chinense (chai hu) growing (I could be wrong), but that was one of the herbs that had captivated me in the herb room, and I decided that year that someday I wanted to grow that herb. I didn't last long in that job because a special opportunity to travel came forth, but the seed had been planted.

Flash forward to Year 2014. It is late May, and this week the time came for me to plant out my first lot of Bupleurum chinense (chai hu), which, as it turns out, is a main ingredient of the formula Xiao Yao San (Free and Easy Wanderer) that I am producing here. I planted the seeds a year ago, and waited patiently for their delayed and very spotty germination all season long. As they germinated, I carefully transplanted the seedlings into small pots, then stepped them up as they grew in the greenhouse nursery. I allowed the plants to overwinter in the nursery, and waited until blackberry winter seemed to be over before I planted them out.

It was Monday. I had a wheelbarrow full of chai hu plants and was about to wheel them up the hill to the south facing terrace I had prepared for them, as they like well-drained, sunny to part shade, drier conditions. Hopey was resting in the grass near me. From the corner of my eye I detected something white and moving to my right. I looked down to witness a miniature white poodle, shaved and groomed, trotting right by me with cool  and utter confidence. It had emerged from the woods behind me and trotted right on through, between Hopey and me, without looking at us, acknowledging our existence or stopping. Hopey did not growl or bark, which those of you who know her can attest is unheard of. The poodle trotted right on out the driveway and was gone as quickly as it had appeared. It was clearly the strangest animal sighting since I have lived here, and appeared at a most auspicious moment. I live in a very tucked away place, surround by lots of woods, and nowhere near a poodle.

Word travels in a rural community. Dave called Todd who called Greg who called the Mechos and me. I don't know who called Dave. There was an elder woman down on 212 close to Delmus's old store who was pining for her 14 yr old missing poodle and distressed for its safety. Luckily, by the end of the night, the poodle has returned home safely, and the lady was very relieved. I am quick certain that poodle was wore slap out after its lengthy romp around. And somehow, I am quite certain that the apparition bestowed a blessing of some strange sort upon my first crop of Bupleurum.