A Prayer for Poison Oak

Food to countless animals, poisonous to only one: man, Rhus diversiloba (Poison Oak) is the gatekeeper and guardian of the sacred wild lands of the North American West. In my region, the Central Coast, Rhus reigns supreme – climbing trees and fences, crawling low like a vine, filling drainage ditches, and rising up proudly at the borderland of every highway, road, and trail. Rhus the Cartographer draws deep lines in the sand, making property rights plain. He seems to say “this land is our land: plant land, bird and beast land, spirit land; and this land is your land: people land… for now.” Indeed Rhus is ready to take back what we leave.

First to arrive when the soil is turned over and plants are uprooted – populating old clear-cut grazing land, reclaiming it and holding fast. Rhus appears, nearly overnight, in the scarred landscape as if to say: “never again”. Poison Oak grows on the fringes of nearly every trail, and makes his presence known at the trailhead too, fair warning right from the start – the wild land is fiercely protected, it would be unwise to stray from the trail.

In the past I have suffered greatly from Poison Oak. Twice a rash has consumed my face, swelling my eyes shut. Once the tenacious oil even managed to enter my blood stream, and the rash spread over my entire body (save the palms of my hands and bottoms of my feet), my skin was so dry that it cracked and bled. Two shots of amphetamine and a month long course of steroids were needed to overcome The Oak. It is safe to say I am intimately familiar with the power of this plant. It is said that a pin-head of Rhus oil could cover the entire surface of a swimming pool, and effect everyone in it. Anthropologists have actually acquired rashes from handling Native American artifacts that sat in the ground for several hundred years – the oil can wait, Rhus is a patient sentinel.

One can hardly blame Poison Oak for taking a hard line, some of us are kind stewards of the land, but for the most part a weaponized plant community seems like a really reasonable reaction to our trampling and greedy species. Rhus keeps people out, he holds space for other beings, and he is powerful enough to do so. I honor him for his vigilance, and for his checks and balances. I have looked many times beyond a sea of red and green leaves to find, with an ache in my heart, a pristine beach, a deep swimming hole, or an unspoiled grove beyond my reach – blocked by Poison Oak. I honor Rhus still, acknowledging that it is okay, even good, that some places are out-of-bounds. By keeping people at an arms length from certain wild spaces Rhus teaches us that we don’t need to conquer, colonize, or even physically touch a beautiful place to appreciate it, commune with it, or inhabit it. In this way the Poison is very effective medicine.

So despite my own longing for untrammeled places, and painful physical history with this plant, I offer the following prayer for Poison Oak, this grace for Rhus, a veneration of his power, his medicine, and tireless work…

I venerate you Shapeshifter, in all your forms: red, golden, green, and dormant stick manifestations. I honor you Sentry at the trail mouth, Shrewd Witness from the fringes. I honor you Foot Soldier in the field – you Warrior in the high and low lands, in the wood, in the valley, on the mountain, by the river, the lake, the ocean – you Guardian, Gatekeeper, Watchman – you Squatter, Undeveloper, Restorationist, Preservationist. I honor you Offering, giving to many what was given first to you by the sun, you Merchant of Energy. I honor you Freedom Fighter, you Activist, defending the equal right of all beings to sacred lands. I give thanks to you Poison Oak, Rhus diversiloba, for the places I will never tread, for the blank spaces on the map that remain blank, for the mystery you maintain. May your magic garden be forever beautiful, and may the Leaves of Three always be. Amen, or (if you prefer) Aplants.