In the Presence of Louisiana's Plant Life

 The Botanical exhibit at the Cabildo stayed with me in a quiet way.

It wasn’t trying to impress or overwhelm. It was simple—Louisiana plant life, herbs, and botanical traditions presented with care and restraint. The kind of arrangement that makes you slow down without being instructed to.

There is something different about seeing plants that are specific to this region—sassafras, magnolia, rosemary, bay leaf, Spanish moss, medicinal herbs that have lived in kitchens, yards, and cultural memory for generations. 

They carry history in a way that is both practical and spiritual.

It made me think about how often we move past these things without really engaging them. In Louisiana, so much of plant knowledge has always been lived rather than formalized—passed through cooking, through home remedies, through everyday care practices that don’t always get labeled as “wellness,” but function that way all the same.

We live in a time where so much is accelerated and abstracted, even healing. But this exhibit brought everything back to something tangible. Something you can touch, smell, steep, or grow.

Not everything needs to be reinvented. Some things just need to be remembered properly.