Strawberries

One day Nanabozho was walking around and seen red berries all around him. He recognized them as the O-day-min-nug’ (heart barriers or strawberries) that his Nokomis once told him about. It is said that they actually resembled the human heart in shape, structure and color. Just as the O-day-min was connected to the strawberry plant by a vast system of leaves, runners, and roots, so was the heart connected to all the organs and part of the human body. The heart was the centre of the human body. Nokomis had told him that O-day-min was the last to bloom and the first to ripen of all the berries. The O-day-min-nug’ just after the bird had returned from the South. Later the Anishinabe would hold their spring ceremonies with the ripening of the O-day-min-nug’. Nokomis had told him that the O-day-min was a strong medicine plant. It could grow near snow at the tops of the mountains as well as in the low valleys. The roots of the O-day-min could be taken just before it became ripe and eaten to purify a person’s blood. Nanabozho realized that in order for the work of the medicines to be complete, healing has to take place not only in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense as well. The body and mind had to be treated together because they represented the duality of all things. The O-day-min was certainly evidence of this harmony that exists within the heartbeat of the Creation.