Ah, that lovely crossvine (photo below). Who would have guessed that something so beautiful was once thought to be useful? Native American Ethnobotany (compiled by Daniel Moerman) tells us that the Cherokee used a leaf tea as a blood purifier, the Choctaw as a kidney treatment, and the Koasati to treat rheumatism. Bark tea was used in a steam bath for dropsy (what we now call congestive heart failure), as a gargle to treat diptheria, and as a headache medicine. Consider all these ways of encountering this plant, of taking it into your awareness, into your body and spirit, the next time you see it blooming against a wall. And be grateful.
Reading Note, from Mary Oliver, "Poem: By the Wild-Haired Corn," from Long Life:
This much I know,
when I see the bright
stars of their faces,
when I'm strolling nearby,
I grow soft in my speech,
and soft in my thoughts,
and I remember how everything will be everything else,
by and by.