Greetings...while listening to David Winston's field study today at the Botanical Medicines From the Earth gathering in a forest 18 miles outside of Asheville, North Carolina...I realized I had not had the time to sit on the Earth and write in a while...and this flows.
Poetry, musicality, planting trees, discovering ease, healing disease, smiling in the breeze…So what else do I value? What else do I believe in? What is the bigger picture, my vision for us here on planet Earth?
Allow me to share:
For the sake of all creatures, We, Me; these are 3 sectors of thought and action of which I evaluate choices and opportunities. It starts with “me” at the center, once the “ego” and the” I go” is released; this pulses out to “we.” When we can see the future and understand we are a part of something greater, we vibrate out to consider and value “for the sake of all creatures.” This centered and outward evolving pulse forms an undulating ripple, potent, steady, taken care of by those who foster life and our expanding, deepening connection to Gaia, Great Spirit and Creator.
When I’m 40…in 15 years…I pray and VISION for the sake of all creatures:
· That plants and the 4 sacred elements of water, fire, air, and earth are seen as living beings with knowledge
· That every conflict finds rest at no expense to the well-being of beings
· That love > greed
· That we hold ECOLOGY as RELIGION
· That human beings understand the language of plants is a birthright.
When I’m 50…in 25 years…I pray and VISION for the WE:
· That every home has basic knowledge of herbalism
· That every community has an herbalist
· That every human has a garden
· That every elder has tells a story
· That every child can love wholly
When I’m 60…in 35 years…I pray and vision for the ME:
· 30 years of clinical herbalism practice, 40 years of plant medicine study
· Extensive knowledge and experience in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Eclectic Herbology, Navajo plant medicine, Planetary Ethnobotany, Mayan medicine, West African drum and Dance, Cranial Unwinding, Acupressure, and Dream Shamanism.
And I will be able to say, “Despite past conditions [conditioning], I am not programmed to accept EMF, fluorescent lighting, pesticides, feedback noise, surveillance, commercials, war, violence, and subliminal mind control as a part of daily life here on Planet Earth. From birth, I was raised in the most egoic, individualistic, isolated society that has ever existed throughout history. Now, we are and I am a tribal human being WITHIN an interdependent community with daily ritual and meaningful ceremony. Our sunlight is green and filtered through the thriving photosynthesizing plants surrounding us, our water is flowing, full of beneficial minerals, cool, and clean. Our soil is pure and rich in mycorrhizae; teaming with microbial activity and dense nutrients. Our children tell stories, plant seeds, practice kindness, and generate art seen and unseen.”
You see… without this, we become polarized; spiritually, socio-economically, and psychologically. Polarization generates extremes, and although diversity in culture is critical to humanness, we must come together to preserve the Earth and her precious resources while remaining to be open to contrasting ideology. We all need water, we all need soil, we all need oxygen, and we all need family. These create a common ground for us humans and four-legged to co-exist upon. For us humans, we were potentially all four-legged creatures before birth into this body, and our whole life is about becoming a HUMAN, being humane…rather than an old, crickity, pained two-legged animal.
The way I see it, ceremony is what unites us, helps us to evolve into a humane space of existence…past survival and into the thriving. When a culture values ceremony and ritual becomes the center point of function; we can see and communicate and resolve conflict. We can abandon linear thought processes and move into a sacred spiral of creation. Layers of ceremony include personal daily ritual, giving thanks, blessing water…doing what you need to connect to great Spirit; to connect with who you are, what you do, and what you eat. Expanding outward is family ceremony…pray together, form deep bonds with each other, find new family (because the one you’re born into isn’t always the most symbiotic family possible), and hunt/gather/grow together. Then there’s community ceremony; right-of-passage, harvesting, planting, celebration, dancing for rain…these are LIFE-giving rituals that feed the Earth!!! When we can peacefully communicate and overcome greed, there’s also nation’s ceremony…when a nation comes together to celebrate life and mark time with precious meaning.
These words I speak are my truths. What I pray for every day. What I honor and what I see as the only option to heal the planet and move forward. I’ve learned my truths through dream trauma, through deathly illness, through diseases of societal misalignment, through spiritual stagnation, and through HEALING it all via ceremony, ritual, nature, dance, plants, and community. Discovering HUMANE EMPATHY and a deep passion for ecology... My greatest growth stems from experiencing pain and love, which have directed me to this path of plant medicine.