PLANT MEDICINE

Introducing our PLANT MEDICINE PAGES!

Tea, spices, food-as-medicine, foot and forest bathing, mushrooms, plant-based cosmetics, herbal remedies and alternatives, the latest research on psychedelics and more— all from the Northwest’s leading herbalists, teachers and experts. Every month NATURAL AWAKENINGS will be your guide to the world of PLANT MEDICINE. Browse the pages and see what you think. We’d love to hear from you!

FEELING WITH THE HEART

Excerpt from Chapter Nine, “The Secret Teachings of Plants”

By Stephen Harrod Buhner

The hidden face of nature can only be seen with the heart. Everything we encounter in the wildness of the world gives off its own electromagnetic pulse of communication. These waveforms are filled with meaning. They are living communications that touch us and that we experience as feelings.

Most of us have been taught that feelings only come from within us. For those of us who wish to learn directly from the wildness of the world, and from the individual plants and the medicinal uses they possess, it is essential to begin with the heart. To do so, you must open your heart and let the plant’s living communications flow into you, weave through you. Because we have been taught for so long to disregard these kinds

of feelings, it may be hard to let yourself notice them.

Begin by allowing yourself to describe these plant-generated feelings in any way they come to you, letting them come into consciousness and emerge into words, without trying to control them.

Notice everything that your body does during this process, everything you feel, even stray thoughts that come into your head, no matter how insignificant, unrelated, or ridiculous it seems. So, pay attention to everything that your body does as you sit with a plant, everything you think and everything you feel.

We are daily touched by the world within which we are embedded, we feel that touch upon us in the thousands of nameless feelings we experience each day. In paying attention to them, they come forward into consciousness and begin to reveal their secrets, for each emotion registers the impact of a particular meaning that has touched us.

This process works best at first if you begin with plants you instinctively feel drawn to. They are those with which your heart already feels a kinship.

THE PRACTICE

While sitting with a plant, keep strongly in mind its living reality. Become aware of your heart and breathe in the feelings of the plant that are coming to you. Now, feeling the nonphysical energy field of your heart emanating out from you. Envelope the field that your heart is creating with each beat. Feel it holding the plant within it. Let your human-touching and the plant-touching interweave and blend together.

Now, let the beauty of the plant affect you. Notice how much you care for it. Send out from your heart the love you feel. And the plant, like all life, will take those feelings in and

will respond to them. You will feel yourself slowing down as you do this-- beginning to breathe more deeply as this progresses. This is a sign that you are moving more deeply into the heart as an organ of perception.

As you develop your sensitivity, you can feel the plant begin to move toward you, respond to you, engage with you. You can tell, when you pay close attention, the moment when the two of you have established rapport.

In that moment, send a request from the deepest recesses of yourself. Ask the plant how you can use it as medicine. Tell it of your need.

It takes practice to refrain from inserting what you think you know in this process. You must remain with the thing itself. Allow it to speak to you in its own terms, hear it with the ears of a curious child, of that its true nature enters into you.

There will be a response. Plants will teach you their medicine as they have always taught human beings. Though you may have to pay attention to your body, your feelings, and the odd stray thoughts or feelings that pop into your mind to perceive it. Sometimes a phrase will, of itself, emerge into the mind. Or perhaps a picture will flash on the field of your inner vision.

Afterwards, you may want to go and look up the medicinal actions of the plant, which you have been sitting with to see that what you are receiving has some basis in reality. It takes a long time to really trust this most ancient of skills.

You will eventually learn to hear. The plants don’t mind if you notice or if it takes some time, for they are the most caring of living beings. You only have to love them, to feel the touch of their communications on your heart.

This flow of life to life binds you into the web of life from where you have come and in which you belong. It is the beginning of an intimacy with life, a mode of living in which you are never alone.

Stephen Harrod Buhner is the senior researcher for the Foundation for Gaian Studies. Described as both an Earth Poet and a Bardic Naturalist, he is the award-winning author of nineteen books, including “Secret Teachings of Plants” and “Sacred Plant Medicine.” Portland-Vancouver Natural Awakenings is abundantly grateful for his permission to print excerpts from his books in our Plant Medicine Pages.

Fall. The quintessential season of the mushroom. I very outwardly and not so secretly love when summer comes to an end. The giant ball of fire in the sky, reflecting off of the far too many reflective surfaces throughout the city like laser beams in a diamond shop, is finally going to be shrouded by clouds. What a treat. Although a creature of habit, I have a deep love for transition – seasons of transition, symbols of transition, momentous occasions initiating transition, etc. Perhaps this is why I love Fall, and perhaps this is why I have a tattoo of an ouroboros on my right arm, and most definitely why I love mushrooms. As the rains come and wash away the summer, this can be a time of deep introspection and with that, inevitable discomfort. Shorter days and a generally darker existence is not desirable to most people, but can be especially valuable for the psyche. So rather than seeking herbs or mushrooms to bring more ‘light’ during this time, how about seeking out plant and mushroom allies to support and encourage transition. I think of deciduous trees during this time, trees that innately hold the energy of transformation – the ability to move through seasons in different forms and continue to grow stronger each year. The tannins in the leaves of the Birch, Willow, Poplar and Aspen oxidize from green to brilliant yellow, red, and brown. They stand bare through winter – vulnerable, nude, yet with tremendous stature and strength. Imaginably, this is the medicine that these trees share, and the energy that we can cultivate. Look for patterns in nature to understand the medicine in nature. Is it grace through transition that you desire? Look closer at the natural world that surrounds you. This grace encompasses you already. FALL TRANSITIONS: Seeking out our Mushroom Allies By Anna Sitkoff

Anna is an Herbalist at Dandelion Botanical Company and is in her 4th year of Naturopathic medical school at Bastyr University – deepening her understanding of our phenomenal bodies. She has spent time learning about mushrooms through many lenses. First, by spending time with them in the forests, doing mushrooms fasts and watching them through the seasons. She has gotten to know them more through different medicine making processes and uncovering their secrets through different extraction methods. Her website is a wealth of information on our mushroom allies. ReishiandRoses.com

PLANT MEDICINE FOR THE SKIN WILD-CRAFTED AFROTANICALS –Therapeutic, Toxic-free Skincare

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From an age-old culture, they have created an extremely simple collection of clean, organic, high-performance skincare botanicals that offer ancient traditions of luxurious skincare. Africans value beauty and ancient African beauty practices have always been an integral part of Africa's rich culture. The cradle of mankind is also the cradle of beauty secrets that are passed on from generation to generation.

Angeli, Founder of Altogether Lovely Afrotanicals I ntroducing Altogether Lovely Afrotanicals, whose Wildcrafted Afrotanicals are homegrown in the tropical rainforests of Ghana, West Africa.

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“In some Native Languages, the term for plants translates to ‘those who take care of us’.” ~Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Native to India and Northern Africa, ashwagandha is one of the world’s most powerful non-toxic herbs. For nearly 5,000 years ashwagandha has been used in ayurvedic healing practices. Often referred to as "Indian ginseng," because of its rejuvenating properties, supplementing with ashwagandha is an easy and effective way to improve your health and overall quality of life. ASHWAGANDA

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Tanellie Mullins and Tearea Turner are founders of The Journey of Compassion. Friends for many years they both suffered from depression and learned how to heal themselves through learning meditation, aligning Chakras, and healing though plant-based foods and herbs. Ashwagandha products and information are available at thejourneyofcompassion.com

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