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Loneliness is a big misunderstanding. God and the spirit world seem to have it in proper perspective; but it is amazing what we human beings do with that emotion. Whether we project, internalize, create a whole experience out of that space, we might want to take a step back and breathe. I often wonder whether it is loneliness we are afraid of or the actual fear we have of owning it.

Our ancestors routinely used the healing power of nature. From plants, to animals, to rocks, to water; from the heavens to the earth, the way of living was in balance with the earth and her gifts to us. The way of honoring these gifts was to respect and call upon the spirits of nature, the elementals of the natural world that connected us to the Creator of all. It is through this sacred relationship that they were able to create harmony and reciprocity as interconnected beings of nature.

Evil and the Light of God
This was taken from an article I wrote back in 2004 after my book on Christian mysticism was published.

 

 

All darkness and all light is simply illusion. It presents itself in the way that it does to serve the greater purpose of coordinating universal and natural law. It serves an even greater purpose in helping human beings to identify their scope of consciousness and their responsibilities which lie there in. In the beginning, there was silence. And in that silence, the light and the darkness were borne. Within those polarities, many dimensions came into existence and experience. We, as human and spiritual beings, have been created to learn within these existences and experiences.
Without the understanding of the light of God that we hold and our own inner darkness, we cannot come to know God within ourselves, one another, or the world. When one asks the question as to why does evil exist, they will usually look towards the heavens for answers. It is far easier to look externally then to face the truth by looking deeply within ourselves. When we become aware of what evil truly is as the way God intended it, we will begin to face it with the courage and perspective that is needed for emotional and spiritual growth. It has been said in many a tradition that God will not give to you more evil than you can handle. So how in this statement can we affirm our belief in a loving Creator, especially during these challenging times?
We can begin to understand by grasping the concept of evil as relative to the light of God, as opposed to the structure of evil that is created by the will of man. When we separate ourselves from evil, then we are not embracing all aspects of our soul. Evil was meant to be placed in perspective and respect of the light of God; a necessary means for man’s understanding of truth. Evil can rest in stillness and fear of the spiritual process that surrounds Divine Providence. Whether it is the light or the darkness, good or evil, all energies need to be in stillness for the energy of God to come forth. If an energy is not in stillness, then it will leave itself open to the spiritual laws as set forth by the universe.
All souls have a learning continuum which reflects the accumulation of experiences collectively and universally. Light is borne from light and darkness is borne from darkness. The same holds truth for the antithesis. Darkness must also be borne from light as well as light must also be borne from darkness so that the spiral continues. The universal truths must come into balance within those polarities. Each polarity yields the grace, mercy, forgiveness, and appropriate boundaries to hold space for the other to come into balance. That is why one can and needs to be borne unto the other.
Each person on their path looks towards God for truth and understanding. The spiritual process that we each face encourages the formation of universal thoughts and attitudes which help to reflect the state of consciousness we are in universally. As we embrace the light, we reflect it. As we embrace the darkness, we reflect that as well. As we learn to balance the two, we assist in the universal balance that is in alignment with the will of God. Part of the natural evolution of our human psychology is and has always been to interpret the light and the darkness mentally, emotionally, and physically. We see and know these paradigms through the experiences of our emotional body and then tend to intellectualize our reactions to them instead of seeing and perceiving them in truth and reality. Where do we confuse truth and reality with our perceptions? Everywhere except within that space when we are in stillness with God. For each person, that space unfolds uniquely.
Truth and reality within any construct always faces an aspect of desire. If that truth is in the light, then the desire is there to know God more deeply. If that truth is within the darkness, then that desire is there to personalize and interpret those truths as they come to us in the way that we want to. The understanding and interpretation of human psychology leaves off where the essence of God begins, and where the separation of the light and the darkness ends.
The path of light and the path of evil, on all levels, be it the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual, needs to complete itself to come to understanding of the God within it. For remember that within the darkness, there will always be light. And within the light, you shall always find darkness. Only those truths will take on a different understanding as you grow spiritually and with a new conscious reality. By allowing for the light and the darkness to come to stillness, we can allow for God’s will to take place within everything created.
There are many teachings out there that show us how to embrace the light of God. So how do we face our darkness? We do so with compassion and love. It is easy for us to say love and far greater a challenge to know how to love like God does. We cannot hide from our truths within, nor should we be afraid to show ourselves in the face of God. We can offer our spirits and souls a gentle reminder of the gratitude of the spirit within, and the compassion and mercy that God has for each one of us. We are loved in our entirety. We cannot come to true love unless we embrace that entirety of who we are. We cannot come to true compassion until we balance the desire to attach, identify, or personalize our interpretations of how we define the light and the darkness.
When we are faced with the unknowing, in whichever ‘duality’ it is representative of, it is suggested to be mindful of the desire to identify or personalize that experience with our relationship to God. If you think you do not participate in this, take a closer look. Light and evil are not only part of the nature of man, but of the universal construct as well. The interpretation of the construct can lead us to the gates of heaven or the dark night of the soul.
During those times that light comes your way, rejoice. And in those times that evil comes your way, remember to hold it in a space of detachment and stillness. What remains still in truth cannot harm you and will only return to its source. Evil cannot engage you unless you allow it. It will be present as will the light. As with both, you have the free will to create relationship. If we look at the resurrection of the Christ Jesus, or the
life of the Lord Buddha, their faith in God allowed for a far greater resurrection of the darkness and understanding of the light than one could imagine. Their love in Him and their faith in His love for them helped to bring into perspective the light of God; which indeed, encompasses all of creation.

Cindy has given us a quick update until our next session. The prenatal specialist she went to see was happy with the ultrasound. The lil guy is growing and is much stronger! Keep those prayers coming!

 

It’s been two weeks since our last visit. On her way to my home, Cindy told the baby they were coming to see me and she said he seemed very happy about it. She hasn’t had another check up with her doctor in the last 2 weeks and will go in for another ultrasound next week. She walked in looking luminous and thankfully had gained some weight. She sat down on my cream-colored  area rug and I first wanted to talk with the little guy to see how he was doing. I wanted to hear his voice to interpret his progress. I tracked his position in her uterus and noticed that he was shifting a little. The doctor had said that with her condition that was likely possible. He was content and for the first time, I felt that his hydration and nutrition were almost where they should be for his stage of fetal development. His brain had grown a little – I was concerned previously about that because it wasn’t getting the nourishment it needed and I wanted to do whatever we could to provide for proper organ growth. I focused in…

(Tracking)…”Your relationship to the baby is better. He feels more secure because you have started building a more conscious interaction with him. Your itching reactions to the hormonal fluctuations have improved and will continue to do so. I am feeling a shift with the spirits around the both of you. I could feel you really want to share the good news with others and I totally understand. If you can wait a few more weeks, I just want to get the baby a little stronger. The challenging spirits are more distant. In part because you are working on your relationship with him, his daddy from what I am hearing is also talking with him, and because his little body is getting stronger. A few more weeks with continuing good progress and I feel that you can share the good news..I hope this is making sense. He is still hungry..better..but hungry. There is a different older woman spirit coming near you – great grandmother. She was very opinionated and basically no one else was right or was able to have a say in anything. She is watching over this baby like a hawk..you will know who I am talking about because this great grandmother lost a brother when they were young, and they are together in the spirit world. The way she is attached to the baby, I have a strong sense that her brother might actually reincarnate into your little guy..so let’s see what happens. Am I making sense so far?”

Cindy shared that she had indeed been building upon her relationship with her child as well as her husband. They have both been talking with the little guy every day.  She says she actually asks him what he wants to eat every day and then makes herself a meal. She and her husband have both waited to share the good news with any extended family or friends. It has been hard, but they have been patient. Her itching reactions have indeed slowed down, and she does feel that he is getting stronger. The Willards Water continues to help her immensely, and initiated a hunger response from the baby as well as hydrates the both of them, so she will continue to take that. Cindy mentioned that she started craving cruciferous vegetables more, which I actually told her to eat in our last visit. I am keeping her on homeopathic bioplasma, halting the seaweed for the time being, and putting her on good fats such as sunflower seed butter and tahini butter. Both her and the baby need these fats for energy. She said she and the baby are responding really well to the colostrum and they both get hungry after ingesting it. She understood spiritually and physically the importance of the baby having boundaries. I told her she could feel safe with this great grandmother around her. If this soul was the reincarnation or a soul piece of her lost brother, then the great grandmother would make sure that no harm would come to this child. Just have to wait and see about the soul piece as it was too early to distinguish. It is not even necessary but might be useful information in the future if a karmic pattern appears.

I wanted to talk to the little guy some more.

(Tracking)…”The baby is laughing..you are singing to him..he keeps saying you are playing your music loud and singing. And he wants daddy to stop talking about money. He just keeps talking and talking and talking he is telling me , going over finances and it is driving both you and the little guy crazy. The baby wants him to stop worrying. I also want to let you know that he might have allergies as a young child..so we’ll watch for that. But all in all, he is doing better. He might make such a shift in position before delivery. I don’t want to say this to frighten you..but just know that things appear to be ok at this point in time.”

Cindy laughed when I started talking about her singing. She had been singing to him all the time with her music on and she totally agreed in laughter once again that her husband was talking a lot about finances and she could see where it was stressful at times for both her and the baby. As for the delivery, her doctor already informed her of the possibility of a C-section because with her condition, the baby might indeed shift if it doesn’t have enough space. We all  are praying that both the baby and the amniotic sac will have grown when she gets another ultrasound next week.

We were near to the end. The baby was peaceful. Cindy was able to breathe a bit better as she had some tightness in her diaphragm when she first walked in. I palpated the energy around her and in her tissues just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. The ancestral spirits were where they needed to be. I tuned into the little guy and asked him what else he needed. I told Cindy that she needed to eat liver organ meat to contribute to his organ development and that the little guy wanted me to tell mama that he wanted chicken soup! Cindy was stunned. She said she had taken out a chicken in the early morning to make chicken soup when she got home after our session!

PLANT-SPIRIT MEDICINE

MYSTICAL PHYTOPHARMACEUTICALS
IN AN
OLD (AND NEW) KEY
David Kowalewski, Ph.D.

Environmental Studies
Alfred University
Alfred, NY 14802
fkowalewski@alfred.edu

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Dr. David Kowalewski is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies at Alfred University, where he continues teaching Wild Medicinal Plants, Deep Ecology, and related topics. His writings on the metaphysical dimensions of nature have appeared in Journal of Environmental Education and Green Teacher, and have been elaborated in Deep Power: The Political Ecology of Wilderness and Civilization (Nova Science, 2000).

ABSTRACT

Growing dissatisfaction with allopathic medicine has given rise to increased popularity of alternative modalities, in particular to an herbal renaissance. Part of this herbal revival is a rekindled interest in the notion that plants have a consciousness that can be accessed and used by a healer. In this view, it is the spirit of the plant that heals, while its biochemistry is a secondary adjunct. The present article describes this “plant-spirit medicine,” detailing modern objections, while also introducing empirical evidence that appears to support the perspective. The languages and media of plant-herbalist communication are provided, as well as a typical protocol for healing a patient. The implications for medical practice—especially with respect to the recent trend in “mind-body medicine”—are then discussed.

PLANT-SPIRIT MEDICINE:
MYSTICAL PHYTOPHARMACEUTICALS
IN AN
OLD (AND NEW) KEY

“Behold the herbs! Their virtues are invisible and yet they can be detected.” Paracelsus (cited in Wood, 2000:25).

In the industrial world, herbal medicine has been greatly neglected for more than a century. This seems odd, given that three-quarters of the world’s population rely primarily on plants for their medical needs. Yet the situation is rapidly changing. Disaffection with allopathic medicine because of high costs, dangerous side-effects, and other reasons has been accompanied by increased use of unconventional therapies, in particular herbal medicine, despite the refusal of insurance companies to cover almost all such modalities (Eisenberg et al., 1993). In particular, a growing interest in the non-physical dimension of healing is apparent, which in the herbal community has taken the form of a renewed interest in “plant-spirit medicine” (Aversano, 2002; Buhner, 2000, 2002, 2004; Cowan, 1995; Cruden, 1997; Harvey and Cochrane, 1999, 2001; Heaven and Charing, 2006; Montgomery, 1997).
Within herbalism, though, the notion that physical and spiritual are inseparable has a long pedigree. Traditionally across the world, herbalists assumed that, in the first instance, it is the spirit of the plant that does the healing, while its biochemistry is distinctly secondary (Buhner, 1998). The present article describes this time-honored perspective, addressing modern objections while introducing a wealth of empirical evidence suggesting it needs to be taken seriously. The work is based on many sources, including old and recent herbals, field guides, ethnobotanical accounts, presentations at national and international herbal conferences, workshops and symposia by herbal professionals, conversations with practitioners, herbal websites, student experiences in my university classes, and my own amateur herbal experience. It details the entire process of treating patients by means of plant spirits, from diagnosing the disease to the healing itself. It then raises the possibility of its use in integrated medicine.
SCIENTIFIC SKEPTICISM

“Why heal their bodies if their souls are dead?” A professional herbalist to the author.

For millennia native peoples have made use of the healing properties of countless plants. Their knowledge is truly encyclopedic, causing ivy-league and other researchers to mine their minds and gather tons of samples for testing in laboratories. But how did natives come about this vast knowledge? They never majored in botany, biochemistry, pharmacology, or other modern discipline of herbal medicine, nor had access to libraries, research labs, or the internet. The question begs for an answer.
The native answer could not be clearer. Everywhere, quite directly and explicitly and consistently, they have responded: “The plants taught us” (Drury, 1991). Among South American indigenes, for example, plants are known as “little teachers.” As one Cherokee herbalist put it, “[W]e ask the plants to direct us on how and when to use them as helpers” (Garrett, 2003:23). Native herbalists did not rely on logic or other rationalist forms. Instead, they say they learned by direct perception alone (Buhner, 2004).
Yet most scientists immediately write off such a view as superstitious “magical thinking” or schizophrenic hallucination. Instead, they claim, the knowledge came from three sources: accident, trial and error, and imitation of animals.

Accident. Presumably, serendipity accounted for the happy matching of plants with diseases. For example, someone with a splitting headache may have eaten some wild strawberries and realized, some time later, that the pain was gone and then made the connection.
Yet accident seems far too random an explanation for the voluminous and systematic knowledge possessed by native herbalists. Could the perfect tailoring of thousands of plants with thousands of ailments all over the world during the short period of hominid evolution have happened by accident? Can one seriously imagine every native with severe bleeding simply stumbling around for weeks (assuming death from shock did not happen early in the process) until they happened to lie down on a species that stopped the hemorrhaging? Since many herbs have been used for the same purpose across the world (e.g., yarrow as a styptic), can one imagine all these people accidentally finding exactly the same species? Moreover, in the case of serious maladies, how many patients would have died before the right herb was found? Many or most, for sure. Would native peoples have continued using this “roll the dice” approach after all these funerals?
Further, since natives ate plants as a major part of their diet—in fact dozens and even hundreds of species in the course of a week—how would they know which one in fact had cured the problem? This is a non-trivial problem, since most plants, according to an herbal axiom, work slowly (like nature itself) on an organism. Thus, so many species would already have been consumed by the time a cure was effected that determining the correct plant would have presented a statistical nightmare.

Trial and error. Presumably, also, native herbalists diligently kept trying plant after plant, year after year, until they got it right for the patient. Yet to most herbal scholars, such a notion is best—and charitably—described as “ludicrous” (Brown, 2001). Try this thought experiment. Envision yourself as Adam in the Garden of Eden. You have five maladies, one major and four minor. How long would it take you to find a plant for each malady (even deserts have hundreds of plants)? We assume here, of course, that you do not die first from the major malady, or old age, before finding the right plants. Recall here the slow working of herbs, such that each individual species would have to be “tried” for days before knowing whether it was a winner or loser. The plants, of course, would have to be tried singly to avoid confusing the ineffective with the effective ones (called “simpling” in herbal parlance). There is clearly a time problem here. Realize as well that some species are counterindicated for certain ailments (e.g., plants containing coumarin for hemophiliacs) or conditions (Umbelliferae family for pregnant women). How many miscarriages would it take, for example, before native women concluded that trial and error is dangerous for fetuses and probably other living things? Not long, one supposes. Further, assume you did improve—how would you know for sure if the plant had cured you or the ailment had simply run its course? Natives, as far as we know, did not conduct clinical trials.
But this is only half of a rather ridiculous story. Let’s just assume that the “trying-and-erring practitioners” managed to select the correct species from the thousands of available plants. They would then also have to select the proper part of the plant. A species may clear up one disease only to cause another, since it may have both medicinal and toxic parts. For example, the fleshy tuber of the day lily is edible, but the stringy cord just above it is toxic. Further, practitioners would have to get the preparation right. Some plant parts are toxic unless prepared in a certain way. For example, the pokeweed leaf is toxic raw, but edible boiled. Moreover, they would have to get the dosage right. Too little, and the herb may be ineffective; too much, possibly toxic and even lethal. There is a saying in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): “The poison is in the dosage.” Any substance, we know, can make you sick if you ingest too much (e.g., ice cream). In sum, just how many “trials and errors,” during selection of species, as well as part and preparation and dosage, would have to occur before practitioners “got it all right”—a safe and effective herbal remedy (assuming again the patient did not die before this happened?) As they say, just do the math. The more one thinks about “trial and error” in a scientific-mathematical way, the more ludicrous it sounds.
But there’s more. Since a large percentage of plant species are horribly bitter, would an already sick person want to continue—or even start—this approach? Many people are sensitive to the bitter principle of plants and get sick from it—so an already sick person ingesting a wide variety of bitter plants (before presumably chancing upon the right one) would likely get horribly sick(er)—and possibly die. The person would likely conclude that the hypothetical cure (not even a proven one) is far worse than the disease. (Even in allopathic medicine, non-compliance with prescriptions is rampant; many patients refuse to take any, or all, of the “scientifically proven” pharmaceuticals because of their horrendous “side-effects” [sic—“main effects”]. Were early peoples any different?) Most importantly, many plants are toxic, in fact lethally so. How many people would have to die before a community realized that trial-and-error was a bad idea. It would take only one toxic plant—like a good poison ivy rub for a skin condition—to convince you (assuming you survived) that the approach is a hazardous one.
There is also the cultural problem. Native peoples simply do not think or act in this way. We can assume that since most patients do not feel at all like going out into the wild looking for possible plant cures, they use the local medicine person to find one. (How all these medicine people support themselves during all these long quests may be another problem.) As noted above, the medicine person would have to give the patient a large number of species before hitting on the right one—if ever. My own experience with native peoples tells me that a patient would simply stop going to such a “doctor,” having realized that they have lost “the medicine” (natives have their own version of quackery). Since native communities have only a few medicine people, the quest for the right species would probably stop quickly—and the trial-and-error method fail (again). Further, respected medicine people today are horrified that allopathy accuses them of using their own people as guinea pigs in dangerous experiments. The medicine people I have met would never do so.
Finally, there is the simple lack of any evidence for such an approach being used or even working. The burden of proof lies on its proponents, who as yet have failed to produce from the ethnographic record any report, from patients or medicine people, of trial-and-error being used to heal disease successfully anywhere in the world at any time (Buhner, 2000).
Imitation of animals. Presumably, finally, native herbal knowledge came from watching and imitating how animals used plants to heal themselves (Schul, 1977). True, monkeys and other animals heal themselves by using plants. Most of us have seen dogs gnawing on greenery to relieve indigestion. (In itself this is an interesting problem: How do they know which herb to ingest?). Native peoples are indeed keen observers of nature, and early Europeans are known to have watched animals using plants for healing (Wood 2004). Possibly, then, a few herbal remedies were found in this way.
As a complete explanation for the encyclopedic knowledge of native herbalists, however, the theory cannot be taken seriously. How would a practitioner know exactly what was ailing all the animals, especially if the malady were internal? Animals do not write monographs for medical journals about their diseases or research findings. Also, anyone who has actually observed wild animals know that, when sick, they spend most of their time in their shelters—much like sick humans stay home from work. So one must ask, how many opportunities would be available for herbalists to actually see a sick animal accessing a plant remedy? And even if they had such opportunities, how many would be willing—or even able—to follow the same creature for days just to see if the herb worked? Too, how would they know for sure whether sick herbivores and omnivores were ingesting a plant for medicine or for food? Since some animals consume a wide variety of plants (in some locales the white-tailed deer consumes 500 species), this is no easy question. Further, humans and animals get very different diseases, so herbalists might well assume, mistakenly, that a creature is ingesting an herb for a malady identical to a human one. A mangy coyote, for example, may look like it is ingesting a certain plant for its “skin disease,” but is actually treating its distemper.
Finally, and most importantly, a good many plants are safe for animals but toxic to humans. Birds, for example, relish poison ivy berries, and vultures crave rotten meat. One winter I watched deer nearly devour an entire yew shrub with great delight—the plant is very toxic to humans. How many people, then, would have gotten sicker, and died, before a native community concluded that animal herbalism was not a very good practice. Only one patient would have to have ingested just one lethal plant, such as water hemlock, before natives disabused themselves of the notion that blindly following the animals’ foraging was a sound idea. Presumably therefore, even being generous, one has to rule out any systematic knowledge from animal mimicking.
These three theories, then, not only insult the intelligence of indigenous peoples (in order to privilege allopathic research?). They raise the more fundamental question about the ability of such “ignorant” people to survive as a species. This is a non-trivial point. Just ask yourself, for example, this question about animal mimicking: How long would cardinals have survived as a species if they acted like eagles? So, if native hominids did use these three “methods” consistently, how could they have survived as a species? But they did survive, so apparently they were smarter than that. In fact, they did develop a systematic and effective method for finding herbal medicine—they asked the plants.

IT TAKES A SPIRIT TO HEAL A SPIRIT

“If the doctor is busy, the priest is asleep.” Russian saying.

According to ancient herbal tradition, disease can be traced to a spiritual cause (Park, 1996). As one Native-American herbalist, who was asked by President Bill Clinton to serve on committees of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), put it, “Ninety percent of pain is soul pain” (Low Dog, 2004). To treat illness, then, means dealing with a sick spirit (Winston, 2004b). Specifically, the sick person’s energetic system, or spirit, is out of balance in some way (Herrick, 1995). Sickness, then, arises first spiritually, and only then manifests physically. As such, physical symptoms are only the tip of the healing iceberg (Montgomery, 2003; Weed, 2003). According to one herbalist, a plant-spirit healer “not only tries to correct the symptom and illness, but also to reach the bad medicine that originally started that illness” (Brown, 1985:42). Otherwise the healer is just chasing symptoms (Bennett, 1997).
As a native herbalist might say, then, “It takes a spirit to heal a spirit.” Indeed, according to indigenous medicine, all healing knowledge comes from the spirits (Harris, 1972; Plotkin, 1993). The herbalist, then, needs to engage the spirit of the plant. To the ancients, this is not so difficult. In evolutionary terms, plants are our biological ancestors, who according to native belief have an interest in healing us, their descendants. As one Choctaw medicine woman put it, “[I]t’s not simply the plant that we need. . . . The entire spirit must be used” (Corson, 2005:74). According to the Iroquois, “When plant[s] . . . are used, it is always assumed . . . that it is the spirit . . . of the plant . . . that is effecting the cure” (Herrick, 1995:30). It is the plant’s spirit, then, that heals the patient. Among the tribes of Michigan, medicine people must know the spirit of the plant in order to unleash its power (Morrison, 1993:68). “All one has to do,” say plant-spirit practitioners, “is ask the spirit of the plant” (Aversano, 2002:40; see also Cowan, 1997).
The herbal healer, then, must not merely access the plant’s biochemistry, but its metaphysical energetics. Whereas a plant’s biochemistry may effect a temporary curing (relief of a physical symptom), only its spiritual energy can effect a healing (removal of the energetic cause). For this reason, many native-minded herbalists rail against a “this plant for that ailment” approach—what I call “vending-machine herbalism.” Instead, a more holistic treatment is necessary for a truly healthy patient. Plants, then, are not simply drugs in green coats, as most allopaths view them, but conscious healers in their own right. The herbalist, then, needs to understand the spirit of the plant, not just its biochemistry. According to one Incan medicine woman, this is why laboratory researchers are often unable to get the same results as native herbalists (Alarcon, 2002).
As such, the herbalist is only a link—but a vital one—between the spirit of the plant and that of the patient (Willard, 1993). In the words of an Ecuadoran herbalista, “The herbalist is only a tool of the plant” (Alarcon, 2002). Native-minded practitioners, then, do not heal—the plant does, and consciously so. They just mediate nature’s spirits.
Even in the European tradition, such an idea is far from bizarre. In ancient Greek mythology, it was the spirits—the gods—who taught humans the medicinal uses of plants (Reader’s Digest, 1986:53). In Celtic communities, plants gave healing information to medicine people (Conway, 1997). Here it was also forbidden to damage rowan and other sacred trees. The Druids ceremonialized in sacred groves and begifted oak and other trees by pouring wine next to their trunks (Hopman, 1991). Indeed later in Europe, in biology and related fields, vitalism—which holds that a vital force pervades nature—long held sway, and is currently experiencing a comeback (Stansbury, 2000).
According to plant-spirit medicine, then, it is not at all the amount of physical knowledge about plants—such as number of species, botanical structures, biochemical interactions—that is crucial for the herbalist. Instead, it is the quality of that knowledge, in particular the ability to cultivate a personal relationship with a plant’s spirit (Cowan, 1995). In Belize, for example, Mayan healers feel especially close to the herbs.
They treat them like members of the family and consider them allies in their healing work. They talk to them as if they were human friends, since they believe that . . . [they] respond, as would any living being, with their own intelligence (Arvigo and Epstein, 2001:15).

It is not how much practitioners know about plants, then, that is vital, but how well they know them. To claim knowledge of a plant by simply slapping on a label and noting its habitat is like saying you know somebody because you have their name and address. It is mere telephone-book knowledge.
Indeed, one persistent theme is that the most powerful healers make use of only a few species. Don Eligio Panti, for example, a famous Mayan healer in Belize, knew of hundreds of medicinals, yet used only 15-20 regularly (Arvigo, 1999). A current herbalist in Guatemala knows 600, yet uses only 60 (Prechtel, 2002). Stalking Wolf, an acknowledged Apache herbalist, used only 3 regularly—oak, pine, and wintergreen (Brown, 2001). Still others use only 1 (Prechtel, 2003). But by knowing only 1 intimately, an herbalist can be said to know them all. As a Choctaw medicine woman told her apprentice:
Find one plant . . . and work with that one. . . . Marry it and be faithful to it. Sleep and dream with it. Pray to it. Show it respect and it will teach you. . . . If you truly know one medicine plant, then you will know something about all of them (Corson, 2005:38).

DO PLANTS HAVE SPIRITS?

“If you’re a good herbalist, you know the plants. If you’re a master herbalist, the plants know you.” A professional herbalist to the author.

One can almost hear the eyebrows of most white-coated allopaths rising to the occasion. Yet logic, experience, and scientific evidence appear to offer support for the notion that plants are conscious healing spirits. Specifically, plants appear to have a consciousness capable of sending information-loaded healing energy to, and receiving it from, other organisms nonlocally. Moreover, they seem to do this in ways described by ancient herbalists. To wit:
• The classical distinction between so-called “unconscious” plants and “conscious” animals is hardly clear, as seen in the “in-between behavior” of several species like the carnivorous Venus flytrap.
• Since humans evolved from plants, one can reasonably hypothesize at least a “proto-consciousness” in the latter. For example, according to Mayan elders, humans are just trees that can walk (Prechtel, 2002). In this view, plants are our ancestors. Indeed, since they are much older, they have a special wisdom that we “new kids on the block” are ignorant of. Species-wise, according to the ancient perspective, they are the wise species.
• The most important life-sustaining fluids of plants and humans, namely chlorophyll and hemoglobin respectively, are biochemically almost identical (Gerber, 2001; Murphy, 1992).
• Native peoples all over the world over have referred to botanicals as the “plant people” (Brown, 1985:234). Moreover, they have attached similar spiritual qualities to identical species, which is sometimes used to explain why in many widely separated places certain plants are used for exactly the same maladies (Buhner, 1998).
• Some herbs known as amphoterics (from the Greek amphoteros: each of two) appear to have an “equilibrating consciousness,” able to level out dysfunctionally painful extremes to moderate levels (see Table 1). These plants have a balancing action, thereby alleviating painful abnormalities. They operate as regulators of cycles, by smoothing their peaks and troughs and by normalizing their timing. If menstrual bleeding is delayed, for example, they stimulate flow, but if prolonged, curtail it (Viereck, 1987). The question then arises: “How do they ‘know’ how to do this?” If you ask yourself how the thermostat in your house works, you have to admit that some engineering consciousness was behind it. If a plant does the same thing with regard to physical functioning, can one say with a straight face that there is no consciousness behind it? In fact, amphoteric plants seem smarter than thermostats, since they need no programming by humans to do their regulation, and smarter than electrical engineers, since they need no schooling to learn how to regulate, or how to manufacture the chemicals to do it. So it bears repeating: How do the plants ‘know’? Thus far, allopaths have avoided the amphoteric question. In the words of one herbal researcher, amphoterics “make scientists throw up their hands” (Cabrera, 1999).

 

• According to extensive research, plants seem much less like inert botanicals and much more like conscious humans in terms of their nervous-system functioning, biochemical reactions, and interactions with the wider environment. Plants have a nervous-system functioning in many ways like that of humans. For long it has been known that electromagnetic conduction in a plant is fundamentally the same as in the nerve of an animal (Bose, 1902; 1926). Indeed, plants appear as sensitive to electromagnetic fields as humans (Buhner, 2004). Recent research has suggested that plants have feeling states (Frances, 2001). Electrodes attached to plants, for example, show them reacting to a variety of non-physical stimuli; polygraph and other tests have shown human-like responses to:

A threat of violence to themselves;
Physical harm to nearby creatures;
A human in a group who has harmed another plant;
A dog walking by;
Owner’s pleasure and pain, even at a great distance;
Owner’s spontaneous decision to come home;
Owner’s loving thoughts;
Assimilation of barbiturates and aspirin;
Other organisms (as small as bacteria) being killed nearby.

Plants will vary in their responses depending on the immediate experimenter. For example, they grow faster if caressed by their owners. They also seem able to communicate with other plants, especially about attacks from insects or disease, resulting in protective biochemical changes. When prayed and serenaded to, they better resist insects and produce higher yields (Backster, 1968; Backster and Powers, 2003; Brown, 1971; Gilmore, 1977; Loehr, 1959; Thomas 1985; Tompkins and Bird, 1972; Watson, 1986). In short, the evidence suggests that plants do not just send and receive a wide variety of information about their surroundings much like humans, but do so in mysterious, nonlocal ways. They seem especially sensitive to love and pain, suggesting not merely a consciousness, but a compassionate healing one.
• Some modern botanists who have made great scientific discoveries, such as George Washington Carver and Luther Burbank, admitted conversing with the plants they were experimenting with (Buhner, 2002; Ingerman, 2000). According to Burbank:

 

• Homeopathy, which was widely accepted in the 18th and 19th centuries and is still practiced widely in Europe, and which is experiencing a comeback in North America, also suggests a healing plant consciousness. Homeopaths make a solution from a plant, which they then progressively dilute (dematerialize?) and “succuss” (vibrate vigorously) for greater potency. The resulting solution may be so diluted that the original chemicals cannot even be measured by the most sensitive instruments. The medicine thus appears to contain an “energetic memory” of the original constituents. Seemingly, in this way, the “pure spirit of the plant” is “potentized.” Indeed, the most powerful homeopathic remedies are those with the fewest molecules of the plant. One might speculate, then, that the more “spiritual” the herbal medicine—one in which only the “spirit” or “energy” of the plant remains—the more effective it is. In homeopathy, “[T]he smaller the . . . matter, the more powerful the force . . . as if power were a prisoner of matter” (Tompkins and Bird, 1998:7). As such, one might say that the plant’s “spirit” alone is able to heal, or that its most “active ingredient” is its spirit. Not surprisingly, the effectiveness of homeopathy is “baffling modern scientists” (Tilford, 1997:176). According to the chief of research on brain biochemistry at the NIH for 13 years, several placebo-controlled studies have supported its efficacy, but as yet no physical mechanism has been found to account for the results (Pert, 2000; see also http://homeopathic.org; Wood, 2000, 2004).
• Phenomenal crop yields at the famous communities of Findhorn in Scotland and Perelandra in Virginia have been obtained by working with plant spirits (Findhorn Community, 1976; Wright, 1993).

In short, the notion of plant spirits cannot be casually dismissed. But if they do exist, what are they like? Practitioners agree that a plant’s energy pattern is “archetypal,” suggesting a species consciousness rather than an individual one. It is the species nature of a plant, then, that is its spirit, while individual plants in the ground are simply manifestions of that spirit. This implies that, if herbalists know one individual of a species, they know them all. One can deduce, then, that a single dandelion growing in France will immediately recognize and acknowledge an herbalist from Germany who has cultivated a relationship with “Dandelion” (Bennett, 1997; Winston 1998).
The species consciousness or “spirit” of a plant is experienced by some herbalists as a unique vibration, which is often expressed and heard as a special song or chant (Corson, 2005:301). According to one modern plant-spirit practitioner:
Each [plant species] spirit has a vibration that filters through the physical plant body . . . [and that] embodies the healing energies of that spirit. Its vibration also resonates with the emotional, physical, and spiritual aspects of the person it will assist in the healing process. . . . Plant-spirit healing works with light energy and is a vibrational . . . process. Each living thing is made up of light of many frequencies or vibrations. . . . When we work with plants, or the[ir] medicines . . . we open ourselves to receive the vibrational healing that directs itself to the place we need it most” (Aversano, 2002:43-44).

The “Overspirit” of all plant species—namely the ruling “Spirit of the Plant Kingdom”—according to some herbalists, is alcohol (appropriately dubbed “spirits”) (Sarangerel, 2001). It might therefore be viewed as the “distilled” spirit of all plant species (any plant matter can be used to make it), or as “Pure Plant Spirit” writ large. The “Spirit of All Plants,” then, as the universal plant energy, has great power to change other spirits, including those of its descendants, among them humans.
Alcohol certainly has powerful “spiritual” features. It evaporates extremely fast—so fast that 200-proof alcohol is not even manufactured or sold. It has the power to intoxicate the human spirit. (It also intoxicates other animals, such as birds with fermenting berries in their crops on hot summer days). It relaxes inhibitions, that is, it “releases the spirit.”
Belief in alcohol’s spiritual nature can also seen in its use during native healing and other sacred ceremonies in many parts of the world. In South America and Mongolia, for example, it is sprayed or flicked on patients by medicine people (Perkins, 1995; Sarangerel, 2000). Its healing ability is also evident in its application as a powerful antiseptic (as on patients before injections) and linament (as on patients with muscle ailments). Alcohol is also universally lauded by herbalists for its ability to extract medicinal ingredients from plants and form healing tinctures. This powerful solvent ability, one might say, derives from its status as the most powerful plant spirit. Too, the resulting tinctures are immediately absorbed into the blood stream of patients to start their healing work without delay. As the powerful “Universal Plant Spirit,” then, it quickly and easily “spirits away” the healing energies of various species to places where the patients need them most.
Conversely, though, when alcohol is not used in a healing way, but instead abused for trivial and selfish ends, it easily causes dysfunctioning (e.g., vomiting, blackouts, addiction). Alcoholism, according to many, derives in the first instance from a spiritual malady—the physical symptoms only come later. To the Cherokee, it is caused by soul-sickness. Many victims agree; as one Alcoholics Anonymous member told me, “Something got to me before the alcohol did.” Instead of dealing with their soul-sickness in a sacred way, however, alcoholics abuse and disrespect the “Spirit of All Plants”—a big mistake. Alcohol, according to the ancient herbal perspective, will retaliate. To the Cherokee, abuse causes one to lose their own spirit by being captured by the powerful “Spirit of All Plants,” who makes the abuser its slave (i.e., an addict). Alcoholics, then, lose their spirit by becoming slaves of the “Universal Plant Spirit.”
Similar problems occur from abusing specific sacred plants, for example cocaine addiction from sacred “Coca.” According to some Native-Americans, lung cancer from excessive smoking is “Indian revenge” for violating sacred “Tobacco”—for treating it with disrespect (see Winston, 2004a). (Original wild tobacco—Nicotiana rustica—is considered hallucinogenic, i.e., a gateway to the spirits.) For the Choctaw:
Long ago, it was a gift to be used solely by spiritual persons as a walkway between worlds, as a medicine with miraculous powers. . . . Used correctly, tobacco has supernatural qualities. When tobacco is not respected, smoking or any other use . . . is a capricious act. A misunderstanding of this plant will . . . destroy you. Used improperly, tobacco becomes an impediment to consciousness. . . . [T]obacco will wrathfully and justifiably turn on you. Eventually you will become addicted to it. Instead of giving you power, the spirit will take power away and ruin you. Either use tobacco spiritually, or stay far away from it (Corson, 2005:277).

Sacred plant spirits have great power, then, and like all power, cut both ways. They both heal the respectful user and enslave the disrespectful abuser.

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

“Nature . . . do[es] not speak the tongue of man . . . [but] the universal language of the heart.” Herbalist Tom Brown, Jr. (1985:17).

Even if plants have spirits, though, how can communication possibly take place across the species barrier? Even groups within the human species have different languages, making communication difficult if not impossible. Practitioners note three universal “languages” in which healing information about plants is embedded: heart-talk, songs, and bear signals. These languages are “spoken” through a number of specific media, such as dreams and visions.

Heart-talk is crucial for communicatng with a plant (Mongomery, 2003). (For extended scientific discussions of cardiac energy fields and their role in sending and receiving embedded information, see Buhner, 2002, 2004; www.heartmath.org.) Practitioners do not talk to plants with their mind, since it is uniquely human, but rather with their “heart,” since it is common to all creatures. Your dog, for example, understands perfectly your loving gaze, while it blissfully ignores your commands to sit or fetch. To hear a plant’s message, then, herbalists have to listen with their hearts.
According to some indigenous peoples, at one time all creatures spoke the same language—heart-talk (Winston, 2004b). In the words of one herbalist, “[Ancient] man and the trees understood each other because they spoke a common tongue” (Brown, 1985:11). In the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, for example, plants and animals and humans lived in harmony, so they presumably had a common understanding, otherwise chaos would have ensued. According to the Cherokee:
In the ancient times, all of the animals, fish, birds, insects, and plants could communicate with one another. They share the common language of peace, harmony, and friendship (Cohen, 2003:288; see also Garrett, 2003).

Heart language is universal because love is the universal emotion (Abram, 1996). The most successful herbalists have profound affection for each plant, and this love, according to many, accounts for their prowess (Prechtel, 2002). Perhaps not surprisingly, in this view, plants respond especially well, in terms of overall health and yields and so on, to the loving vibrations of their owners’ hearts (Loehr, 1959).
Thus, the synchronization of the vibrations of the plant and the herbalist’s heart—their bioresonance—is able to effect a healing response (for more on vibrational medicine, see Gerber, 2001). Vibrational synchrony appears to be the key. Plants, according to one modern herbalist, “heal vibrationally, as our spirits work in mirrored relationships to those of the plant[s]” (Aversano, 2002:40). According to Mayan herbalists, then, when approaching a plant one should “court it, seduce it” (Prechtel, 2003).
Songs too are universally regarded as an important language, especially for their ability to communicate heartfelt emotion to the plants (Buhner, 1998). By storing emotional data in their vibrations, they speak to the heart more than the brain. Plant-spirit practitioners unanimously assert that plants appreciate their singing (Frances, 2004; Retallack, 1973). In fact, scientists have discovered that when exposed to certain kinds of singing and instrumental music, plants grow healthier and more uniformly, mature sooner, bloom more abundantly, and produce higher yields. When birds sing, plant stomata—“lung”structures enabling the exchange of gases with the environment—stay open longer. Birdsong, as a result, can affect a plant’s fruits and nutrients. Orange trees, for example, produce 30 percent higher yields and 100 percent more vitamin C. Alfalfa too shows increased yields, and when used as a feed for livestock, increases milk production even when less volume is fed than normal; it also has more nutrients, especially protein. Soybeans are similarly affected (Backster and Flowers, 2003; Brown, 1971; Loehr, 1959; Tompkins and Bird, 1998; Thomas, 1985). For good reason, perhaps, Native-Americans warn against disturbing the dawn chorus of birds (Brown, 2001).
Many native cultures say that each plant species has its own song, which expresses its unique spirit. This song can be accessed by medicine people, through visions or other means, and in the view of many practitioners, must be learned before the plant bestows its full healing power (Arvigo and Epstein, 2001; Gilmore, 1977; Kindscher, 1987; Prechtel, 2002; Winston, 2004a; 2004b). In the words of a Choctaw medicine woman to her apprentice:
Learn the words and learn them exactly . . .[a]nd not in the head but in the heart. The remedies are practically worthless without the medicine songs. . . . Always sing . . . the proper song. That is what makes them stand up with power. Without them, the cures are about as good as old dishwater (Corson, 2005:56).

To the Mayans as well, the song is necessary for complete healing (Prechtel, 2002). In the Midaywiwin Medicine Society, a first-degree healer not only had to know common medicinal plants, but also “the music that made them work” (Morrison, 1993:9). Such songs are considered “big medicine” and are often handed down from medicine person to apprentice (Montgomery, 2003). For good reason, then, today’s herbal conferences always begin and end with a song—phytopharmaceuticals in a new (and old) key.
Bear signals too have long been considered a language of plant-spirit medicine. Bears are said to be especially willing to share their herbal knowledge with medicine people (Aversano, 2002; Schul, 1977). According to the Cherokee, for example, desert parsley is called “bear medicine” because “Bear” taught them the plant (Winston, 2004b). Indeed, in many native cultures, “Bear” is the totem of the herbalist (Garret, 2003; Harris, 1972; Wood, 1997). Bears are thought to have special knowledge of herbs, since they pay attention to plants that other animals totally ignore. Presumably they are one of the few animals that heals its own wounds (Drury, 1991). Herbalists whose plant knowledge comes from bears are seen as especially powerful healers (Buhner, 1998; Wood, 1997).
Bears are associated with a host of synchronicities for herbalists. The ancient wisdom of the Lakota, for example, says that bears are the only species of animal that teaches humans about medicinal plants in dreams. If you have dreamt of bears, you can not only become an effective herbalist, but the plant species that “Bear” taught you are especially powerful medicine (Buhner, 2002; Wood, 2005). One day in my class on Wild Medicinal Plants, while teaching about “Bear” signals, I asked if anyone had dreamt of bears. One avid student, who was taking two weeks out of her summer vacation to audit the class, responded, “Yes, last night.” On numerous occasions, while gathering wild herbs, I have looked up only to see bears very close by, doing the same thing, and looking at me as if to say, “Oh, it’s you.” At herbal conferences, bear sightings and sign are common. As I tell my students, too many coincidences are probably no coincidence.
Practitioners list several specific media through which these three languages convey healing plant knowledge to the herbalist. The particular “informant” may take the shape of the plant itself, or some other entity that teaches about them, such as a deceased relative, medicine person, or animal. Sometimes too the plant will show the herbalist an animal, spirit, or other person who teaches its healing power (Buhner, 1998; Cowan, 1995). The media include:
Doctrine of signatures. For centuries, herbalists have garnered medicinal knowledge from the physical features of the plants. According to this perspective, the plant intentionally reveals aspects of its healing power, e.g., the disorders it can heal and the parts of the body it is good for, through its peculiar “signature,” namely its physical features such as habitat, color, leaf venation and so on. Horsetail, for example, which grows in rocky wetlands, treats kidney and bladder gravel; and violet leaves, which are shaped like hearts, support cardiovascular health (Wood, 2004).
Just magical thinking? Coincidence? Maybe. But maybe not. During one “weed walk” in my Wild Medicinal Plants class, I pointed out the strange shape of bloodroot leaves. One student blurted out, “They look just like lungs!” I asked him to read aloud our field guide’s description of the plant’s uses. He told us that the plant is good for “asthma, bronchitis, lung ailments” and has been “used as an ingredient in cough medicines” (Foster and Duke, 2000:54). (On the use of the doctrine of signatures by allopathic physicians, see Harris, 1972.)
Dreams. A very common medium is the dream, being cited by Apaches, Mayans, Amazonians, and other peoples (Arvigo, 2000; Brown, 1985; Buhner, 1998; Harris, 1972; Plotkin, 1993; Prechtel, 2003; Wood, 1997). According to one story from the Michigan Indians:
My granddad . . . had sore eyes . . . so he couldn’t see. Laid down and went to sleep. He dreamed about a little flower. . . . [S]omeone told him, “Use that.” When he woke up he hold his . . . friend [who] replied, “I seen that [flower]” . . . [and who] went out and got [it]. . . . That’s what . . . [my granddad] used in his eye[s]. . . . Couple days he could see (Dobson, 1978:73).

And another from the Kalahari Bushmen:
No one taught Montay . . . . [H]e dreamed about special medicines. . . . He was shown where to find these things. He went to that place . . . and it was all there (Keeney, 1999:75).

And still another from a Zulu medicine woman: “I find out about the patient’s sickness and what plants to use from my dreams” (Koloko, 2001).
Waking visions. Apparitions of plants and other entities are frequently mentioned (Bennett, 1997; Buhner, 1998; Dobson, 1978; Weed 1997; Winston 1998). In the Kalahari desert, for example, one Bushman noted:
When I’m . . . sitting down to pray and sing, the spirit of my father and grandfather come to me. They show me which roots to dig up and what to do with them to help others (Keeney, 1999:85).

In Celtic lands, a plant presents itself to an herbalist as a guide or helper (Conway, 1997). Peruvian herbalist Manuel Cordova-Rios also finds in visions the plants he needs for patients. In one case:
[H]er internal organs appeared on the screen of my vision. As the liver came into my sight . . . I knew it was no longer serving to purify the blood. . . . [T]he appropriate plants appeared . . .—flowers from the retama tree and roots from the retamilla shrub (Buhner, 2006:42).

At Perelandra and elsewhere, practitioners have experienced the helping plant “devas” as swirling spheres of light energy (Wright, 1993; see also Aversano, 2002; Montgomery, 1997). In the Amazon, if a healer meditates on a patient’s illness, a vision of the needed plant will appear (Lamb, 1985). Here too herbalists use a drink from the psychoactive plant ayahuasca to get visions about the medicinal uses of other plants, where to find them, and how to prepare them. This species is appropriately called the “teacher of teachers” (Palmer, 2004).
Voices. Herbalists hear plant spirits in the form of talk, call, or song (Bennett, 1997; Buhner, 2002; Winston 1998). As a Cherokee medicine man put it, “The plants . . . talk to you and tell you what they are there to be a helper for; you just gotta know how to listen” (Garrett, 2003:149). In Iroquois cultures, a plant will stand up and call sick people to itself so they can find it (Buhner, 2003). According to a Zulu medicine woman, when a new patient arrives, she hears voices telling her the medicinal plant’s location, appearance, harvest time, preparation, and dosage (Koloko, 2001). In western Africa as well, spirits tell healers which plants to use for their patients (Indigo Films, 2005). To receive such information, though, humans need to listen with their hearts (Garrett, 2003).

Shamanic journey. A common medium is imagery obtained during a flight of the soul to the spirit world (Bennett, 1997; Brown, 2001; Ingerman, 2000; Montgomery, 2003; Weed, 2003). Soul-journeyers, for example, may find a plant and then ask it questions about medicinal uses. Or, they may ask a power-animal or spirit-guide to take them to the needed plant.
Intuition. Herbalists may get “a feeling,” hear an “inner voice,” or sense an “inner vision” about a plant (Brown, 1985; Winston, 1998).
Wavings. According to the Cherokee, a plant needed for healing may wave on a windless day to beckon searching herbalists, or to answer their yes-or-no questions (Winston, 1998; 2004a; 2004b).
Touches. Physical contact such as a pat or a stroke, as if the plant had human hands, has been noted by Cherokee and other herbalists (Aversano, 2002; Winston, 1998).
Divination. Knowledge can be obtained through the casting of bones and other divinatory tools. A Zulu medicine woman, for example, goes into the bush with a divining rod, which “moves itself” when the needed plant is located (Koloko, 2001).
What specifically do plant spirits teach the herbalist? Part or all of the entire medicinal protocol, from diagnosis to administration, is possible. Items include the exact nature of the patient’s disease; plant species needed; features of the plant; location of the plant; time to gather; part of the plant needed; specific part of that part needed; procedure for gathering, including ceremony and prayer; preparation of the medicine; formulation if any; dosage; times of administration; and duration of treatment.

THE PROTOCOL

“Don’t pick the plant, let the plant pick you.” Professional herbalist to the author.

Assuming you have the necessary information, how should you, a practitioner, go about the actual process of healing a patient? The following stylized protocol summarizes the do’s and dont’s.
The correct mindset is crucial. Gather with humility. As the Cherokee put it, “We cannot live without these kin, but they can live without us” (Garrett, 2003:15).
In order to bioresonate with the plant for the sake of receiving its healing information and energy, you need to slow down. Evolution, say some practitioners, is a process of increasing metabolic rate. As a result, plants have a much slower metabolism than we humans, and since plants are unable to speed up, humans have to slow down (Buhner, 2000; Prechtel, 2003).
Acknowledging the sacredness of nature, especially in prayer, is also crucial (Arvigo, 1999, 2004a, 2004b; Brown, 2001; Winston, 1998). Indeed, recent research on prayer has shown its usefulness to healing (Dossey, 1995). Without it, according to some Mayan practitioners, the healing energy of the plant may remain in the ground, inaccessible to the herbalist (Arvigo, 1997, 2003). For the Iroquois as well, a medicine person needs to pray to the plant in order to access its healing power (Buhner, 2003). Indeed, research has shown that plants will flourish when sent prayerful thoughts, but wither and die when sent hateful ones (Brown, 1971; Retallack, 1973).
Gather herbs from the wild if possible, rather than purchasing from others (Koloko, 2001). As noted above, a personal healer-plant relationship is vital. So too, if possible, is a personal patient-plant relationship. Preferably, then, go out with your patients so they can meet the plant and establish their own personal relationship (Mitchell, 2002). Gather as close as possible to the patient’s residence, since these plants are subject to the same environmental stresses. Once you find the plant, convey aloud your clear intent to use it for healing the specific ailment of the specific patient (Harris, 1972). Ask the plant for permission to gather, and honor its answer (Prechtel, 2003).
Then do a ceremony to “work with the spirit of the plant” (Walker, 2004:15). The most common ceremonies are offerings of tobacco, songs, and handmade fetishes. Tobacco is not only a sacred species, but also boosts mineral uptake by the plant to which it is offered and repels hungry insects. (Plants, one might say, appreciate eco-friendly pesticides.) Songs express your heartfelt emotion for the plants. Fetishes are also appreciated by plants, who lack the hands and mobility to make them (Buhner, 2000; Frances, 2001, 2004; Gilmore, 1977; Harris, 1972; Mitchell, 2002; Morrison, 1993; Prechtel, 2002; Winston, 2001).
After gathering, apologize for harming the plant, then thank it (Arvigo, 2004b; Bean and Saubel, 1972; Corson, 2005; Mitchell, 2002). In the European tradition, gatherers would sing a song of thanksgiving to the tree which had provided its material (Hopman, 2002). Prepare the plant medicine too with a song, as do Amazonian herbalists (Lamb, 1974). Then administer the medicine, also with a song if possible (Avila, 2002; Perkins, 1996). (On this and similar “song doctoring,” see Mokelke, 2004.)
BRINGING THE MAGIC BACK IN TO MEDICINE

“If you really want to understand herbs, at some point you drop down the Alice in Wonderland hole and start talking to them.” John Fink, owner of an herbal school (cited in Kiesling, 2005:32).

Herbalism has yet to be fully appreciated in industrial societies. Yet, some herbalists argue, it is far superior to non-primitive medicine, since it is far less dangerous. Bleedings and mercury prescriptions were used for decades by allopaths as panaceas, while powerful purgatives and emetics made many sick people far more “active” than they ever wanted to be. According to one historical survey, it is not a great exaggeration to say that “between the 15th and 20th centuries, more people were bled, purged, or poisoned to death by physicians than ever died of the diseases that physicians were supposed to cure” (Reader’s Digest, 1986:63). Early surgeries, and indeed today’s hospitals, are ravaged by infections, despite the ready availability of many well-known herbal antibiotics (Buhner, 1999).
Plant-spirit medicine in particular seems to deserve a seat at the medical table. Clearly the evidence warrants experimenting with the perspective as an alternative modality within “integrated (conventional-alternative) medicine,” specifically as a useful “mind-body medicine” (Cabrera, 1999; Dossey, 2000). Already the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the NIH has funded research on the herbs of TCM (Lewis, 2006). Similar institutions seeking to combine the two modalities include the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine in California, and the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C. Kaiser Permanente too has researched the shamanic uses of herbs.
If plant spirits are truly powerful and universal healers, then might they not be used, for example, to shift the cheerless sterility of the modern doctor’s office, clinic, and hospital to a more life-enhancing mode? To what extent are people staying sick and dying because plant-spirit medicine is dismissed as mere “magical thinking”? How many herbal medicines fail because the spirits of the plants are unengaged? Might ceremonies honoring “Alcohol,” the Universal Plant Spirit, help cure the soul-sickness of alcoholics? Might sacred “Tobacco” be used as a smudge to cure nicotine-addicts and even heal lung-cancer patients? These and related questions deserve answers. Plant spirits, it seems, are still singing to us, and perhaps now we are ready to hear their songs.

First, Cindy and her family would like to thank you for all of your prayers. In the last few weeks I have had people asking me how Cindy and the baby were doing. Finally here is an update folks!

Cindy came in this evening to see me for her next session. I had some time prior to tune into her before her session and connected with the lil’ guy to see how he was doing. Tracking his breath and heart rate in the spirit world, the most important thing to me was that he was breathing better because of his increased oxygen and nutrient intake. Also as important was the balance of ancestral spirits around him. I was hoping that my visions were accurate for her and her baby. She walked in the door and took out the ultrasound picture before sitting down. I couldn’t wait to take a peek and quickly glanced. I thought it was my imagination but in 2 weeks that amniotic sac had grown quite a bit from the last ultrasound.

She sat down on the floor and shared the good news. The ultrasound showed that the baby was 10 weeks old with the amniotic sac measuring 8 weeks and 2 weeks ago the amniotic sac measured around 5 weeks. Cindy said the ultrasound technician was very happy as well as her physician. From the moment she left 2 weeks ago, she had followed the regimen we discussed when it came to nutrition and the high molecularly structured water. She had said that she would become hungry after consuming the colostrum and the Willards Water.

I listened patiently and it was time for me to talk with the baby and track his progress even deeper. I would just share first what I was seeing and hearing from the baby and the spirit world. Then Cindy and I would speak.

(Tracking)… “I’m in the baby’s energy and I am more hydrated than last time but still not getting the right amount of fluids; and consequently, nutrients. I am having problems breathing…feel like I am wheezing, but I think Cindy’s allergies are synergistic with the baby’s at the moment. I have space, more space. Thank God. I am a little light- headed but I think that is Cindy, not the baby. Feels like her blood pressure dropped at some point. Craving cruciferous vegetables, gassy. Need to find a way to stabilize and maximize absorption of nutrients. Baby’s brain does not feel like it is developing the way it should. I am not concerned right now but just need to focus on stabilization. Hmmm…iodine..something about iodine. Need to put this all together.
Checking in on the ancestral attachments.. ‘witchy’ spirits are still there but I had a feeling as the lil’ guy got stronger they would pull back so that will be my focus. Getting into a power struggle with them myself would only weaken the baby. I have no need to engage with them. Now for how the lil’ guy is handling it all. Wow, finally starting to see both sides of mommy and daddy when it comes to his emotions. He feels that mommy is very afraid of something. He wants to be more connected with her and is picking up on her fears. He is starting to isolate his spirit like his daddy might do when he gets overwhelmed emotionally. I will talk to Cindy about that. Can’t wait to meet this lil’ guy..”

I left the baby’s energy very gently, still tracking the heart beat, his emotions as I pulled away from him; wanting to make sure he felt safe. Also watched for the response of the spirits around him as well as Cindy’s reactions. I wanted to confirm a few things with Cindy before making recommendations.

I asked if her allergies were acting up because the baby had been wheezing. She said they were pretty bad and confirmed that she indeed had been wheezing over the last few weeks. She also confirmed that at one point a few days back she was lightheaded. She was crampy and didn’t know why she had bought some cruciferous vegetables at the grocery store. She hasn’t cooked them yet but I told her to do so. They balance and metabolize estrogen levels besides providing necessary nutrients like vitamin K for baby’s bone growth. I asked her if she had any cravings and I laughed when Cindy said she really wanted shellfish but knew she shouldn’t have it. That was all she wanted; shellfish. Of course – the iodine. Time to muscle test both baby and mother. I went and retrieved some iodine from my bathroom. I didn’t get the food source yet because I wanted to experiment with the transdermal form. I had Cindy hold the iodine while I tracked the baby and then Cindy. My eyes started to burn badly but my body’s water balance increased itself. The baby had more room. I asked her to keep holding the iodine as I gave her some more Willard Water to drink. Hmmm….the water seemed to increase the absorption of the iodine and it was pretty amazing what I was feeling. Toxins were coming out of my head and I was burning from the neck up, but the baby’s brain was growing energetically as the iodine was allowing for other vital nutrients to get absorbed. I told Cindy she should be hungry at this point and she was…I needed that confirmation to see how we could both stabilize the amount of nutrients that baby was absorbing for proper fetal growth. Iodine is one of those amazing halogens on the periodic table. It is involved in thyroid production and synthesis and is vital for immune and endocrine function. Iodine in fetal development is important nourishment for the brain as in the early gestational period, it nourishes the central nervous system. I asked her to see if her physician would do a 24 hr iodine urine test so we could see where we were at. I felt that we were headed in the right direction at this time in giving the baby more of what he needed for proper development.

As we continued to talk, Cindy started to become itchy in all the upper body places I was burning. Good. She was responding normally to tracking I was facilitating in the present and future pacing for what was to come. She has continued to keep her pregnancy a secret for the most part and asked if she could start to tell more people. I said no. Not yet. That was a clear answer from the spirit world. I did speak with her about what her baby was having a hard time with. I shared that the lil’ guy was tuning into her fear and I said, “ You are afraid of connecting with your baby because you think you will be exactly like your mother.” She said yes, that not a day goes by and she is so afraid of having the antagonistic relationship with her child that she has with her mother. She is very frightened indeed.

I suggested that she talk openly and honestly with him about her fears and that she open herself up to him more so that he could feel more secure in his relationship with her. She said all the books she read said the baby couldn’t hear when the fetus is still this small. I thought how funny. I could hear him just fine.

I added a few more remedies to her regimen. Homeopathic Bioplasma (tissue salts) for the baby. And homeopathic Ignatia for them both, to help them work through this fear together. I also wanted her to start incorporating more seaweeds into her diet.

Baby, mommy, and spirits settled down, and it was time to end the session. During our time together, there was a knock at the door. A package was left for me; some incredibly pristine dry seaweed from a seaweed ‘farmer’ up in Maine. No coincidence. I opened the box and gave some to Cindy as she walked out the door to go home.

 

It was a few months ago. I was working on an article on reproductive issues. I decided to share it with one of my clients, Cindy. We had always gone back and forth about her having a baby. I remember telling her that after she read the article,  she actually might get pregnant from the spirits supporting it, as ‘baby energies’ were abound. Cindy is newly married, a woman in her mid-30’s. This would be her first pregnancy that I had seen around her.
I saw her weeks later and she wasn’t feeling well. I knew the baby was ready to come and be a part of her journey, the choice was hers. She had wondered if she was pregnant and had taken a few tests that came out negative. The spirits were quiet in a strange way. As though they had a surprise in store. I asked her to please go to the doctors to take a blood test; just to make sure. Fast forward 2 weeks later she comes for another session. From the moment she walked in the door, I had become extremely itchy – felt like I had poison ivy. I had asked her if she had a reaction recently similar to the one I was visibly having in front of her. I also asked her if she had eaten any nuts lately. My body was reacting to something she digested but also to an influx of hormones that she wasn’t used to. I felt the baby in the spirit world coming in and out of her body. It was as though it were deciding to stay or being held back. As I was tracking the energy, she gave me the good news. She was pregnant. And yes, she also had some nuts a few days prior and got a little itchy, a reaction she had not had before. That’s because the reaction wasn’t hers, it was her child’s. She has given me permission to share her journey. Her real name will not be disclosed. For my blog, I will just call her Cindy. In all the years I have practiced, I have been accurate about a pregnancy coming along; but rarely accurate on the sex of the baby. It’s kind of funny.

Without a doubt I was happy for Cindy. Her body’s response to the fetus was unique at that point. It felt like she was having an allergic response, and with that came spirits from her ancestry that I have seen and known around Cindy for years. Some excited for the good news, and some a little challenged by it. I shared with her what I had seen in my visions. Her pregnancy would be a little different than most. She would not have cravings like most women do. Her relationship with food was going to be different. I also shared that the baby would kick strongly, because it was going to need space. I knew this. I don’t know how. The baby’s will was going to be strong and that was clear. She had her first ultrasound scheduled a few weeks later and our next session was shortly after. Something was off as I was tracking the fetus, still unsure about making its way into this world.

Next session. Cindy walked in with pictures of the ultrasound. I became incredibly itchy again the moment she walked through the door; but this time it was mostly from the spirits around her. The baby was ‘held’ somehow in the spirit world. A few spirits from her mother’s lineage which were witch -like in nature had attached to the baby. I just observed. Then there were other spirits in support of the child. They were from her mother’s lineage as well. I didn’t track any from her father’s lineage at this point in time. Basically they were arguing back and forth over Cindy as she sat down and started to tell me about her ultrasound. Interestingly enough, the relationship Cindy has with her mother is similar in nature to what I was seeing around her, antagonistic most of the time. Cindy had a hard time staying in her body, the baby’s soul pulse was intermittent, spirits in a power struggle over her…She started to talk.

The ultrasound showed that the baby did not have enough amniotic fluid and that the sac around the baby was small. The doctor was concerned about a miscarriage and asked Cindy to come back in a few weeks for another ultrasound. I wanted to talk to the baby and I also wanted to talk with the spirits. Many times I will have a few conversations going on and the client won’t even know it. I asked Cindy if she felt thirsty because the dehydration I saw in her body was unquenchable. She said yes even though she had been drinking tons of water. She also said she didn’t have much of an appetite. I tuned into the baby and the baby wasn’t actually hungry which I felt was strange. He was thirsty, utterly thirsty. He let me know (I will call the baby a he for now) that at times he had an appetite. I followed the digestive system of the baby to see if I could retrace what might help him to shift. The first thing he told me was that he wanted oats. I turned to Cindy and asked her if she had any oatmeal to eat lately. She looked at me stunned and said that over the last two days she kept remarking to her husband that she wanted oatmeal. I also asked her if recently she had wanted a mango because the baby craved one. I knew he needed not only the nutrition from these foods; he also needed the energies from them. The oats were a good source of manganese and other essential minerals for fetal development besides beta-glucan. Mangos are a good source of beta-carotene which converts into vitamin A in the body is and essential for baby’s bone growth.When she showed me the picture of the ultrasound, I saw how little space he had and hence I connected that to what I saw around her when she first said she was pregnant..that her baby was going to need space and will do a lot of kicking to get it. I also mentioned some soup and other things he wanted; but most importantly, he needed hydration. If I could think of a way to hydrate the baby, then he would have an appetite and subsequently, Cindy would have an appetite. It came in a flash. A doctor friend of mine told me about a molecularly structured water with one of the highest ph’s around – Willards Water. Something I take myself. I went in the kitchen and got her some. I asked her to drink it slowly so I can feel the baby’s reaction. I tracked his heartbeat as well as Cindy’s. I also tracked his immune response. My tongue started to get moist as well as my mucous membranes as Cindy was drinking. My internal organs felt lighter as I was palpating his energy. I stayed tuned into the baby until I felt some movement. I asked Cindy to keep drinking. If this worked, then after the session, they both would be hungry. As the ph of her body was energetically shifting, I was becoming increasingly itchy again between the influx of hormones, the spirits above her having a power struggle, the old xenoestrogens and toxins that were being eliminated from her tissues, a few past lives that were stuck. To me, it is all part of the whole. I have always looked at life like this; in parallel realities. I have come to believe that a body will inherently clean out toxins as the womb is preparing for birth. I have seen it. It will also work to clear out past life trauma, emotional patterns, and spirits that have attached to internal organs, etc. Cindy continued to drink slowly and I was carefully watching the baby. He was starting to feel hunger and that was a good sign. He needed nutrients and fats. I could easily see that there was potential for respiratory challenges either in utero or after he was born and he needed to take in a good level of healthy fats and proteins. I went into the kitchen and brought her out some colostrum to take and a piece of organic meat to eat. Both Cindy and the baby responded. I traced their every response. As she ate and drank, my breath started to return and I let out a sigh as I had room to breathe. As I did that, Cindy said she felt her stomach expand and all of a sudden developed an appetite. At that moment, a woman; her grandmother who died last year, appeared to her left. The spirits involved in the power struggle over this baby left the room, and I knew we had made some progress. Those spirits whose unhealthy attachments to the baby were not gone; they simply took some space for now. This is part of the child’s ancestral patterning to deal with. We are only at 6 weeks old so I have to see how this unfolds. The baby is completely protected. Those spirits can have an influence of the appetite of the baby and mother as well as the amniotic sac.
I gave Cindy a small list of foods to eat and a few supplements to take, the Willards Water being the most important for the time being to get her and the baby hydrated.
I saw Cindy 2 days later as she stopped by. She was starting to exhibit some of the normal symptoms of her pregnancy. I was elated.

Spirituality, energy medicine and psychoneuroimmunology all interconnect when it comes to healing. When people ask me why they don’t heal, I prefer not to take a ‘new age approach’ towards the answer. Rather, my work in the last 20 years has given me an understanding that I may not have realized otherwise. Being a medical intuitive has afforded me the grace to look at the concept of healing in a new way. I don’t think the question of why we don’t heal is even supportive of the process. I have come to see that we ARE healing in actuality, whether we are conscious of this truth or not. Being interconnected and part of the whole, energetic patterns that surround and engage us are not just about us, but about every living thing we are connected to. Thus, it is not as simple as our lives are ‘our own’, because I personally believe they are not. I also believe that many of us have attachments to the definition of healing. We belong to the greater cosmos if you will. We belong to the earth and all its inherent kingdoms; and we belong to one another. As a medical intuitive and Spiritwalker, my thought or emotion may not just be inherent to me, as well as any physical ailment or even spiritual endeavor. I spent my first years studying those fields thinking every thought and emotion I had, suppressed or not, contributed to my physical reality, both in health and sustainability. Being a person who communes with the spirit world since a child, I began to see parallel universes, spirit attachments, ancestral patterning, ‘perceived’ destinies, karmic patterns etc. I began to see the exchange of all these paradigms between human beings, between the cosmos, between the earth and its many kingdoms which lie therein. Hence, I began to expand my definition of what a medical intuitive was about, to include all that I was learning.

Dear Friends,

Most of us can attest to the fact that the world is going through a multitude of changes. There is a saying that helps keep me centered by Anais Nin. “We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.” I listen patiently to the many people out there projecting fear onto the many. As someone who is deeply connected to the spirit world via my generational ancestry, I listen to the spirits above and below – those in the heavens, the earth, the trees, the wind, anything that will speak to me. Like you, I watch the news. Like you, I also get caught up in what’s happening. Then I sit back and remember. Before the vast media outlets, time has gone through chaotic upheavals like this before. Seers and augurs from the beginning of time have predicted future chaos and events. They have also predicted portals being opened, energetic shifts, parallel universes being created. This is not new. I think many of us are forgetting that. The earth has gone through many changes since its inception. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. We all know the saying. The only difference I believe is that more of us are awakening. Time is speeding up and it has been scientifically proven – that makes everything happen a bit faster – not a lot of time to process. The warnings out there are real – natural disasters occurring at a rapid pace, environmental shifts to greater degrees, chemical warfare, spiritual warfare, familial challenges…need I go on? The earth has seen changes like this before, so has humanity. We just have different tools now to hurt one another and the earth, but we also have different tools to help one another to heal.

So, with the little time I have, I sat with the wind and here is what I have learned to help myself along the way. I am sure all of you know and have these tools; but they are worth mentioning again. And by the way, the wind had a lot to say.

Illnesses and Ailments are shifting. Yes, they may become more chronic and we will have no cures for some things. The vibrations for many of them I am learning to palpate at a different frequency – very interesting. Infections and viruses, co-infections – they will all require antedotes of a different vibration. Old medicines will become new again. Old ways of the earth will be revisited. One such remedy that will be helpful will be homeopathic gold and silver for mental, anti-viral and anti-microbial use.

Some of the poisonous flowers – their essences will be key. Plant spirit medicine, reconnecting with the spirit of the plant to foster healing, will be more powerful than ever.

Fungus – love it – it loves me too unfortunately – remedies made out of fungi will be extremely important. Tree bark tinctures and salves will be handy to have around.

I have been researching organ peptide therapies for cancer and neurological diseases and think they might be beneficial. Stem cell therapy will begin to appear in various forms that science has not yet recognized

Food – eat cleanly. Have a relationship with everything you put into your mouth.

Topicals – Oils are easily absorbed through the skin and can filter out toxins. Castor oil being one of them.

Salts from all over the world are necessary as they provide many trace minerals that we lose through poor nutrition, poor absorbtion, and the poisoning of our environment.

As far as natural disasters, be open to being prepared for climate changes in your area and have what you need to be safe and/or relocate your family.

Family dynamics – I have been seeing a lot of mental health issues and diseases on the rise in my practice. Heavy metals and environmental chemicals are part contributors. On a spiritual level, there are honestly a lot of portals open right now where transient spirits are attaching to many people here and influencing their behavior. There are many reasons why this can happen and I won’t go into them here. Relationships are shifting dramatically. New ones forging and people that are no longer in alignment separating. It is sad to see so many families shifting but I understand why. We all attach to frequencies and vibrations – thoughts, emotions, patterns on all levels. We are all subject to aligning to the frequency which serves us best as the earth is going through all these changes. The wind talked to me for quite a while. I could only share a bit here.

Does this mean life might be difficult? Yep, sure does. Does it mean that we do not have the strength to walk through it? The spirit world remains strong folks. You will remain strong. The wind remains strong, letting me know when things will transpire, reminding me that change and chaos is a form of purification and evolution. I might kick and scream some times – and trust me I have this year, but every time I look upon my shoulder, the angel that has been with me remains steadfast. The wind that I speak with – its voice never changes. The trees remain rooted, and I know that I am not alone.

Remember, the sacred silence is omnipresent and the keepers already know what is to come and how we are supposed to evolve. It has already been destined. Let’s do our part to align with the changes, be good and kind to one another – perhaps not so self-absorbed all the time, and with that said, do try and find the time to take care of yourself.