I have several blogs now – some are active, but require a certain mood, a “professionalism” and the inspiration to rewrite  topics I have written on so many thousands of times I can’t even think about it. Some require quietude and a contemplative mindset and the rarest of commodities for me – solitude. This one requires nothing. This is my plant journey and all I have to do is show up. I don’t have to be the professional with all the answers, I don’t have to be in the right frame of mind, I just have to be. These are the lessons of mallow and white pine, those gentlest of healers and protectors, who came to me very early in my transition  (from armchair herbal wannabe to whatever it is you’d call me now) and said – we are here, we protect,soothe – warm and cool,  bring things to the fore and then help them heal-  and we offer ourselves to you as Allies.

Now some people will find that really out- there. I would have found that really out- there, except the truth is, it blasted open a frozen part of me, shook me to my core with love, and changed forever the way I see the world. First the pine, and then others  – poplar, hawthorn, calendula, maple and rose – then mallow… such an outpouring of wisdom and love, such a breathtaking transformation.. I am four years into this new way of seeing plants and indeed, the world – and it feels like remembrance of  deep, lost knowledge – oh every breath of it does. It feels like a reward for much work that felt for great stretches at a time that it was going nowhere. It feels like love.

Around me I see so many others whose lives are moving into connection with the ancient ways, working with plants as spiritual healers. Often I spend so much time there when I surface and connect with the dis-connected world I feel disoriented and alone. but we are never alone. It seems to me only a logical progression – from mystical empathy with other species, to all mammals, and then to birds and all life — and — the next step is to the plant  world,  our Ancestors, those beings without whom there would be no life at all on earth, as we know it.

So this is my moment in the Cycle, and here I can be, not the professional, not the teacher and Guide, not the Elder with the answers – but just me. Would you like herbal tea, coffee or a beer?