Not as much as last year, but enough to spread some love!! Check us out at:

Breitenbush Herb Conference (Sajah is teaching 2 workshops)

Traditions in Western Herbalism

Bastyr Herb and Food Fair

Beloved Festival (hopefully… still waiting)

Montana Herb Gathering

Check out our events calendar for dates and details!!

Establishing a relationship with a plant is establishing a relationship with a particular aspect of our own being.

Here are some guidelines that I use in order to establish and build a relationship with a plant:

1.) Introduction and prayer: Just as you would a person, introduce yourself to the plant. One of the biggest hurdles many people need to overcome is to be comfortable talking out loud to a plant!! Tell it your name, where you come from, what your sacred purpose is on this Earth, and most importantly, why you are sitting before it. Pray to it, ask if it will be your friend, teacher and healer.

2.) Humility, respect and gratitude: The only way a plant will teach and heal us is if we humble ourselves before it and show it the utmost respect. The coastal natives of this area have always said that the plant nations are the most evolved beings on this planet- they have been here much longer than we have, and have figured out how to live on this Earth in a good way. We’re still stumbling…. So we have to honor the plant as being more intelligent than we are, it is only through this that the plant will open itself to teach us. Respect it’s habitat, you are in its home.

3.) Offerings: Just as you would bring a gift to bless someone and extend your love and gratitude, so you should do so with a plant. The most traditional offering is Tobacco, but Cornmeal can also be used. Plants also appreciate things that we create with our hands (but if you are going to leave it there, keep it small and compostable of course!!). Shiny beads, a coin, or something of beauty are also appreciated by them.

4.) Attunement and meditation: Engage with the plant through your heart field. Breath the plant into your heart and soul, and extend your heart and soul to it. Relax. Breathe. Focus. Become highly attuned to your thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, discomforts in your body, visions and impressions. It’s vitally important to remember that everything that occurs during your sit with a plant is communication- so pay attention and attune to the subtleties. Sit with the plant for at least 30 minutes at a time.

5.) Wildcrafting: I do not suggest wildcrafting a plant until you feel very comfortable with that plant and feel like you know it relatively well. (You wouldn’t go over to a new friends house and ask them to give you something would you?) Always always always ask permission from the plant prior to wildcrafting. Never harvest Grandmother or Grandfather plants. Take only what you need and will use, and always honor the ecological integrity of the stand. We will go deeper into ethical and spiritual wildcrafting as we progress through the program. Harvesting is a great way to get to know a plant on deeper levels.

6.) Dreaming: Have a prayer before you go to bed with the plant, asking it to come into your dreamtime. A great trick from Pam Montgomery is to not expect the spirit of a plant to come into your dream, hover over you and teach you all about how to use it, what it’s good for etc. Instead, think of it as the plant is bringing you a dream. The quality and nature of the dream will be indicative of the plant itself, how it is used, and what kind of people it will be good for.

7.) Preparation and ingestion of medicine: A great deal of information can be gleaned through preparing your own medicines from the plant, especially through the spagyric process which teaches a vast amount of information about the plant. You can make infusions, decoctions, tinctures, salves, oils, baths… it’s endless really. The important thing after you make your take it!!. Preparing and taking your own medicines is far greater than anything you buy from anyone, because it is coming from your own direct relationship with the plant which has been prayed with. Always prepare in prayer. Ingestion of the plant is a way of incorporating it’s being into you, where a true communion happens. It has a chance then to physically touch your organs, your heart and mind. Tasting plants is essential for anyone serious about understanding herbs.

8.) Singing: Plants sing. I know it sounds irrational, and that’s because it is. The song of a plant is beyond anything the mind can understand, because it is something received through the heart. Plants have a language of their own, and they love to have it expressed through a human voice. Plants love humans because they are able to express themselves in ways that is limited by their form. The song of a plant is considered it’s essence, it’s highest medicine which carries all the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual properties of it. There are highly refined indigenous “sciences” around plant songs and how they are sung into the human body  for healing. The song is the entirety of the plant, it’s universe (the one song). It requires that you be fully out of the way- to become a hollow bone for a plant song is one of the greatest joys of relating to them. Singing also teaches us to reclaim our voices, our power, our ability to express and create who we are. It is a powerful healing to begin to sing at all… so start humming and whistling more to start!!

9.) Journeying and ceremony: A great way to connect with a plant is to take a “journey” to visit it’s spirit in the lower or upper world. Here you are connecting to its spiritual nature. We always journey to either gather wisdom or receive a healing. Never journey without a very clear and well established intention- otherwise it is very easy to get lost. It is vitally important to remember that the ecology of the spirit world is very delicate and has a direct impact on the physical world. You have to know what you are doing. Journeying can be a great time to receive songs of plants.

10.) Dieta: The plant diet is by far the best way to establish a strong relationship with a plant, because it essentially merges all of the above. It comes from the Amazonian traditions of herbalism and is an ancient science. It is the greatest way of showing a commitment and dedication to learning from and working with that plant. You are also creating an environment in your body that the plant likes, and eventually it will be with you forever as your ally, guide, healer and teacher. To diet a plant and stick to it is to show it the highest form of honor, respect, and gratitude. The level of healing and teaching that emerge is profound.

To truly build a strong relationship with a plant, you have to relate to it on a deep level, typically for many years. Studying herbal lore and material on the plant is a great way of getting to know it as well- even the scientific studies and pharmacological information can yield interesting insights into the nature of the plant that you are becoming.

Mind centered consciousness is masculine in its qualities- rational, linear, reductionistic, and analytical. In this state, there is an observer and something that is being observed, thus creating a duality. This state of consciousness is marked by separateness or division. Here I am, and there that is. The mind by its very nature is fragmentary, it sees things as parts and to do so, will dissect, analyze and reduce things into its constituent parts. It is a narrowing of consciousness, in the sense that it single pointed in its approach. Quite often times this results in a constant looking at the parts, while forgetting the whole.

It is this state of consciousness that is dominating the world today. It is the religion of science. We worship the mental faculty in this age, and all progression, evolution, and change is based on the products of the mind. The world as we know it, is tangible mind, thoughts in manifest form. All objects of artificial nature began as ideas originating in the mind of the human, which has been conditioned in a paradigm that is disharmonious with nature. Its products are Euclidean in nature: the straight lines, perfect circles, and right angles that are rarely observed in nature. The reality of nature is not Euclidean, but fractal and non-linear.

Heart centered consciousness is the flip side of the coin. Rather than being rational, linear, reductionistic and analytical, it is non-rational, non-linear, all encompassing, and empathic. It’s qualities are feminine, receptive, intuitive, sensitive. In this state, there is much less of a distance between what is being observed and who is observing. In fact, in its ultimate state, there is no distance at all, one is able to realize that the observer is what is being observed. Here I am, and there I am too; I am that. So whereas consciousness centered in the mind is marked by separation or division, in the heart, it’s quality is that of unity.

This is that state of consciousness that dominated the ancient human being, where they lived in harmony with the Earth, as opposed to living in the world, which is our own projections placed onto the Earth. Living in a world surrounded by things created by the human mind only increases our mind centered consciousness, whereas living in an environment surrounded by things created by the Creator, or natural phenomenon, increases our heart centered consciousness. In this state, we are connected to the environment in a deep and profound way; it begins to teach and heal us.

Communication is a natural phenomenon of mediation between the inner and the outer worlds. It is the means by which our personal sense of self in isolation is able to be translated into a form understandable by another. In order for this to occur, we must create symbolic representations of tangible and intangible things (such as emotions). Thus, we create language. From the chaos of the external and internal world, a certain structure or organization is able to be created through an agreement of what is and how it can be expressed. Thus, when we two people look at a hummingbird, and that word hummingbird is agreed upon to be the representation of that being, a bridge of understanding is built between those people. Even if the beingness of hummingbird is not present, just using the word will still enable people to comprehend what is being expressed.

This is a relatively straightforward process in terms of physical, tangible objects. But when it gets into the realm of the intangible or invisible, things start to get a bit more fuzzy. When I say the word “love,” I could be speaking of many different things. The love of kale is much different than the love for ones mother, or for ones partner. Yet the word love is still used to describe these highly different states of being. This is also based upon ones societal, religious, and conditional upbringing. When I say the word love, it travels through space, hits your ear, and travels through the neural networking within the brain which is a byproduct of conditioning, your past. It is filtered through your experiences of love, or lack of love, which is naturally going to be much different from mine. You may say you understand, yet we are perceiving things from a much different perspective point.

So communication is composed of language, which is composed of words. Yet those words are not the phenomenon themselves, but mere representations of them, conveniences.

 and we are so attached to words

 Due to communication being lingual, it is a mind based faculty, because the mind is nothing more than words. Thus, communication is based on a sense of separation and division, which is the mark of mind centered  consciousness. Here I am, and there you are and we are communicating. It is mind to mind. But because nature is not linear in quality, communication and language does not penetrate into the heart of things. It is peripheral, surface level. It is scientific and not poetic. It is rigid and not fluid. It relays information, but not transformation. This is not meant to devalue words or the mind itself. We have it for a reason and it serves a great purpose, which is to be in service to the heart.

Communion on the other hand, is a very different experience; it is worlds apart from communication. Communion is a very beautiful word, it is composed of two words: common and union. Common indicates a certain likeness of things, a commonality is a reflection, in that what is before you is similar to you; you are equals. But when union enters the picture, the division between you and the other dissolves. The two become one. Rather than seeing the other as being a mere reflection of yourself, you see it truly being yourself. Communion is intimacy.

So whereas in communication there is a division between oneself and what is being communicated with, in communion there is no division at all, one becomes that which is being perceived. It resides in the realm of the heart, where there is nothing but unity. And in order to enter into communion, one must become utterly feminine, so open, so receptive, that you allow the other to enter into you deeply, so that they touch your innermost core, your essence. Conversely, they too, must be in this state as well, thus, two purity’s are interweaving together into one. It is an exchange of essences; unio mystica. In communion, there is a deep transformation, as opposed to mere exchange of information.

Communion reaches a place that is far beyond words. In fact, it touches to that place where words unfold, it is the invisible space from which the symbolism of words and language derive. So it is natural that once communion has occurred and is over, the separation of self and other occurs again, that a whole slew of words will arise within ones consciousness. But these words will be of a radically different quality than before because they are arising from the source of words, rather than generated from a previous surface level thought stream.

In order for these words to be able to touch the depth of what has occurred in the state of communion, it is important to have a natural language that can adequately express what has happened. This natural language is one of energetics. Because communion is a dissolving of boundaries, one enters into a realm of pure undifferentiated energy, it is a movement into the unmanifest, the mystery. The standard language of the mind will not do, science cannot touch this place. This is where the application of the universal cosmology comes into place, because it provides the framework or pattern from which these kinds of experiences can be best fit into. It allows for the communication to adequately and accurately reflect the communion. In other words, it enables the mind to be entrained with the heart, so that the words reflect the truth of the experience. In this way, we learn to truly speak from the heart.

In the realm of working with the botanical kingdom, a great focus has been put on plant communication. This is a great step for humanity in that it brings us back to the realization that the natural world is latent with information and that we can in fact tap into that wisdom. But information really only grazes the surface, it does not penetrate to the depth of being. It is like the difference between studying the art, history, politics, economics, philosophy and religion of India and actually going there to get the first hand experience. You can accumulate masses of information about India, but do you know India with that information? You don’t really understand something until it has entered the realm of direct experience.

Every single aspect of a plant is communicating its intelligence to us in unique ways, myriads of forms. From its molecules, to its shape and structure, its environmental and habitat patterns, to its organ affinity and physical, mental, emotional and spiritual actions on the human organism. Everything about that plant is communication, and communication infers intelligence.

Through an understanding of a system of energetics, this intelligence is able to be mapped out, to be placed into some sort of workable pattern. Energetics is a system of natural language that effectively captures and embodies the essential nature of the botanical being and how it relates to the human being. This natural language is simple and understandable, because it is based off the observation of nature and the connections between its various forms. It connects seemingly disconnected things, thus revealing the unity of the natural world.

“Although it is true that the secrets of the outer world disclose themselves inside us, in the spirit we step outside of ourselves and let the things themselves tell us what is significant for them, rather than for us.”

Rudolph Steiner