Communication with the otherworld is something I’ve experienced in various forms for the majority of my life. I didn’t always know what was going on, but I see it very clearly now and that clarity came from my relationship to the plant beings.
I began studying plants and their wisdom close to a decade ago in bits and pieces. I read books, took classes, gathered up recipes and started playing in the kitchen. I went on plant walks, ate wild foods, made medicine that sat unused on friends and family members’ shelves and rubbed all manner of balms, salves and liniments on whomever would humor my experiments.
It’s been a slow and meandering journey, alternately the only thing I could think about and a side note to an otherwise busy life over the years.
In 2017 when I lost both of my parents, six weeks to the day apart, my deepest sorrow was that any questions I still had, or stories I still wanted to hear were lost forever. I felt alone and completely without connection to my past.
I did the only thing that made sense to me at the time. I turned back to the plants.
Eventually, I went into apprenticeship under an amazing teacher who taught me how to truly listen to them. I’d communicated with them before, but Daisy taught me how to trust what I was hearing.
This changed everything.
The realization that the plants were communicating verifiable information to me was life altering.
I suddenly had the confidence to trust the messages I’d been getting from the other side in other ways. I could no longer brush it off as a wild imagination. I could no longer pretend that the many profound coincidences in my life were really ‘just’ that.
I had to acknowledge that my ancestors knew I could hear them and they were all but screaming at me to connect.
So I did. And my life has been filled with undeniable magic ever since.
P.S. I've been asked to share a bit about the actual communication I received from this plant. Here's that story...
During my apprenticeship, we did tea meditations before each class to get to know the energetics of the plants we were working with that week. They were always enlightening but I often already had a relationship with the plant, which would obviously color what came through in the meditation in some way or another.
When we studied flower essences, a type of vibrational herbal medicine, we were asked to find a flower we didn’t already know to work with from the garden outside our classroom area. We created our essences in class and our homework was to embark on a meditational journey with them and journal about our experience.
I began my meditation by asking the plant to show me who it was, fully expecting a light and uplifting feeling. Just look at how dainty and somewhat whimsical the flowers are. (image above)
Instead, what welled up in me immediately was an intense, almost psychedelic feeling of rage. It felt like an uncontrollable fire and as though every bit of stored-up anger I'd unknowingly been carrying was released in a huge wave of emotion.
I shared my experience with my teacher and learned that the flower I’d chosen was Pyracantha, commonly known as Firethorn. It’s not often used in food or medicine but instead, as a hedge plant because of its dense and nearly impenetrable nature.
A prick from a Firethorn can cause intense pain and the plant can take over an area quite quickly.
A lot like rage.
I’ve never touched the essence again, but can’t bring myself to get rid of it because I feel like there may be an instance one day where I need to harness that fire.
Written by Summer Goon
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This felt so familiar to me but in such a different way.