Sacred Plant Medicine: The Wisdom in Native American Herbalism
240
Sacred Plant Medicine: The Wisdom in Native American Herbalism
240eBook3rd Edition, New Edition (3rd Edition, New Edition)
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Overview
• Shares teachings from a variety of Plants such as Yarrow, Mugwort, Maple, Dandelion, Poison Ivy, and Japanese Hops
• Presents step-by-step activities and practices that allow you to actualize each Plant’s teaching in an immediate way
Everyone has the ability to consciously communicate with Plants. Jen Frey shows that if we are willing to listen, we can hear the Plants speak to our Hearts and teach us how to heal. With the support of our Plant allies, we can be our truest selves and remember our intrinsic wholeness.
In this step-by-step guide, Frey shows how to awaken your ability to directly receive the unique wisdom and healing gifts of Plants. She describes how communicating with Plants is more like a communion than an exchange of words. The primary language we share with Plants is through the Heart, and Plant communication brings an expansion of Heart intelligence and emotional growth. She explains how the Plants help us overcome anxiety, grief, fears, and limiting beliefs and teach us to trust, forgive, embrace self-Love, and enjoy the sweetness of life.
Sharing teachings she has received from a variety of Plants, such as Yarrow, Mugwort, Maple, Dandelion, Poison Ivy, and Japanese Hops, Frey follows each Plant ally’s wisdom with a step-by-step activity or practice. She includes both native and invasive Plants because all Plant Spirits have valuable lessons to share. She concludes with Tulsi, showing how this Plant is essential to helping us recover our Sacred nature, especially in a time of great Earth changes.
With the wisdom of Plant Spirits, we can have support and guidance whenever we need it and live in co-creative partnership with Nature.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781591439639 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Inner Traditions/Bear & Company |
| Publication date: | 02/24/2006 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Stephen Harrod Buhner (1952–2022) was an Earth poet and the award-winning author of many books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine. He comes from a long line of healers including Leroy Burney, Surgeon General of the United States under Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Elizabeth Lusterheide, a midwife and herbalist who worked in rural Indiana in the early nineteenth century. The greatest influence on his work, however, was his great-grandfather C.G. Harrod who primarily used botanical medicines, also in rural Indiana, when he began his work as a physician in 1911.
Stephen's work has appeared or been profiled in publications throughout North America and Europe including Common Boundary, Apotheosis, Shaman's Drum, The New York Times, CNN, and Good Morning America. www.gaianstudies.org
Read an Excerpt
Preface to the New Edition
This book is about a particular way of gathering information from the world, not the reductionism that our modern culture so embraces, but an older way known to all ancient and indigenous cultures. It is a way of gathering information directly from the world itself, a way of learning the uses of plant medicines directly from the plants themselves. Members of most ancient and indigenous cultures make an interesting assertion; when asked where in their body they live, they gesture to the region of the chest. Members of our culture, on the other hand, point to the head, generally an inch above the eyes and about two inches into the skull. The great divergence in the ways that Western and indigenous peoples experience the world can, I think, be traced to just this difference. For those locating themselves in the heart and those locating themselves in the brain do experience the world in quite different ways. Realms of experience open to those who approach the world through the heart are simply not perceivable to those who experience it through the brain. But this heart-centered way of perception is the oldest we know, intimately bound up in our humanness and our expression as ecological extensions of this Earth.
from Chapter 7
Digging for Medicine
The Wildcrafting of Medicinal Plants
When one approaches the earth and the plants to gather medicines, it is important that it be done with caring and knowledge. Among indigenous groups, people who gather medicine in a sacred manner have done so in similar ways all over the world. Though some of the techniques may differ, the underlying attitudes of mind are the same. It is only when plants become viewed as commodities that they begin to be harvested without thought. It can take months or even years to develop the understanding of what you are seeing when you go into the world of plants. There is a world of deep interrelationships that, because we have been so long separated from it, we do not easily recognize. It is important to recognize that the learning takes time and that you come as a student.
Perhaps the most important attitude to learn is that of “thinking like a mountain.” This term comes from Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac. In his book he shares the time when he first learned to “think like a mountain,” when he first recognized the interrelationship of the world.
At that time, he and a friend were eating lunch and saw what they thought was a deer swimming across the stream below them. When the deer finally reached the bank and climbed out they realized it was a wolf. The mother wolf was soon joined by her litter in joyful abandon. Leopold and his friend emptied round after round from their rifles into them. They both thought that fewer wolves meant more deer to be hunted by man.
When they were finished they had mortally wounded the mother and one cub, the others fled. Leopold noted: “We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes--something known only to her and the mountain.”
In the years that passed, Leopold saw state after state kill off its wolf population and mountain after mountain fall under the voracious and unchecked appetite of the deer herds. There is a relationship between the living things in the ecosystem that though unseen holds a great power. When approaching the time of “digging for medicine” you approach that power. And when you approach it, once you learn to see it for what it is, it is automatic to come in reverence, with love and respect. This attitude and understanding is the basic component of seeking medicine and harvesting plants.
Most common diseases can be treated with the knowledge of only ten plants. Some medicine people might only know one or two or they might know as many as a thousand but ten are often sufficient. It is not important to know the plants that come from far away; the ones that grow near to you, in your back yard or in parks near your home, have all the healing power necessary. They, in fact, are better. You all live in the same area, are a part of the same ecosystem. You partake of the same water and air. You are of the same community. When you start with these familiar plants you begin to bond with the land on which you live. You will see and pick the same plants year after year, from the same stands and same land. Each year your knowledge of the healing power of these plants will grow. You will learn many things about them. And as such your capacity to evoke their healing power will also grow.
In each community of plants there are grandfather and grandmother plants from whom that community of plants has come. It is important to leave these plants untouched. Often they live at the top of slopes and seed down. They may be of great age, thousands of years old. To the unschooled eye they appear much like all the others. Some of these plants were here when the great ice sheets retreated north. They saw human beings take their first steps on this continent. One chaparral plant in the southwest desert has been carbon-dated to be 12,000 years old. Others are much older. In the presence of such age and wisdom you should come humbly.
The grandfather and grandmother plants should be left undisturbed. They should be honored with tobacco and smudge, prayer and ceremony. When you meet such a one you meet the archetype of its kind and it possesses great power.
Table of Contents
Foreword: The Legacy of Plant Spiritsby Pam Montgomery
Introduction: An Invitation into the Plant World
A Note on Capitalization, Ki, and Gender
1 Plant Communication
Embracing Our Birthright A Communication—Communion—Common Union
All True Communication Begins in the Heart
Moving into Heart Coherence
Gratitude
Innocent Perception
Common Concerns
Exercise: Accessing Your Heart Space
2 Taste the Wild: Mulberry
Loving Nature
Multiple Perspectives
The Unique Gift of Trees
Exercise: The First Meeting
3 New Opportunity: Yarrow
Protection A Door Opener
Trust A Achilles’ Heel
Healing the Wounds of Patriarchy
Exercise: The First Voice
4 Dare to Dream: Mugwort
Plant Spirits
Anxiety
Energy Hygiene
Remembering Our Wild Self
Dreaming
Imagination
Moving Toward Wholeness
Exercise: Dreaming with Your Plant Ally
5 Becoming the Auhority: Plantain
Introducing Children to Plants
Plants as Rebellion
Becoming the Author(ity) of Your Life
Transmuting the Trauma of Colonialism
Clearing Toxic Emotions
Grounding
A Note
Exercise: Grounding with Your Plant Ally
6 Resiliency: Dandelion
Tenacity and Resilience
Authentic Experience
The Sacred Role of Anger
External and Internal Control
Seven Directions
Setting Sacred Space
Wild Food
Exercise: Plant Dieting
7 Sweetness of Life: Maple
Generosity and Abundance
Ask For What You Want
Reciprocity
Sweetness of Life
Nourishing Ourselves Exercise: Engaging in Reciprocity with Your Plant Ally 8 From Foe to Friend: Poison Ivy Boundaries
Power of Saying No
Nature Reclamation
Start Small and Be Humble
From Foe to Friend
Exercise: Drawing Your Plant Ally
9 Taking Action: Japanese Hops
No Such Thing as Invasive
Taking Action
Time
Importance of Play
Entering the Daydream of a Plant
Exercise: Daydreaming with Your Plant Ally
10 Changing Our Story: Black-Eyed Susan
It’s All About Perspective
Subconscious Patterns
Beliefs
Trauma
Changing Our Story
Embracing Perfectly Imperfect
Receiving the Gifts of Black-Eyed Susan
Judgment
Light
Color
Exercise: Engaging with Color with Your Plant Ally
11 Releasing Grief: Willow
Sacred Sex
Romancing the Plants
Grief
Depression
Exercise: Romancing Your Plant Ally
12 Power of Love: Rose
Embracing Grief A Power of Love A Love Defined A Choosing Love A Self-Love Exercise: Self-Love Ritual Slow Down, Come Closer A Healing with Love A Plant Limpias and Sacred Bathing Exercise: Sacred Bathing
13 Living to Die: Poison Hemlock
Overcoming Fear
Fear of Dying
Death as Failure
Fear of Aging
Buyer’s Remorse
Shamanic Journeying
Greenbreath Journey
Our Greatest Fear
Exercise: Shamanic Journeying with Your Plant Ally
14 Everything Changes: Eastern Hemlock
Quieting the Interference
Transformation of Death
Following Guidance
Change with Grace
Flower Essences
Exercise: Making an Essence with Your Plant Ally
15 The Great Mother: Corn
Co-evolution of People and Plants
Corn People
Prayer
Singing to Plants
Music of the Plants
Dancing with Plants
Making Apologies
Exercise: Engaging in Song and Dance with Your Plant Ally
16 Re-membering a New Way: Rosemary
Power of Forgiveness
Balancing Intelligences
Karma
Ancestors
Re-membering Our Wholeness
Exercise: Co-creating Your Plant Ally’s Story
17 Becoming Sacred Humans: Tulsi
Slower Than Slow
Soul Healing
Ceremony
Sacred Plant Initiations
Becoming Alchemists
Exercise: Having a Ceremony withYour Plant Ally
Conclusion: Creating a New Story
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
What People are Saying About This
“The first in-depth analysis of the processes used by Native Americans to communicate with the plant world for the purposes of healing human illness. It is a work long overdue by an author who himself ‘talks’ with plants as Native Americans have always done.”
“Buhner articulates the sacred underpinnings of the herbal world and deep ecology as only a real ‘green man’ can.”
"This is an excellent reference book, as well as a wonderful book for beginners who want a true understanding of how to begin working with plants."
". . . offers not just another herbal, but the first in-depth analysis of how the Native Americans communicated with the plant world to heal human ailments."
". . . guides the reader through the practical technology of herbalism—which parts of the plant to use, and how to prepare tinctures, salves, and infusions, never letting us forget the underlying precious and holy exchange that is happening."
"Sacred Plant Medicine will guide you into the territory where plants are an expression of the spirit. Through prayer and sacred medicinal songs, Buhner shows how plants reveal their medicinal properties."
"A delightful read in all ways and highly recommended."
". . . the first in-depth study that examines the world of Native American medicinal herbalism."
"Buhner's examination and research brings forth how indigenous peoples are able to communicate with Mother Earth and her properties through spiritual connections. Through this research Buhner is able to present to us healing plants, medicinal uses of the plant, how to prepare the plants for use, and the associated ceremonial fundamentals. . . . This is a book that connects the body to the plants, an energy that is important if healing ourselves and our plant."