Plant Spirit Medicine: A Journey into the Healing Wisdom of Plants

by Eliot Cowan

Overview

Whether you live in a mountain cabin or a city loft, plant spirits present themselves to us everywhere. Since its first printing in 1995, Plant Spirit Medicine has passed hand-to-hand among countless readers drawn to indigenous spirituality and all things alive and green. In this updated edition, Eliot Cowan invites us to discover the healing power of plants—not merely their physical medicinal properties, but the deeper wisdom and gifts that they offer.

Enriched by many new insights, this guide unfolds as a series of chapters on how plant spirit medicine helped Cowan resolve specific challenges in his own healing journey and in his work with others. In the telling, we learn how plant spirits can directly communicate with and aid all of us, including:

Plant spirit medicine's five-element view of healing

• Ways to assess our own states of health and balance

• Receiving guidance from plants, including those found within herbal preparations

• New passages on community and sacred plants such as peyote, marijuana, and tobacco

• Additional interviews with plant shamans across diverse traditions, and more

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781622030958
Publisher:	Sounds True
Publication date:	04/01/2014
Pages:	232
Sales rank:	324,207
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Eliot Cowan (1946–2022), the late author of Plant Spirit Medicine, rediscovered the ancient practice of using plant spirits for healing. Combining his background as a five-element acupuncturist with the teachings of the plants and his knowledge of the spirit and healing through his apprenticeship with Huichol shaman don Guadalupe González Ríos, Cowan reintroduced a language to work with plant spirits for the healing of others. He taught Plant Spirit Medicine for over 40 years and made this type of healing accessible to anyone who wishes to study, at the Blue Deer Center. To honor and carry on Cowan’s legacy, an introductory online course, Plant Spirit Medicine: Growing Awareness of Nature, will be available to students around the world beginning in summer 2023. plantspiritmedicine.org

Editorial Reviews

Through the pages of the book, you will meet many people and enjoy a narrative of healing, hope, and transcendent connection with nature.This is a magical journey, told very descriptively and with great reverence and love. It is a story about repairing the web of life - on this side and the other. The best news is that we can practice these ancient teachings in our own backyards or with the herb gardens on our kitchen window sills. Cowan tells us how to do that.” —Anna Jedrziewski and InannaWorks.com

“Cowan has charted the territory for a medicine of the past and the future and restores one of the vital links for this to happen—which is the healing power behind our relationship with the plant world. This book is an excellent addition to the alternative medicine collections.” —Malidoma Somé, author of Ritual: Power, Healing and Community and Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman

“Eliot Cowan’s inspiring Plant Spirit Medicine explores the intrinsic unity and connectedness of all living things. It extends the boundaries of consciousness to include not just humans and animals but plants as well. Important not only because of its profound implications for healing, this book is a blueprint for our survival. It illuminates the kind of sacred regard we must develop for all of life on Earth if our species is to survive and thrive.” —Larry Dossey, MD, author of One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters

From the Publisher