On Plants: Mystery, Majesty & Magic

If you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom.

- Audra Foveo

This summer has been a magical one. I have had the honor of participating in a program called Partnering with the Plant People, an offering brought forward by the wise and beautiful Rachel Weitz. I’d like to take a moment, to reflect on a summer of wonder where ancestral knowledge has been awakened inside of me, where I have found wisdom, love, and awareness, and have felt the deep sight of community.

There is something so nourishing when one is surrounded by beings of a similar ilk. I’ve always been a bit of a multi-colored sheep. Sometimes black, sometimes pink, often fluffy, regularly living on the edge of the flock, or, with no flock at all. For most of my youth, I tried to fit into the flock, never really managing to achieve it. Gratefully, I have always had at least one close friend nearby, a fellow rainbow colored sheep who I could mark time with, and share a meal with. It wasn’t until I was well into my 30’s that I realized that I love, nay, adore walking through the world this way. At times it was lonely, not following the norm, yet I always felt held by the plants around me. Literally held, and when I felt lonely, I would gaze towards them and feel their return gaze. A witnessing of a being sharing space, water, light, and life with me. I’d feel surrounded and watched over. My dear kin. I’d chat with them, and they’d offer comfort, direction, and support, but for so long the conversations were one way. Me asking for help. It wasn’t until I took on some potted plants in need of care that I really started asking them what they needed, and what they wanted. Then, when I started this program, something particularly magical occurred. The conversation deepened. There was a remembering within me, and again, I saw myself for the first time. And as I quieted my mind, and dropped more deeply into connection, relationship, and service with the plants, they revealed wisdom the likes of which I could never have imagined. Medicine, food, awareness, connection, communication, grace, partnership.

p a r t n e r s h i p !

And it wasn’t new to me, which was the most shocking revelation. I could literally feel that my genes had been around for a really, really long time. I honor my ancestors, and often call on the wise and well ones for guidance and support. However, this experience was so fundamentally different, so pre-verbal, so ancient, words simply fell short. It was like something started singing deep in my bones, and that song was carried across the fields and forests and across the mountains and seas. A song of awakening, of recognition by my dear plant kin that another human had awoken to the shared history, developed over millennia, and they were singing in thanks and welcoming! I had been (we are all) surrounded by plants my entire life, yet in this moment, my whole essence turned towards them, and them towards me. I felt woven into the roots in a way I barely knew was possible. I felt the edges of my spirit begin to glisten. I remembered songs sung by my mother’s mother’s from a thousand years ago. This, of course, has changed everything.

Surrounded by medicine, wisdom, and wonder my prayer for you, dear friend, is one of patience, stillness, and loving partnership with the plants. May they hold you, and reveal to you their extraordinary gifts such that you too may feel the depth of your being, and see your place among the vast, and the extraordinarily beautiful world the plants have created. When your vessel has run its course, and your bones are returned as an offering to our world, either by flame or by earth, what a gift you give as nourishment for those that have fed, mended, clothed, and housed you all of your days. What a magnificent honor to offer this to the thousands upon thousands of plants that served you throughout your life. Isn’t it such a marvel, the cycles we live within? I live in daily gratitude for the preciousness of this life; thank you for letting me share it with you.

From my heart to yours, and in deepest honor and gratitude of our plethora of plant kin, I bow to their wisdom, as I bow to yours.

With love and warmth always,
h. x