Contemplative Plant Spirit Practices | Meditating with Herbs
Very close to all of the content I share here and on The Green Arte channel encourages folks to engage with the plants through the poetry-action of ritual. This is a process of doing, and this doing is so important that our ancient ancestors often said that we we do means a whole lot more than what we think or believe. How we show up in the world. for ourselves, for our communities, and on the plant spirit path carries a great deal more energy, investment, and reciprocal gifting than just kicking back and thinking about things. But, as is usually the case, there is always room for more- so this week I would like to chat a little bit about a rarely-covered topic here: contemplative practices. How can we engage thinking, pondering, sense-engagement, and even analysis in our wortcunning ways? Let’s explore.
Contemplation is the process of looking at something, either literally or figuratively, in a thoughtful way. Contemplative work engages the mind and all the various faculties of the mental atmosphere to explore, compare and contrast, analyze, find patterns engage the senses, and even make initial openings into the deeper heart. For me, contemplative work focuses on the practices of meditation, flow state, analysis and study, and simple gazing. Let’s look briefly at each of these in turn before getting to a full treatment of these practices.
HERBAL MEDITATION
If you’ve been around my work for long you will not be surprised to find out what my preferred focus of meditation is the plants. In fact, one of the most common ways I do meditate is simply to sit, gaze on a plant, and see where things go. Plant meditations can bring the wholeness of who we are into the process of connecting with our wortcunning allies- sometimes in ways we don’t expect.
If you have access to a plant as they grow in the ground, you can settle your body and mind and meditate on the form, colors, textures, surroundings, allies, and presence of the plant. This is one of my favorite ways to get to know a plant on a deeper level and one that, eventually, always finds it s way to my heart.
You can also meditate on the names, virtues, stories, sigils, or lore around a plant as a way to focus so directly on one thing that the whole of your being becomes like an antenna ready to receive information that might normally go by unnoticed.
FLOW STATE
Sitting with plants in a contemplative way, thinking about and around them, and allowing the senses and mind to settle fully on them, will often lead to this hyper-inspired space where ideas, solutions, and energy seem to flow into the self from all directions. Flow state is also a really powerful medicinal moment where the various levels of your nervous system have a chance to unwind and release.
ANALYSIS & STUDY
If you’re a fan of reading monographs, materia medica, plant lore, or folklore where plants play a role, you’ll be thrilled to know that these things can act as points of contemplation. Rather than reading through a text, try to read into a text. Stop after every line in a monograph and contemplate what is being said about the plant, what it means, how it relates to other things you’ve learned, what it means to you on a personal level, and how it all fits into a pattern. I love contemplating the charms, recipes, and stories of the Old English herbals as a way to drop in to a gently altered state of consciousness where me and the plant have an open path between us.
SIMPLE GAZING
Contemplative work is often the opposite of ritual work, although they really can dovetail nicely and can support one another. Because of this, there’s no reason to always be doing something in meditation or contemplation. Just sitting down next to a plant and gazing softly at them with no agenda, no particular frame of focus, and no ask can be incredibly powerful. When I prescribe this practice to herbal apothecary clients they always report back having experiences that far surpasses what they expected.
My hope is that this very brief introduction to engaging with the plant spirits through the mind rather than, or more aptly in addition to, the heart-centered work I preach about so enthusiastically, will deepen your own connection to the plants and give you new insights into the mysteries, magic, and medicine of their being.
Check out this community class I just posted all about this topic…
