How to Pray to Plant Spirits | Ancient Techniques for Magic, Medicine, and Wisdom
The concept of praying to plant spirits may seem strange to say the least, but this act of kinship has been part of our animist and pagan traditions since time immemorial. In this post I’d like to share with you a bit about what plant spirit prayer is through the lens of modern wortcunning, why we might want to work with our green allies this way in the crafting of herbal medicine and herb magic, and how we can do it in a way that is ancient and powerful.
Wortcunning Ways of Bēd & Spēd
Our modern word bid has some ancient origins that tell us something about how our animist and pagan forbears approached the ritual of prayer. The deepest linguistic root is of course the Proto-Indo-European where we have the reconstructed word *gwhedh- which is believed to mean to ask or pray. From there, the world moves into the Proto-Germanic (via Old Norse and Frisian) where it becomes bedjhanan, again to ask, entreat, or pray. Eventually the word ends up in Old English biddan from which we get our modern word bid. In Each case, the word means to ask, entreat, request. This shows us what a prayer is in the eyes of our pagan ancestors and the longevity of the term also shows just how important this practice and idea was for them- and continues to be for us. Now, we bid someone help us with something do something for us, or come along with us- bidding being a more reciprocal ask than a demand or transaction.
Now that we have an understand of what prayer really is, we should look at why we might want to engage in this ritual of communication. We can do that through the exploration of another old word, spēd.
As you may hear in your head, this word is related to our modern speed, and is connected to the colloquial term godspeed. It comes from the Old High German spuoton, to prosper, succeed, grow. The word adapts through many languages until it becomes the Middle English speden which maintains the same definition. Only later does the word take on the additional and more common meanings of hurry, haste, and quickness.
So, when we made bēd, we hope for a response of spēd! We offer your prayers to the plants (or any other spiritual ally with whom we have some relationship) and hope they they will respond with blessings of success relevant to what we’ve asked for.
Sacred Reciprocity
I should also like to note that the ancient Pagan axiom do ut des also comes into play with prayer. Our ask must be sent with a gift in advance- we must first give so that a willingness within us and a space within our lives can be made in which this success, growth, and prosperity can occur. A prayer laid without a gift is less likely to come to fruition, and is far less likely to deepen our relationship with the spirits of our ways.
These giving of gifts are in no way transactional. This is not I give so that you will give. It is I give so that you may give. The difference seems small but is of massive importance in both the ritual of prayer and in the sentiment we should hold in our hearts.
The Plant Spirits
From the perspective of ancient wortcunning, which is right in line with the animist ways of everyone else, plants are people. If this concept is new to you, welcome! The life ways of our deep and shared ancestors invite us to remember that we live in a world full of persons- only a small fraction of them are human. Animals, insects, plants, mountains, rivers, tornadoes, and even our beloved ancestors are all people; sovereign beings who are conscious, invested in their journeys, and capable of kinship with we human folk.
We have to start here because if plants aren’t people, then there’s no reason to engage in the ritual of prayer or sacred reciprocity with them. The alternative to plants being people is that they are things; resources and commodities that exist solely to serve the human narrative, and that just isn’t true. In fact, that way of thinking about and engaging with the world has gotten us into many of the serious problems we’re facing now.
The process of softening our perception to a place where we can accept plants are people, then experience them directly as such takes work. I have many classes about this on my youtube channel and some advaned classes and courses you can find on The Green Arte School. Suffice it to say, when we approach plants as persons, we gets responses from them as persons- and that’s the magic and medicine we really want!
If this topic is interesting to you, here’s a free class I think you’ll enjoy:
So, why would the modern wortcunner, plant spirit worker, occult botanist, or spiritual herbalist want to engage with the ritual of
bēd and spēd? In the free class below I’ll go over a a variety of important reasons I think this work is so valuable- but here are a few points from the class that I think are worth highlighting…
In order to craft a prayer, we must know something about a plant. So, prayer writing, whether formal or extemporaneous, inspires us to learn more about the plants we want to engage with.
Any approach to the plants will open the ways between us and start to foster kinship between the individual and the plant, as well as the individual and the green realm as a whole. The more we engage with individual plants, the more we engage with the wholeness of the spiritual paradigm they inhabit.
Praying to plants as part of sowing, tending, harvesting, drying, and crafting adds a powerful dimension of virtue to the work.
For those on the wortcunning path of the herbwise, plant prayer will become a foundation of personal spiritual development, engagement with nature, and the crafting of magic and medicine. Talking with plants is at the core of all green sorcery.
Because prayer ritual is communication, we quickly find out that we are never alone and that we are surrounded by beings who act as great kin on our journey.
So, where to begin?
The good news is that we have very clear structures for how to compose formal prayers which are incredibly ancient and very powerful. This structure, which Pagan academics refer to as the tripartite prayer formula shows us how our ancestors composed prayers, connected with the beings to whom the prayers were addressed, and added in offerings to the process of prayer. This is crucial because it shows us how to combine prayer with offerings in service of sacred reciprocity and kinship.
The three aspects of this prayer format include an appropriate invocation using folk names, scientific names, kennings, botanical descriptors, and personal names, then a giving of gifts, then a reception of blessings. To really understand what this looks like in practice, I recently posted a complete class on this topic which you can watch for free on The Green Arte youtube channel below…
