Crafting a Local Plant Spirit Path
In the time we live, pretty much the whole world is right at our fingertips. With a few clicks on the phone in our pockets we can order herbs from around the world- some harvested in nearly inaccessible regions of the rain forest or high atop mountain stands. While I absolutely love the way that I can connect with people across the world via social media, and I definitely appreciate my ability to buy books and do research with ease, there are some downsides when it comes to walking a plant spirit path.
First, the invitation and access is always there for us to buy any plants we want, from anywhere, with relative effortlessness. This is problematic because folks don’t always think about where the herbs come from, what the footprint looks like to get those herbs from where they grow to your doorstep, and how relevant the medicine may be overall.
For folks who walk a plant spirit path, there’s something else that’s quite problematic about all of this. We’re able to work with plants that have nothing to do with where we live, who we are as people, and when we are in time. We can easily bring in plants that are far from resonant with us as living, relational beings- all while overlooking the fact that any issue we can come up with, there’s a plant growing locally who can address it if only we’re willing to put in the sorcerous work of cultivating relationships with them. You read that right- if you can come up with a problem, there are plants near you who can help you fix it. The nature of reality from the perspective of The Old Ways, the Fairy ways, is that all things are the manifestation of relationship and nothing happens in a vacuum- a remedy will always be within reach of a disharmony on any level.
So, as you walk your own plant spirit path, there are a few things you might want to consider to make your work as relevant, immediate, and vibrant as it an be:
The plants that grow near you are the plants you are already in relationship with because you share soil, sky, weather, seasons, culture, and all kinds of other bits of influence. They’ll be easier for you to relate to because they see you as much as you see them. You speak the same language.
When connecting with local plants, you take all the negative impact of harvesting, moving, shipping, flying, packaging materials, and so on out of your connection to the plants.
Your local allies are the ones you can enter into the deepest connections with because you can see them and they can see you, you can connect with them heart to heart and in person, you can observe their dance through the seasons, you can connect to them on the physical as well as the spiritual level, and you can make medicine and magic with them directly- no middle man.
Focusing on the plants that grow close to you will lessen stress, worry, and fatigue around the study of spiritual herbalism, occult botany, herb magic, and green sorcery. This happens because rather than trying to catch them all, you can focus on a limited and select number of plants. The plants you should study and work with are the plants that are within reach. Problem solved! When we look at all of our traditional and ancestral wortcunning practices, we see herbwise folk working with 10 or 20 plants total… a much more manageable number than the literal hundreds upon hundreds available in the common herb market!
You will learn the stories of the plants as they exist throughout time and also as they exist where and when you are now. This is the heart of the work.
There is, of course, exceptions to these suggestions. When I owned a community herbal apothecary, we stocked over 225 bulk organic herbs- about 200 more herbs than I work with personally in my practice. We did this because we were serving a large community of people who each had their own connections to different plants. We carried Chinese herbs for the Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners, we carried herbs from farms in New Mexico and Japan and India for folks who worked with Ayurveda, we carried herbs from Morocco and Egypt for Unani practitioners, and we carried many herbs from the broad western materia medica to ensure everyone could access the plants they needed. A second exception is that for folks who cannot grow, don’t have access, or are really unsure of their footing with working with plants, sometimes purchasing from reputable sellers is the safest and smartest way to go. There is nothing inherently wrong with buying Echinacea root, Boneset, Sage leaf, or Yarrow blossoms to keep on hand for when cold and flu strike. The devotion to plant spirit work comes when you choose who you buy the herbs from. How close to you can you find them, and how small or hands-on of a farm can you support along the way? This adds to the magic and medicine of the work.
Ultimately, when we start engaging with the plants who share space with us, the reality of who they are as liminal beings and powerful spirits really starts to come into focus. I just posted a free class on this topic I think you might enjoy…
