The Plant Spirits as Connectors to the Great Mystery

Life is a process, not an event- and it’s filled to the brim with mysteries. In fact, one of the great invitations of walking the world with an animist perspective is that we can lean fully into the mysteries and not just accept but embrace that we don’t know everything, can’t perceive it all, and probably never will. Just like when we were kids, the not knowing brings a certain kind of magic.

For those explorers who do with to delve into the wilds of nature, plants can act as profound teachers and guides. By working with just one plant in specific and intentional ways, we can tug on a thread that leads to the tapestry of the Great Mystery and come to not so much understand it as to engage and connect with it in fullness.

Plant spirit work is a direct engagement with arcane spirits who know things. They are quite literally rooted in the deep and dark mysteries that are substrate to the whole of Nature. Their perspective is so radically different from our own that by working with them we end up with wisdom, experiences, and initiations that are simply not part of the ordinary human experience. If this seems odd, consider that the why for most all spiritual practices is to gain access to wisdom, power, guidance, protection, or acceptance from non-human persons (gods, ancestors, spirits, etc.) who have access to things we don’t. We do spirit work because there’s a lot in it for us.

One way I like to meditate on this process is by thinking of each plant I work with as a thread. As I pull on that thread through my plant spirit journeys, meditations, rituals, medicine work, stewardship, and the like, I engage more and more with the whole imperceptible tapestry that is Nature. By pulling on those plant spirits, I get to know something more about the mystery- not having the mystery revealed as much as simply becoming aware of just how great the mystery is. I rarely walk away from the work knowing more, but I always walk away having experienced more.

In this week’s free community class, I’m chatting more about this process and what it can look like when applied to our work with the plants no matter what it looks like; spiritual herbalism, herb magic, plant spirit sits, and more. I post these classes every Friday on my YouTube channel- come check out what’s there!