Walking a Contemporary Plant Spirit Path
This is a real speaking dream aloud kind of post- but I’m getting close enough to fruition on some long-term projects that I’d like to start having conversations about these topics. So, here we are, talking about what a contemporary (that’s you and me, here and now) plant spirit path might look like and why it’s something worth investing time, energy, and work into. Let’s explore.
I want to begin with a disclosure on what this work is not. First, people, especially in the west, tend to assume that ancient plant spirit paths are long dead and need to be grown as if seeds in a forest cleared by fire. This is untrue. Many, many cultures across the world have active, vibrant, and powerful plant spirit paths that have been in tact, through thick and thin, since time immemorial. Second, any attempt I make at creating a contemporary plant spirit path we can all walk is not to be mimicry of any of these sacred and beautiful traditions. I’m not here to make a western diet lite version of Vegetalisto mysteries. Appropriating the unique ways in which specific cultures work with specific plants in specific places isn’t necessary. When I see people do this, it only shows me that their own connections to plant spirit work haven’t gotten the hard-won results that are possible. There’s no need to ape another culture, closed practice, or sacred tradition when you’re living one. Synchretism and inspiration are things in this work and continue to be an important part of how we learn more about the ways of the plants, but wholesale copy + paste tactics aren’t my style. The short of it all: the plants who grow where you go are the ones who’s culture you’ll want to immerse yourself in, directly, through the medium of our varied sorcerous workings and artes.
Having said all that, now we can get to the good stuff. A contemporary plant spirit path, for me, jumps gracefully through the following hoops of fire:
It is radically rooted in the time and place of one’s specific practice, regardless of when/where that is.
It centers the plants that share soil and sky with the individual- those plants will naturally make up the core cultus of the artes while stories about other plants can inspire and inform.
It is rooted in ancestral lore, poured into the cup of now, and embodied with all the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the individual.
It is adaptable and willing to change, evolve, do better, be better, learn, and harmonize- all without the constraints of imposed morality.
It draws one not just into connection with plants, but into the wholeness of things- the cosmos as a great web of infinite relationships begins to pulse as the person becomes aware and sensitive and consciously engaged with the way of things.
Its foundational purpose is to nudge the universe into deeper and deeper states of harmony through the individual, the community, and then the wholeness.
It is informed by herbwise ancestors, the great green guardians, and most importantly by the plants themsevles- the work of the individual on a plant spirit path is not to learn but to learn how to learn, directly from the verdant world of our green allies. when this ability is in place and constantly being refined, we will always be given the most relevant and powerful information.
There are many, many more points of consideration, but let’s pin it here for now.
The next step in considering what plant spirit work looks like in a contemporary kind of way, especially for folks who have been disconnected from their ancestral plant paths or who come from cultures where said plant paths are no longer in full bloom, is how to approach these things. The list will look simple on the surface but I assure you it is deep, wide, and hard-won.
So, how to work a plant spirit path?
Learn to communicate with plants, heart to heart, with all the checks and balances that need to be in place for that to happen- and learn it from someone who lives it. Find your village wortcunner (literally or virtually) and start asking for help.
Invest yourself in the ways of the plants. Read folklore, study spiritual herbalism, learn botany, learn about gardening and stewarding plants. Become an expert at identifying the plants that grow nearest to you- know them so well you can identify them with just feel or just smell or just taste.
Dedicate yourself to the plant spirits. They are conscious and arcane spirits who are so totally other from we human folk that it can take a lot of squeaking to get their deepest attention. Devote to them, sing their praises, make offerings, protect them, defend them, put your opposable thumbs to work in service of their sovereignty.
When we connect to plants in the above ways, something will happen. The things about you that are your issue and your responsibility and are disharmonious will start to stand out to you. You’ll catch yourself doing, thinking, saying, believing, reacting, patterning, or holding space in ways that don’t feel right for you. The plants will show you the disharmonies because they are agents of harmony. Plant path work is root work- you’ll constantly, repetitively, and firmly be guided back into your own roots where your deepest personal references are to do healing. As things come up, work with the plants to create harmony where there is chaos, beauty where there is ugliness, love where there is fear, plenty where there is lack, boundaries where there is bleeding, tonification where there is laxity, moisture where there is dryness, dryness where there is boggyness, stimulation where there is stagnation, coolness where there is heat, warmth there there is frigidity… you get the point.
Work with the plants. Make rituals, charms, medicines, art, food, and magic. Get your hands on them. Get them into your senses, invite them into your limbic system, create intimacy.
That’s all. For now. Engage, learn, study, contemplate, enact ritual… these things will pull you deeper into the green mysteries and will open you up to the direct initiations of the plants themselves- the real goal of the work.
For now, this is a good place to wrap up. I will be sharing so much more on this topic- leading up to the launching of some very special and immersive online courses. If this whet your whistle, I hope you’ll pick up one of my books Spiritual Herbalism and The Green Arte, and do stay in touch!
