I have always felt a strong calling in my soul to connect with plants. From wanting to become a forester at age four, to studying forest and nature conservation and traveling the world to be in amazing forests. I still do that.
I have always had a fascination for plants and how we can learn from, and with them. My deepest fascination is with the plants from Europe. My whole life I have been collecting an drying herbs for tea. I make tinctures, smudge sticks and salves. I have a deep love for chaga, a (non hallucinogenic) mushroom that increased my connection to nature and my own roots. For a month I created my personal dieta with chaga, experimenting creatively, as there is little to no tradition from our European ancestors in ancient plant medicine. As a student I made tea with mugworth, which wasn’t much of a success, but I love it as a smudge. It’s calming and deeply cleansing.
Ayahuasca taught me about interpersonal connections, dropping codependencies, what it’s like to be in a tantric male body (that was fun). Psilocybin taught me to let go and trust flow, to not hold on to what I think is important – but is not in the bigger picture. Rapé and I don’t have a big love affair, though it helps me ground sometimes. I prefer tobacco juice as a sniff and have waves where I use it daily for some days, to meditate and come to my own center.
The Amazonian medicine plants feel like tropical friends to me. Not home, but relatives I love to visit now and again, to listen to their stories and receive their wisdom. I love working daily with plants from home, like my tinctures of chaga, calendula, and taraxacum.
I love to sit with trees and meditate. Sometimes it’s like I can feel their vibrations, their different personalities, and their different stories. Whether in ceremony or just throughout my day, there are so many moments where plant medicine is teaching me an important lesson. What I notice in most plants, is a groundedness, patience, overview, waking up inspiration and expansion in my chest.
I hope this movement will open up a discussion and drop fear. Plant medicine has been part of all our cultures and traditions for longer than history can tell. Use under guidance from someone educated isn’t a danger – it’s healing. It’s hurting my heart that plant medicine is forbidden in certain countries, based on incomplete or even false information.
Research shows that e.g. psylocibin can help with depression. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Thank you, plant medicine.
