Nicholas E. Brink's Blog, page 4
September 9, 2019
UNIQUENESS IN ECSTATIC TRANCE
Uniqueness in Ecstatic Trance
Ecstatic Trance has been practiced for thousands of years. It is believed that the earliest humans lived in a trance or dreamlike state much of the time, and in this altered state of consciousness they regularly communed with their ancestors and other spirits of the Earth. These guiding ancestral and Earth spirits gave them direction in how to live, hunt and gather. Their spirit guides showed them which plants to eat, which plants to use for healing, and provided them with answers to the many questions of life. But as time went on and the nature of consciousness evolved these spirits were not as readily available and to learn from the spirits was relegated to the shamans of the hunting and gathering communities. The people came to their shaman with concerns of health and questions regarding how to live. The shaman would typically go into a trance state to find the answers. The induction of this shamanic trance state took many forms. Shaman found the answer in sacred groves of trees, in caves, on mountain tops or in the tribe’s kiva. Some would fast and go on a vision quest, which lead them into the trance state. Some would use sacred dances, sometimes dancing for hours until they would fall in trance. Some would find an altered state of consciousness by using some sacred herb. Very common for many tribes was the use rapid drumming or the shaking of a rattle to induce trance, but it was in this state of trance that the shaman would find the answers to questions or the remedies for various problems of health.
The anthropologist Felicitas Goodman sought in her research to find what elements were necessary to bring a person into a state of trance. She initially found that to induce trance a belief is needed that the trance state is normal and valuable; that a sacred place is needed and entered; that some ritual is necessary for quieting one’s mind; and then rapid stimulation to the nervous system is needed such as provided by drumming or rattling. She created a ritual that incorporated these four elements and though her students did go into a trance, the trance lacked direction.
Generally what gave direction to the shaman in seeking an answer was the question for which they sought an answer. But, in Goodman’s continued research she read an article by V. F. Emerson, a Canadian psychologist, who discovered that different meditation postures caused different but specific changes in such body functions as heart rate, breathing rate, skin moisture, bowel motility. This led Goodman to examine the ancient art of the hunting-gathering peoples of the world in museums and books where she found what she believed were approximately 50 different postures used by shaman. When incorporating these postures in her ecstatic trance ritual she found that some postures bring healing energy into the body, other postures are for divination for finding answers to questions, some are for metamorphosis or shape-shifting, while others are for spirit journeying, some into the underworld, some in our middle world, and some for going into the upper world. There are also postures for initiation, i.e. postures that produced death-rebirth experiences. The use of these postures makes Felicitas Goodman’s Cuyamungue Method unique, giving the trance experience needed direction. It is her method and these postures that I use in teaching ecstatic trance.
Ecstatic Trance has been practiced for thousands of years. It is believed that the earliest humans lived in a trance or dreamlike state much of the time, and in this altered state of consciousness they regularly communed with their ancestors and other spirits of the Earth. These guiding ancestral and Earth spirits gave them direction in how to live, hunt and gather. Their spirit guides showed them which plants to eat, which plants to use for healing, and provided them with answers to the many questions of life. But as time went on and the nature of consciousness evolved these spirits were not as readily available and to learn from the spirits was relegated to the shamans of the hunting and gathering communities. The people came to their shaman with concerns of health and questions regarding how to live. The shaman would typically go into a trance state to find the answers. The induction of this shamanic trance state took many forms. Shaman found the answer in sacred groves of trees, in caves, on mountain tops or in the tribe’s kiva. Some would fast and go on a vision quest, which lead them into the trance state. Some would use sacred dances, sometimes dancing for hours until they would fall in trance. Some would find an altered state of consciousness by using some sacred herb. Very common for many tribes was the use rapid drumming or the shaking of a rattle to induce trance, but it was in this state of trance that the shaman would find the answers to questions or the remedies for various problems of health.
The anthropologist Felicitas Goodman sought in her research to find what elements were necessary to bring a person into a state of trance. She initially found that to induce trance a belief is needed that the trance state is normal and valuable; that a sacred place is needed and entered; that some ritual is necessary for quieting one’s mind; and then rapid stimulation to the nervous system is needed such as provided by drumming or rattling. She created a ritual that incorporated these four elements and though her students did go into a trance, the trance lacked direction.
Generally what gave direction to the shaman in seeking an answer was the question for which they sought an answer. But, in Goodman’s continued research she read an article by V. F. Emerson, a Canadian psychologist, who discovered that different meditation postures caused different but specific changes in such body functions as heart rate, breathing rate, skin moisture, bowel motility. This led Goodman to examine the ancient art of the hunting-gathering peoples of the world in museums and books where she found what she believed were approximately 50 different postures used by shaman. When incorporating these postures in her ecstatic trance ritual she found that some postures bring healing energy into the body, other postures are for divination for finding answers to questions, some are for metamorphosis or shape-shifting, while others are for spirit journeying, some into the underworld, some in our middle world, and some for going into the upper world. There are also postures for initiation, i.e. postures that produced death-rebirth experiences. The use of these postures makes Felicitas Goodman’s Cuyamungue Method unique, giving the trance experience needed direction. It is her method and these postures that I use in teaching ecstatic trance.
September 2, 2019
Listening With The Heart
LISTENING WITH THE HEART
In order to “Save the Earth” each of us need to develop a spiritual relationship with the Earth. To develop this spiritual relationship we need to learn how to listen to the Earth and all that is of the Earth, listening that was very much part of life of our hunting-gathering ancestor. This listening was lost during the last several thousand years that we have valued what has been called the rational era of consciousness, consciousness that relies exclusively upon our five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. This listening to the Earth now might be called using our sixth sense, or intuition, listening with our third ear, but listening in this way is listening in an altered state of consciousness whether in our nighttime dreams, hypnotic trance or ecstatic/shamanic trance. Listening in these altered states of consciousness is listening with the heart.
The heart is much more than a pump to circulate blood throughout the body. It is an organ of perception. While the verbal/intellectual/ analytic mode of cognition is located in the brain, the holistic/intuitive/depth mode of cognition is located in the heart. The heart functions as part of the central nervous system in that it generates a wide range of electromagnetic frequencies with many neural connections to the brain. It also functions as an endocrine gland in that it produces and releases numerous hormones as needed for our body to function in a healthy manner. Thus the heart impacts how we think and feel, i.e. it is central to the deeper and more holistic mode of intuitive consciousness. But to attain this intuitive way of listening we need to shift our attention from our brain to our heart. With this shift of attention our feelings come alive, a level of consciousness that we have missed while focusing on are brain alone while ignoring our sixth intuitive sense.
As we move into Jean Gebser’s new era of time-free and transparent consciousness we will again be open to calling upon our sixth sense, but for us to develop this sixth sense we need to practice accessing it by paying attention to our dreams and other trance experiences. This is an important reason why I teach ecstatic trance, i.e. to facilitate the development of our spiritual relationship with the Earth. I have discovered that during the mind quieting five minutes of the ecstatic trance ritual, besides focusing on our breathing we also need to focus on our heart to open ourselves to a spiritual relationship with the Earth and our spirit guides, a relationship that can again come alive within us as it was for our hunting and gathering ancestors.
In order to “Save the Earth” each of us need to develop a spiritual relationship with the Earth. To develop this spiritual relationship we need to learn how to listen to the Earth and all that is of the Earth, listening that was very much part of life of our hunting-gathering ancestor. This listening was lost during the last several thousand years that we have valued what has been called the rational era of consciousness, consciousness that relies exclusively upon our five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. This listening to the Earth now might be called using our sixth sense, or intuition, listening with our third ear, but listening in this way is listening in an altered state of consciousness whether in our nighttime dreams, hypnotic trance or ecstatic/shamanic trance. Listening in these altered states of consciousness is listening with the heart.
The heart is much more than a pump to circulate blood throughout the body. It is an organ of perception. While the verbal/intellectual/ analytic mode of cognition is located in the brain, the holistic/intuitive/depth mode of cognition is located in the heart. The heart functions as part of the central nervous system in that it generates a wide range of electromagnetic frequencies with many neural connections to the brain. It also functions as an endocrine gland in that it produces and releases numerous hormones as needed for our body to function in a healthy manner. Thus the heart impacts how we think and feel, i.e. it is central to the deeper and more holistic mode of intuitive consciousness. But to attain this intuitive way of listening we need to shift our attention from our brain to our heart. With this shift of attention our feelings come alive, a level of consciousness that we have missed while focusing on are brain alone while ignoring our sixth intuitive sense.
As we move into Jean Gebser’s new era of time-free and transparent consciousness we will again be open to calling upon our sixth sense, but for us to develop this sixth sense we need to practice accessing it by paying attention to our dreams and other trance experiences. This is an important reason why I teach ecstatic trance, i.e. to facilitate the development of our spiritual relationship with the Earth. I have discovered that during the mind quieting five minutes of the ecstatic trance ritual, besides focusing on our breathing we also need to focus on our heart to open ourselves to a spiritual relationship with the Earth and our spirit guides, a relationship that can again come alive within us as it was for our hunting and gathering ancestors.
August 27, 2019
Worms, Worts and Leeches: The Nine Sacred Herbs of Lacnunga
Review – Worms, Worts and Leeches: The Nine Sacred Herbs of Lacnunga by Robert Dale Rogers, Prairie Deva Press, 2018.
I was drawn to reading this Worms, Worts and Leeches because of a reference to the nine sacred herbs of Woden made by Pam Montgomery in her book Plant Spirit Healing, (p. 183) and my fascination with Nordic/Germanic Mythology. I have written three books drawing upon my deep immersion into Beowulf and the Nordic Prose Edda. In doing a computer search on Odin’s nine sacred herbs Worms, Worts and Leeches: The Nine Sacred Herbs of Lacnunga quickly appeared. I have also particularly valued and reviewed this author’s earlier books.
Though Lacnunga (from the Old English meaning Remedy) refers to nine herbs, when translated from the Old English what these nine herbs are is not clear so Rogers adds two herbs to the list with the hope of covering all nine, Mugwort, Plantain, Wood Betony, Shepherd’s Purse or Pennycress, German Chamomile, Stinging Nettle, Crab Apple, Wild Chervil or Wild Thyme, and Fennel. Rogers’ review of each of these eleven herbs as well as worms, flies and their maggots, and leaches provides most of the content of this book.
The book provides a treasure trove of information from the writings and research of others, from literature, poetry, history, other cultures, medical research, and studies of the chemical constituents of the plants. I consider Worms, Worts and Leeches a reference book to be used in studying these eleven herbs more than a book to be read from cover to cover. Each page of this book goes from one source to the next, source after source, offering information that also includes the use of the herbs’ essential oils, doses and cautions, flower oils hydrosols, flower essences, homeopathy uses, and recipes for infusions, fruit juices, tinctures, flower oils, and ales. The herbs’ signatures, personality traits, spiritual properties, and myths and legends are also explored. My personal valuing of the personality traits, spiritual properties and myths and legends of each herb led me to read these portions of the description for each plant, and I skimmed the other topics to be used as future references.
After reading the sections on worms, flies and their maggots, and leaches, the first herb of Odin’s nine sacred herbs is Artemisia or Mugwort. Of the eleven herbs I will review two, Mugwort and Stinging Nettle as both play a big part in our garden. I am currently leading an ecstatic trance group in spirit journeying with Mugwort so this section was especially of value to me. For the three people in the group, one felt the roots of Artemisia growing up through her body initially following her spine to her center from where it branched off to the heart and lungs, another experienced the natural flow of blood in her body, and the third saw a gate opening before him. All three of these images are indicated by Rogers. Artemisia is indicated for problems with a woman’s menses, childbirth and expelling the after birth thus recognizing its role in helping the flow of blood. It is also indicated for opening the gate in the various channels within the body, the meridians, the flow of Qi, and the other energy flows within the body, including the flow of energy along nerves of the spine, opening the spine.
Named after the Greek goddess, Artemis was at home in the wilderness of nature, roaming with wild animals and befriending the wild plants. The spirit of Mugwort mirrors this quality by leading one to access the spirits of nature. Of the Nine Sacred Herbs of Odin Mugwort is the first and the oldest of the herbs, the mother of all herbs.
From my involvement in the International Association for the Study of Dreams I have learned that Artemisia opens the gate to our nighttime dreams as a facilitator of dreaming, dreaming that brings us in contact with the world of the spirits beyond the veil, spirits that can change our lives and the ways in which we live. Dreamers frequently sleep with Mugwort under their pillow or nearby. My journey today took me beyond the veil where I found the goddess Artemis who led me down a path as my animal spirit guides joined us, a path lined with Artemisia that opened before us and closed behind, brushing us in a cleansing manner as we passed by. Artemis led us to a fire where Artemisia was offering herself to the fire giving us a cleansing smudge with her smoke.
The nine (eleven) sacred herbs of Odin are finding places set aside for them in our herb garden with ten of the herbs circling a crabapple tree at the center. As this and other gardens of herbs grow on our acre we are looking forward to journeying ecstatically with the spirits of each herb as they come alive within us.
As for the Stinging Nettle there is two sides to the Nettle, one the bully who attacks the gentle, tender hearted person, but the other submissive and soft as silk when faced in a strong manner. This description well describes the signature of the plant that I experience regularly. When the plant gently brushes along my bare skin it provides a burning sting, but if I take a piece of the plant firmly between my fingers its silkiness is soft and does not sting. A number of other features of the plant I find of special interest. One is its use in healing other plants, enhancing growth, and effective in controlling specific insects and preventing transplant shock. I am wondering if its anti-viral properties could be used as a spray to control the rose virus that is attacking roses in our area, and/or would other anti-viral plant medicines be effective to this same purpose. Also in my plan to a plant crabapple at the center of our Lacnunga garden will a spray of nettles with its anti-fungal properties help control the apple-cedar rust that is affecting our other apple trees.
Again as with other medicinal plants, the wide range of chemical constituents and their interactions is effective in treating a very wide range of maladies from cancer and diabetes, to anemia, rickets, respiratory diseases, edema because of its diuretic properties, bladder and kidney problems both for increasing urine volume and restricting it especially at night. It is high in protein and facilitates the use of protein in the body, in digestion, the immune response, liver metabolism. It helps in protecting the kidneys for someone with Lupus. This list goes on and on, and how the chemical constituents work in treating these maladies is generally explained, again a wealth of information that is useful in considering specific medical conditions.
Regarding the personality traits of Stinging Nettle, Nettle is a remedy that gets the job done, a switch that gets you moving, a tonic for those who tend to look half asleep and droopy. Nettle has rousing, rejuvenating and resurrecting powers. Regarding its spiritual properties, it has not one but two spirits, one that activates motion with its burning sting, the male spirit, and the other a gentle, loving compassion in trusting the world, its female spirit that shows love towards the other, again a description of its signature.
With regard to myths and legends of the Nettle, one is of a blind man who goes to a field he is interested in buying. He asks the owner if he can tie his horse to a clump of thistles and is told that there are no thistles in the field. He then asks if he can tie his horse to a stand of Nettles and the owner says that that he can tie the horse anywhere in the field because the field is full of Nettles. With this answer the blind man offers to buy the field because he knows that a field full of Nettles is very fertile.
Robert Rogers’ descriptions of Artemisia, Nettle and each of the eleven herbs are exceptionally informative, information that will be very useful to any practitioner of herbal medicine, and also in my writing. I am looking forward to spirit journeying with each herb to deeply experience its spirit, bringing it alive within me. With the many chemical constituents of each herb and the broad range of maladies that each herb can remediate finding which herb should be use for a particular problem becomes complicated and confusing. The commercial pharmaceuticals only treat a narrow aspect of a symptom with its many possible side effects and it does not necessarily go to the cause of the malady which is likely behavioral, mental, emotional and/or spiritual. Asking the herbalist for which herb I should use is also a fall back on the commercial medical/pharmaceutical model with its limitations. By recognizing the high intelligence of each plant a clearer answer as to which should be used and in what manner can be found by leaving this decision to the plant by asking it this question while journeying spiritually with it. In our groups when this question has been asked sometimes the answer from the plant is to take it to another plant. Finding the answers in this way was part of the life of our hunter-gathering ancestors and is again open to us when we use ecstatic/shamanic trance.
I was drawn to reading this Worms, Worts and Leeches because of a reference to the nine sacred herbs of Woden made by Pam Montgomery in her book Plant Spirit Healing, (p. 183) and my fascination with Nordic/Germanic Mythology. I have written three books drawing upon my deep immersion into Beowulf and the Nordic Prose Edda. In doing a computer search on Odin’s nine sacred herbs Worms, Worts and Leeches: The Nine Sacred Herbs of Lacnunga quickly appeared. I have also particularly valued and reviewed this author’s earlier books.
Though Lacnunga (from the Old English meaning Remedy) refers to nine herbs, when translated from the Old English what these nine herbs are is not clear so Rogers adds two herbs to the list with the hope of covering all nine, Mugwort, Plantain, Wood Betony, Shepherd’s Purse or Pennycress, German Chamomile, Stinging Nettle, Crab Apple, Wild Chervil or Wild Thyme, and Fennel. Rogers’ review of each of these eleven herbs as well as worms, flies and their maggots, and leaches provides most of the content of this book.
The book provides a treasure trove of information from the writings and research of others, from literature, poetry, history, other cultures, medical research, and studies of the chemical constituents of the plants. I consider Worms, Worts and Leeches a reference book to be used in studying these eleven herbs more than a book to be read from cover to cover. Each page of this book goes from one source to the next, source after source, offering information that also includes the use of the herbs’ essential oils, doses and cautions, flower oils hydrosols, flower essences, homeopathy uses, and recipes for infusions, fruit juices, tinctures, flower oils, and ales. The herbs’ signatures, personality traits, spiritual properties, and myths and legends are also explored. My personal valuing of the personality traits, spiritual properties and myths and legends of each herb led me to read these portions of the description for each plant, and I skimmed the other topics to be used as future references.
After reading the sections on worms, flies and their maggots, and leaches, the first herb of Odin’s nine sacred herbs is Artemisia or Mugwort. Of the eleven herbs I will review two, Mugwort and Stinging Nettle as both play a big part in our garden. I am currently leading an ecstatic trance group in spirit journeying with Mugwort so this section was especially of value to me. For the three people in the group, one felt the roots of Artemisia growing up through her body initially following her spine to her center from where it branched off to the heart and lungs, another experienced the natural flow of blood in her body, and the third saw a gate opening before him. All three of these images are indicated by Rogers. Artemisia is indicated for problems with a woman’s menses, childbirth and expelling the after birth thus recognizing its role in helping the flow of blood. It is also indicated for opening the gate in the various channels within the body, the meridians, the flow of Qi, and the other energy flows within the body, including the flow of energy along nerves of the spine, opening the spine.
Named after the Greek goddess, Artemis was at home in the wilderness of nature, roaming with wild animals and befriending the wild plants. The spirit of Mugwort mirrors this quality by leading one to access the spirits of nature. Of the Nine Sacred Herbs of Odin Mugwort is the first and the oldest of the herbs, the mother of all herbs.
From my involvement in the International Association for the Study of Dreams I have learned that Artemisia opens the gate to our nighttime dreams as a facilitator of dreaming, dreaming that brings us in contact with the world of the spirits beyond the veil, spirits that can change our lives and the ways in which we live. Dreamers frequently sleep with Mugwort under their pillow or nearby. My journey today took me beyond the veil where I found the goddess Artemis who led me down a path as my animal spirit guides joined us, a path lined with Artemisia that opened before us and closed behind, brushing us in a cleansing manner as we passed by. Artemis led us to a fire where Artemisia was offering herself to the fire giving us a cleansing smudge with her smoke.
The nine (eleven) sacred herbs of Odin are finding places set aside for them in our herb garden with ten of the herbs circling a crabapple tree at the center. As this and other gardens of herbs grow on our acre we are looking forward to journeying ecstatically with the spirits of each herb as they come alive within us.
As for the Stinging Nettle there is two sides to the Nettle, one the bully who attacks the gentle, tender hearted person, but the other submissive and soft as silk when faced in a strong manner. This description well describes the signature of the plant that I experience regularly. When the plant gently brushes along my bare skin it provides a burning sting, but if I take a piece of the plant firmly between my fingers its silkiness is soft and does not sting. A number of other features of the plant I find of special interest. One is its use in healing other plants, enhancing growth, and effective in controlling specific insects and preventing transplant shock. I am wondering if its anti-viral properties could be used as a spray to control the rose virus that is attacking roses in our area, and/or would other anti-viral plant medicines be effective to this same purpose. Also in my plan to a plant crabapple at the center of our Lacnunga garden will a spray of nettles with its anti-fungal properties help control the apple-cedar rust that is affecting our other apple trees.
Again as with other medicinal plants, the wide range of chemical constituents and their interactions is effective in treating a very wide range of maladies from cancer and diabetes, to anemia, rickets, respiratory diseases, edema because of its diuretic properties, bladder and kidney problems both for increasing urine volume and restricting it especially at night. It is high in protein and facilitates the use of protein in the body, in digestion, the immune response, liver metabolism. It helps in protecting the kidneys for someone with Lupus. This list goes on and on, and how the chemical constituents work in treating these maladies is generally explained, again a wealth of information that is useful in considering specific medical conditions.
Regarding the personality traits of Stinging Nettle, Nettle is a remedy that gets the job done, a switch that gets you moving, a tonic for those who tend to look half asleep and droopy. Nettle has rousing, rejuvenating and resurrecting powers. Regarding its spiritual properties, it has not one but two spirits, one that activates motion with its burning sting, the male spirit, and the other a gentle, loving compassion in trusting the world, its female spirit that shows love towards the other, again a description of its signature.
With regard to myths and legends of the Nettle, one is of a blind man who goes to a field he is interested in buying. He asks the owner if he can tie his horse to a clump of thistles and is told that there are no thistles in the field. He then asks if he can tie his horse to a stand of Nettles and the owner says that that he can tie the horse anywhere in the field because the field is full of Nettles. With this answer the blind man offers to buy the field because he knows that a field full of Nettles is very fertile.
Robert Rogers’ descriptions of Artemisia, Nettle and each of the eleven herbs are exceptionally informative, information that will be very useful to any practitioner of herbal medicine, and also in my writing. I am looking forward to spirit journeying with each herb to deeply experience its spirit, bringing it alive within me. With the many chemical constituents of each herb and the broad range of maladies that each herb can remediate finding which herb should be use for a particular problem becomes complicated and confusing. The commercial pharmaceuticals only treat a narrow aspect of a symptom with its many possible side effects and it does not necessarily go to the cause of the malady which is likely behavioral, mental, emotional and/or spiritual. Asking the herbalist for which herb I should use is also a fall back on the commercial medical/pharmaceutical model with its limitations. By recognizing the high intelligence of each plant a clearer answer as to which should be used and in what manner can be found by leaving this decision to the plant by asking it this question while journeying spiritually with it. In our groups when this question has been asked sometimes the answer from the plant is to take it to another plant. Finding the answers in this way was part of the life of our hunter-gathering ancestors and is again open to us when we use ecstatic/shamanic trance.
August 26, 2019
The Great Healing
THE GREAT HEALING
In many of my previous blogs I have described the evidence and signs that we are currently entering a new era of consciousness, the era of time-free transparency, of returning to the ways of our hunter-gatherer ancestors in their ability to commune with the world of the spirits, a world that opens them and us to the ways of living in harmony with the Earth. As beautifully described by Pam Montgomery in her book Plant Spirit Healing she states that this paradigm shift is taking us into a new world “shaped by the feminine paths of cooperation, nonaggression, inclusiveness, noncompetitiveness, service rather than dominance, use of psychic and spiritual gifts as well as technology, and living in conscious harmony with nature’s ways. … Because of plants’ predominance on the planet, their great sensitive intelligence, and their ability to heal on all levels, they are the ones to bring about massive healing during this major shifting time,” (pg 111).
To live in conscious harmony with nature’s ways requires that we again learn to listen to the ways of nature, listening that was very much part of the lives of our ancestors but was lost during the most recent era of rationality in which we have been living. In this era of rationality what was believed to be real came only through our five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. That which was experienced through the sixth sense of intuition and through altered states of consciousness such as in our nighttime dreams and the trance states of hypnosis and ecstatic trance has been considered superstitious. I believe that we are at a turning point. The critical mass has been reached with enough of us now recognize that our nighttime dreams and other third eye experiences are real and have much to teach us, showing us how to live in harmony with the Earth.
Our indigenous neighbors refer to this new age as the Fifth World. In the past, each transition to a new world has brought about great turmoil and conflict because of those who are afraid of such change and are hanging onto the old ways of thinking. This is very evident in the current state of affairs in which we are living with those who continue to seek to have control over the Earth in their personal greed and striving for monetary wealth. Their ways of living continue to destroy the Earth rather than living in loving harmony with our Great Earth Mother and in being one with her.
In my practice of Ecstatic Trance and as an instructor of this form of trance that uses ancient shamanic/ecstatic body postures I have learned much from my many spirit guides and I am currently excited about learning from the plant spirits that are showing me how to live in a healthy manner with all that is of the Earth. I am eager to show others how they too can listen to the Earth and all that is of the Earth. Please contact me, especially those of you who live in the Hudson Valley of New York, at brinknick9@gmail.com to learn more of the ways of listening to the spirits of your ancestors and the spirits of the Earth.
In many of my previous blogs I have described the evidence and signs that we are currently entering a new era of consciousness, the era of time-free transparency, of returning to the ways of our hunter-gatherer ancestors in their ability to commune with the world of the spirits, a world that opens them and us to the ways of living in harmony with the Earth. As beautifully described by Pam Montgomery in her book Plant Spirit Healing she states that this paradigm shift is taking us into a new world “shaped by the feminine paths of cooperation, nonaggression, inclusiveness, noncompetitiveness, service rather than dominance, use of psychic and spiritual gifts as well as technology, and living in conscious harmony with nature’s ways. … Because of plants’ predominance on the planet, their great sensitive intelligence, and their ability to heal on all levels, they are the ones to bring about massive healing during this major shifting time,” (pg 111).
To live in conscious harmony with nature’s ways requires that we again learn to listen to the ways of nature, listening that was very much part of the lives of our ancestors but was lost during the most recent era of rationality in which we have been living. In this era of rationality what was believed to be real came only through our five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. That which was experienced through the sixth sense of intuition and through altered states of consciousness such as in our nighttime dreams and the trance states of hypnosis and ecstatic trance has been considered superstitious. I believe that we are at a turning point. The critical mass has been reached with enough of us now recognize that our nighttime dreams and other third eye experiences are real and have much to teach us, showing us how to live in harmony with the Earth.
Our indigenous neighbors refer to this new age as the Fifth World. In the past, each transition to a new world has brought about great turmoil and conflict because of those who are afraid of such change and are hanging onto the old ways of thinking. This is very evident in the current state of affairs in which we are living with those who continue to seek to have control over the Earth in their personal greed and striving for monetary wealth. Their ways of living continue to destroy the Earth rather than living in loving harmony with our Great Earth Mother and in being one with her.
In my practice of Ecstatic Trance and as an instructor of this form of trance that uses ancient shamanic/ecstatic body postures I have learned much from my many spirit guides and I am currently excited about learning from the plant spirits that are showing me how to live in a healthy manner with all that is of the Earth. I am eager to show others how they too can listen to the Earth and all that is of the Earth. Please contact me, especially those of you who live in the Hudson Valley of New York, at brinknick9@gmail.com to learn more of the ways of listening to the spirits of your ancestors and the spirits of the Earth.
August 21, 2019
Sacred Plant Initiation
Book Review: Sacred Plant Initiations: Communicating with Plants for Healing and Higher Consciousness by Carol Guyett. Rochester, VT: Bear & Co, 2015.
I was drawn to reviewing Sacred Plant Initiations by its title since I use and value initiation ceremonies for communicating with plants. Also, in first flipping through the book I came to its colored photographic plates with the first photo being of Guyett’s labyrinth. The first thing I did in moving last year to the Hudson Valley of New York was to construct a labyrinth which is also a part of our initiation ceremonies. Carol Guyett describes the labyrinth as holding divine feminine energy with wholeness in balancing the male and female. With my Sami connection I learned that the Sami believe that when they walk their feet connect with their deceased ancestors who walked upside down in the underworld and since walking the labyrinth is trance inducing it opens the door for communication with the ancestors. That’s why many labyrinths are found in Lapland.
Central to Carole Guyett’s sacred plant ceremonies is what she refers to as the plant diet, i.e. ingesting an elixir of the plant whether it is a tea infusion, a decoction, tincture, oil, a wine or beer, vinegar, or a plant essence preparation. She offers with each plant chapter several recipes for the plant elixirs that she uses in her initiation ceremonies. My early introduction to the use of medicinal plants was to read about the use of the plant essence, some part of the plant that has been repeatedly watered down to where next to nothing of the plant exists in the elixir. At the time this did not make sense to me. I thought that the plant substance is what promotes healing. But, at the same time in my use of ecstatic trance I valued the many animal spirit guides that have come to me, and I do not ingest anything of the animal for it to have a major influence on my life. With this realization my thinking changed. I’ve come to value the belief that I do not need to ingest anything of the plant for the plant spirit to have a significant effect in my life. Ceremonially ingesting a plant elixir though can be a part of the initiation ritual and adds to bringing alive within me the spirit of the plant.
Carole Guyett has impressive credentials in the number of different mentors she has worked with first in England at the School of Herbal Medicine, Findhorn in Scotland, and Perelandra in the United States. Upon moving to Ireland she also trained under an American Indian medicine woman, Arwyn DreamWalker and with Peruvian shamans.
In the first 65 pages of the book she lays out the necessary features for creating initiation ceremonies to communicate with and experience the consciousness of plants, the plant spirit. There are many gateways in ceremonially communicating with plants. It is important to work with the whole plant and the whole person. These ceremonies are not experienced in normal consciousness but in an altered state of consciousness and require honoring the plant and plant spirit. To connect with the plant spirit one needs to be authentic in performing the ceremony. One goes to the plant with a relaxed and trusting attitude, and with clear intention to connect. One goes to the plant, seeing its beauty with wonder and gratitude while introducing one’s self and explaining one’s intent. The plant needs to be experienced with all five senses of sight, touch, aroma, taste and sound. Listening to the plant is through the heart by paying attention to your feelings and of what comes to mind, spending time with the plant without judgment or comparison, and finally giving thanks to the plant while leaving a gift.
In preparing the plant elixir this same attitude of honoring and listening to the plant is most important, asking permission with sacred intent for harvesting, preparing the elixir and learning what part of the plant to use. Tinctures, wines and beers, and other preparations often take longer and need to be prepared weeks or even months before the initiation ceremony, though each step of the way requires the ritual of honoring and listening to the plant, thus bringing you in communion with the plant.
For the initiation ceremony the person needs to prepare the self generally three days ahead of time with a period of purification by fasting or restricting what is eaten (no meat, refined sugar, alcohol, strong spices, and artificial additives). For the initiation ceremony a sacred space is needed that is clean, clear and safe, and the sacred space is entered with clear focus of intention and with no distractions. The sacred space includes an altar for appropriate items such as a vase holding the sacred plant or maybe a drawing or piece of artwork that represents the plant, and a vile of the elixir. The sacred space may be outside next to the plant, in the labyrinth or in a special inside space. Each person is cleansed with smudging with the smoke of a sacred herb, and an invocation for calling the spirits from each direction is offered before offering a few drops of the elixir to our Earth Mother and then ingesting it. These ritual steps aid in bringing about the induction of an altered state of consciousness. In my induction of ecstatic trance the next step would be to quieting the mind by following one’s breathing for five minutes, the time that I would think would be perfect for doing the green breath, a method for joining with the plant through breath and music developed by Pam Montgomery and valued by Carol Guyett.
My use of ecstatic trance is quite parallel to Carole Guyett’s ceremony. I follow each of her steps except that I now have added her feature of ingesting the elixir after calling the spirits and again at the end of the ecstatic trance induction. With my use of ecstatic trance after smudging and calling the spirits, the participants proceed to quiet their minds. I use drumming or the shaking of a rattle to induce trance and I also have the participants stand as does Guyett, but with the drumming we sit or lay in a specific ecstatic posture. My mentor Felicitas Goodman in her research of ecstatic trance examined the ancient art of the hunter and gathering people and found what she believed were the sacred postures used by the shamans of the tribe. In experimenting with these postures she found that some postures were for bringing into the body a healing energy, some were for divination of finding answers to question and others were for metamorphosis or shape-shifting. Then there were the postures for spirit journeying, some for going into the underworld, some for journeying in the middle world and some for going into the upper world. The last described postures were for initiation providing death-rebirth experiences.
In communing with plant spirits we use four of these postures, first a divination posture for asking about the nature of the plant, i.e. becoming acquainted with the plant (the Lady of Cholula Posture). In the second session we use a healing posture with the right hand resting upon the heart that is holding a piece of the plant, i.e. falling in love with the plant (the Chiltan Spirits Posture). For the third session the posture we use is a shape-shifting posture to become one with the plant, i.e. marriage (the Olmec Prince Posture but with fingers splayed as if they were roots). In the fourth session we use an initiation or death-rebirth posture that brings about a change in one’s life, i.e. a change that occurs sometime after the beginning of the marriage (the Feathered Serpent Posture).
At the conclusion of the initiation the trance experiences are shared. The trance or dreamlike dreamtime experiences, whether from Guyett’ Initiations or from ecstatic trance, are generally narratives, often metaphoric, that tell a story that is relevant to a person’s personal life, a story that is healing physically, behaviorally, mentally, emotionally and/or spiritually, thus these experiences go beyond healing some limited physical symptom as is expected by a commercial pharmaceutical.
Carole Guyett beautifully adds a number of other ritual activities to initiate the trance experience including the Wheel of the Year, the Wheel of Light, the Green Breath, and singing with the plant while using the plant’s song.
As we experience Grandmother Earth’s sacred cycle, the Wheel of the Year, as she moves around the sun, we become aware of each season, the beginning of which we have identified as the two solstices, the longest and shortest days of the year, and the two equinoxes when day and night are equal in length. But our pre-Celtic ancestors also honored the four points in the cycle between each equinox and solstice, the four Celtic Fire Festivals. Bealtaine, at the end of April and the beginning of May, falls between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice, at the time of our May Day. The Lughnasagh Fire Festival is at the end of July and the beginning of August, between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox, celebrating the beginning of the harvest. The third fire festival is Samhain at the end of October and the beginning of November, between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice, Halloween when the spirits of our ancestors are most open to us. The fourth fire festival is Imbolic, at the end of January and the beginning of February which is between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Carole Guyett uses these eight points of the Wheel of the Year for the plant initiation ceremonies for the eight sacred plants she describes in this book, Primrose, Dog Rose, Oak, Blackthorn, Elder, St. John’s Wort, Angelica, and Dandelion.
In the Wheel of Light she leads the participants to call upon and bring the spirit of the plant into each of the chakra. The litany for this Light Wheel along with a combination of drumming and new age music beautifully induces trance, with the litany and music available on the Inner Traditions website: https://audio.innertraditions.com/sap... At this same website is Carol Guyett’s litany and drumming for meeting the plant in nature and an example of singing with the song of the plant. Each provides beautiful experiences in journeying with the plant’s spirit.
Of the eight plants of the Wheel of the Year I was most strongly drawn to the plant of the Winter Solstice, St. John’s Wort. Over the years as a psychologist I frequently worked with people with depression during the winter months, a problem often diagnosed as seasonal affective disorder. At the time of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the bright yellow flowers bring the light of the sun, the power to cast out negativity and to dispel darkness. This light bringer has traditionally been effective in resolving numerous physical problems such as opening obstructions, dissolving swelling, and closing wounds.
What I looked forward to the most was the last section of each chapter, the Dreaming with … section where she offered the dreaming/trance experiences of her initiates as they journeyed with the plant spirit. I find that these journeys with the plant spirit guide provide the core of plant healing. The many chemicals offered by a plant and the wide range of maladies that a plant may treat becomes very complicated, but the plant spirit knows and can determine which chemicals are most needed to aide in curing a specific malady. More than providing a chemical cure, the plant goes to the cause of the problem which is most likely something more behavioral, mental, emotional or spiritual, and the spirit of the plant gives direction to the initiates for what needs to change in their lives. The Dreaming with… experiences revealed the behavioral, mental, emotional or spiritual changes needed. For St. John’s Wort Guyett offers six areas of trance experiences. Each are related to receiving light in overcoming depression or enhancing energy: Receiving Light, Lightening Darkness, Releasing Old Patterns, Reconnecting with Nature and Spiritual Guidance, Enhancing Creativity and Anchoring New Energies on Earth.
Rather than trying to second guess which plant substance should be ingested for which malady, I find the picture much clearer by relying on the plant to make this decision. I have sometimes found that in going to one plant, the answer I receive is that I need to take the problem to a different plant. By ingesting a plant elixir with honor and respect as suggested by Carol Guyett the plant remains in charge. Sacred Plant Initiations is a very valuable and beautiful book in showing us what I would consider this more powerful approach to plant healing.
I was drawn to reviewing Sacred Plant Initiations by its title since I use and value initiation ceremonies for communicating with plants. Also, in first flipping through the book I came to its colored photographic plates with the first photo being of Guyett’s labyrinth. The first thing I did in moving last year to the Hudson Valley of New York was to construct a labyrinth which is also a part of our initiation ceremonies. Carol Guyett describes the labyrinth as holding divine feminine energy with wholeness in balancing the male and female. With my Sami connection I learned that the Sami believe that when they walk their feet connect with their deceased ancestors who walked upside down in the underworld and since walking the labyrinth is trance inducing it opens the door for communication with the ancestors. That’s why many labyrinths are found in Lapland.
Central to Carole Guyett’s sacred plant ceremonies is what she refers to as the plant diet, i.e. ingesting an elixir of the plant whether it is a tea infusion, a decoction, tincture, oil, a wine or beer, vinegar, or a plant essence preparation. She offers with each plant chapter several recipes for the plant elixirs that she uses in her initiation ceremonies. My early introduction to the use of medicinal plants was to read about the use of the plant essence, some part of the plant that has been repeatedly watered down to where next to nothing of the plant exists in the elixir. At the time this did not make sense to me. I thought that the plant substance is what promotes healing. But, at the same time in my use of ecstatic trance I valued the many animal spirit guides that have come to me, and I do not ingest anything of the animal for it to have a major influence on my life. With this realization my thinking changed. I’ve come to value the belief that I do not need to ingest anything of the plant for the plant spirit to have a significant effect in my life. Ceremonially ingesting a plant elixir though can be a part of the initiation ritual and adds to bringing alive within me the spirit of the plant.
Carole Guyett has impressive credentials in the number of different mentors she has worked with first in England at the School of Herbal Medicine, Findhorn in Scotland, and Perelandra in the United States. Upon moving to Ireland she also trained under an American Indian medicine woman, Arwyn DreamWalker and with Peruvian shamans.
In the first 65 pages of the book she lays out the necessary features for creating initiation ceremonies to communicate with and experience the consciousness of plants, the plant spirit. There are many gateways in ceremonially communicating with plants. It is important to work with the whole plant and the whole person. These ceremonies are not experienced in normal consciousness but in an altered state of consciousness and require honoring the plant and plant spirit. To connect with the plant spirit one needs to be authentic in performing the ceremony. One goes to the plant with a relaxed and trusting attitude, and with clear intention to connect. One goes to the plant, seeing its beauty with wonder and gratitude while introducing one’s self and explaining one’s intent. The plant needs to be experienced with all five senses of sight, touch, aroma, taste and sound. Listening to the plant is through the heart by paying attention to your feelings and of what comes to mind, spending time with the plant without judgment or comparison, and finally giving thanks to the plant while leaving a gift.
In preparing the plant elixir this same attitude of honoring and listening to the plant is most important, asking permission with sacred intent for harvesting, preparing the elixir and learning what part of the plant to use. Tinctures, wines and beers, and other preparations often take longer and need to be prepared weeks or even months before the initiation ceremony, though each step of the way requires the ritual of honoring and listening to the plant, thus bringing you in communion with the plant.
For the initiation ceremony the person needs to prepare the self generally three days ahead of time with a period of purification by fasting or restricting what is eaten (no meat, refined sugar, alcohol, strong spices, and artificial additives). For the initiation ceremony a sacred space is needed that is clean, clear and safe, and the sacred space is entered with clear focus of intention and with no distractions. The sacred space includes an altar for appropriate items such as a vase holding the sacred plant or maybe a drawing or piece of artwork that represents the plant, and a vile of the elixir. The sacred space may be outside next to the plant, in the labyrinth or in a special inside space. Each person is cleansed with smudging with the smoke of a sacred herb, and an invocation for calling the spirits from each direction is offered before offering a few drops of the elixir to our Earth Mother and then ingesting it. These ritual steps aid in bringing about the induction of an altered state of consciousness. In my induction of ecstatic trance the next step would be to quieting the mind by following one’s breathing for five minutes, the time that I would think would be perfect for doing the green breath, a method for joining with the plant through breath and music developed by Pam Montgomery and valued by Carol Guyett.
My use of ecstatic trance is quite parallel to Carole Guyett’s ceremony. I follow each of her steps except that I now have added her feature of ingesting the elixir after calling the spirits and again at the end of the ecstatic trance induction. With my use of ecstatic trance after smudging and calling the spirits, the participants proceed to quiet their minds. I use drumming or the shaking of a rattle to induce trance and I also have the participants stand as does Guyett, but with the drumming we sit or lay in a specific ecstatic posture. My mentor Felicitas Goodman in her research of ecstatic trance examined the ancient art of the hunter and gathering people and found what she believed were the sacred postures used by the shamans of the tribe. In experimenting with these postures she found that some postures were for bringing into the body a healing energy, some were for divination of finding answers to question and others were for metamorphosis or shape-shifting. Then there were the postures for spirit journeying, some for going into the underworld, some for journeying in the middle world and some for going into the upper world. The last described postures were for initiation providing death-rebirth experiences.
In communing with plant spirits we use four of these postures, first a divination posture for asking about the nature of the plant, i.e. becoming acquainted with the plant (the Lady of Cholula Posture). In the second session we use a healing posture with the right hand resting upon the heart that is holding a piece of the plant, i.e. falling in love with the plant (the Chiltan Spirits Posture). For the third session the posture we use is a shape-shifting posture to become one with the plant, i.e. marriage (the Olmec Prince Posture but with fingers splayed as if they were roots). In the fourth session we use an initiation or death-rebirth posture that brings about a change in one’s life, i.e. a change that occurs sometime after the beginning of the marriage (the Feathered Serpent Posture).
At the conclusion of the initiation the trance experiences are shared. The trance or dreamlike dreamtime experiences, whether from Guyett’ Initiations or from ecstatic trance, are generally narratives, often metaphoric, that tell a story that is relevant to a person’s personal life, a story that is healing physically, behaviorally, mentally, emotionally and/or spiritually, thus these experiences go beyond healing some limited physical symptom as is expected by a commercial pharmaceutical.
Carole Guyett beautifully adds a number of other ritual activities to initiate the trance experience including the Wheel of the Year, the Wheel of Light, the Green Breath, and singing with the plant while using the plant’s song.
As we experience Grandmother Earth’s sacred cycle, the Wheel of the Year, as she moves around the sun, we become aware of each season, the beginning of which we have identified as the two solstices, the longest and shortest days of the year, and the two equinoxes when day and night are equal in length. But our pre-Celtic ancestors also honored the four points in the cycle between each equinox and solstice, the four Celtic Fire Festivals. Bealtaine, at the end of April and the beginning of May, falls between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice, at the time of our May Day. The Lughnasagh Fire Festival is at the end of July and the beginning of August, between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox, celebrating the beginning of the harvest. The third fire festival is Samhain at the end of October and the beginning of November, between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice, Halloween when the spirits of our ancestors are most open to us. The fourth fire festival is Imbolic, at the end of January and the beginning of February which is between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Carole Guyett uses these eight points of the Wheel of the Year for the plant initiation ceremonies for the eight sacred plants she describes in this book, Primrose, Dog Rose, Oak, Blackthorn, Elder, St. John’s Wort, Angelica, and Dandelion.
In the Wheel of Light she leads the participants to call upon and bring the spirit of the plant into each of the chakra. The litany for this Light Wheel along with a combination of drumming and new age music beautifully induces trance, with the litany and music available on the Inner Traditions website: https://audio.innertraditions.com/sap... At this same website is Carol Guyett’s litany and drumming for meeting the plant in nature and an example of singing with the song of the plant. Each provides beautiful experiences in journeying with the plant’s spirit.
Of the eight plants of the Wheel of the Year I was most strongly drawn to the plant of the Winter Solstice, St. John’s Wort. Over the years as a psychologist I frequently worked with people with depression during the winter months, a problem often diagnosed as seasonal affective disorder. At the time of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the bright yellow flowers bring the light of the sun, the power to cast out negativity and to dispel darkness. This light bringer has traditionally been effective in resolving numerous physical problems such as opening obstructions, dissolving swelling, and closing wounds.
What I looked forward to the most was the last section of each chapter, the Dreaming with … section where she offered the dreaming/trance experiences of her initiates as they journeyed with the plant spirit. I find that these journeys with the plant spirit guide provide the core of plant healing. The many chemicals offered by a plant and the wide range of maladies that a plant may treat becomes very complicated, but the plant spirit knows and can determine which chemicals are most needed to aide in curing a specific malady. More than providing a chemical cure, the plant goes to the cause of the problem which is most likely something more behavioral, mental, emotional or spiritual, and the spirit of the plant gives direction to the initiates for what needs to change in their lives. The Dreaming with… experiences revealed the behavioral, mental, emotional or spiritual changes needed. For St. John’s Wort Guyett offers six areas of trance experiences. Each are related to receiving light in overcoming depression or enhancing energy: Receiving Light, Lightening Darkness, Releasing Old Patterns, Reconnecting with Nature and Spiritual Guidance, Enhancing Creativity and Anchoring New Energies on Earth.
Rather than trying to second guess which plant substance should be ingested for which malady, I find the picture much clearer by relying on the plant to make this decision. I have sometimes found that in going to one plant, the answer I receive is that I need to take the problem to a different plant. By ingesting a plant elixir with honor and respect as suggested by Carol Guyett the plant remains in charge. Sacred Plant Initiations is a very valuable and beautiful book in showing us what I would consider this more powerful approach to plant healing.
August 19, 2019
Becoming One With Plants
Becoming One With Plants (8/19/19)
In our continued journeying with ecstatic trance and with herbal spirit guides we have begun journeying with the spirits of the many plants as I bring others to our one acre in the Hudson Valley. Yesterday four of us had a pleasant journey in becoming acquainted with Artemisia or Mugwort. Our four session journey began by using the Lady of Cholula ecstatic trance posture, a posture for divination to become acquainted with the plant with the intent of seeking a deeper relationship with her. The Lady of Cholula is an ancient shamanic figurine found in Cholula, Mexico that now resides in the Branly Museum in Paris.
I began my trance experience by expressing my gratitude and respect for Artemisia. I then felt appreciation coming from her as we paid attention to her. She has been ignored and considered a weed for many generations by most people since the time of the hunter and gatherers. Farmers have torn her up and put her on the compost pile or poisoned her. We have ignored the fact that she is an indispensible part of the interdependency of all life on Earth and offers us much for our health. Isabel found strength and warmth coming from her as she grew and covered the four of us with her divine silver bottomed leaves that protected us as we sat before her. Rosane felt the roots of the plant growing into the soles of her feet and traveling up her legs to her center before branching out to her heart and lungs. Josh found relaxation in the flow of mugwort’s many different shades of green that mingled with each other and opened a large gate before him as he sensed something coming through it to him.
For our next session, to deepen this relationship with Artemisia we will use the Chiltan Spirits Posture, a healing posture, while holding a piece of her to our heart as we fall in love with it. Each of the four planned sessions brings us into a deeper relationship with the plant that will deeply change our lives. For the third session we will sit in the Olmec Prince Posture, a shape-shifting posture, with our fingers splayed on the ground as roots to become one with it in marriage. But, as with marriage it takes time for this new close relationship to begin to change one’s life, for the old ways of life to die as we become one with our partner, thus in the fourth session we will use the Feathered Serpent initiation or death-rebirth posture to let Artemisia deeply influence our lives.
With the approach of Autumn I would love to have others join in this journey to become one of the various medicinal plants on our acre in High Falls. My time is quite open. Please let me know if you are interested and when you would be available.
In our continued journeying with ecstatic trance and with herbal spirit guides we have begun journeying with the spirits of the many plants as I bring others to our one acre in the Hudson Valley. Yesterday four of us had a pleasant journey in becoming acquainted with Artemisia or Mugwort. Our four session journey began by using the Lady of Cholula ecstatic trance posture, a posture for divination to become acquainted with the plant with the intent of seeking a deeper relationship with her. The Lady of Cholula is an ancient shamanic figurine found in Cholula, Mexico that now resides in the Branly Museum in Paris.
I began my trance experience by expressing my gratitude and respect for Artemisia. I then felt appreciation coming from her as we paid attention to her. She has been ignored and considered a weed for many generations by most people since the time of the hunter and gatherers. Farmers have torn her up and put her on the compost pile or poisoned her. We have ignored the fact that she is an indispensible part of the interdependency of all life on Earth and offers us much for our health. Isabel found strength and warmth coming from her as she grew and covered the four of us with her divine silver bottomed leaves that protected us as we sat before her. Rosane felt the roots of the plant growing into the soles of her feet and traveling up her legs to her center before branching out to her heart and lungs. Josh found relaxation in the flow of mugwort’s many different shades of green that mingled with each other and opened a large gate before him as he sensed something coming through it to him.
For our next session, to deepen this relationship with Artemisia we will use the Chiltan Spirits Posture, a healing posture, while holding a piece of her to our heart as we fall in love with it. Each of the four planned sessions brings us into a deeper relationship with the plant that will deeply change our lives. For the third session we will sit in the Olmec Prince Posture, a shape-shifting posture, with our fingers splayed on the ground as roots to become one with it in marriage. But, as with marriage it takes time for this new close relationship to begin to change one’s life, for the old ways of life to die as we become one with our partner, thus in the fourth session we will use the Feathered Serpent initiation or death-rebirth posture to let Artemisia deeply influence our lives.
With the approach of Autumn I would love to have others join in this journey to become one of the various medicinal plants on our acre in High Falls. My time is quite open. Please let me know if you are interested and when you would be available.
August 12, 2019
Hunting
HUNTING 8/12/2019
Hunting deer and other animals was very different during the hunting-gathering era than it is now. My reading and my experiences with ecstatic trance have repeatedly taken me back to the hunter-gathering era, especially to the Ohlone of the San Francisco Bay Area, and to the Sami Reindeer Herders of Lapland. My ecstatic journeys with the Chumash of the Santa Barbara Area of California, the Lenape of Pennsylvania, and the Inca and Pre-Inca peoples of Peru have added to understanding these differences.
Now, with the high powered rifles killing has become easy except for the fear instilled in the animals, causing them to be harder to find. During the era of the hunter-gatherers and for the contemporary hunter-gatherers such as the Sami, people lived with the animals. The animals knew the hunters and trusted them. The youth of the tribe as experienced in my journeying with the Ohlone were expected to sit quietly near a herd of deer for days at a time to gain their trust until the deer were eating out of their hands. When hunting the shamans of the tribe could easily locate the herds through their ability to see in trance, and before the age of depending upon the shaman all hunters had that ability, thus making hunting easier but with less powerful weapons.
For the Sami the reindeer learned to appreciate the herders, because they protected them from wolves, and with this appreciation they were willing to occasionally sacrifice one of their own to the Sami. They knew the Sami would not take advantage by killing more than they needed, and killing more than they needed was impossible because of their frequent moving to follow the herd. The deer would likely chose to sacrifice an elderly deer about ready to die or possibly a disabled younger deer, and with this choice would position the deer to make it much easier to kill. A close relationship between animal and hunter existed for the benefit of both species.
For the Sami the reindeer herd was still wild except for a select few fawns that were rescued when the mother was for some reason lost, and they were raised to become more domesticated. These domesticated deer were those used as pack animals when the people moved from place to place with the herd otherwise they would run with the herd. The herd remains in charge of it movements and the humans would follow.
This life of living with the animals was much different and humans were much more in-tune with nature, not living the Earth destructive way we live now. This life style also applies to how people lived with the plants that they gathered to eat and for healing. They knew not to pick the first plant they came to, knowing that it could possibly be the last in the area, and they were able to listen to the plant to know which ones to harvest. This life was paradise, the Garden of Eden, and the people of the time lived longer than the following generations of agriculturists whose life on the surface may have appeared easier but was actually more difficult. With these new stresses, living is larger communities where disease became more wide spread, and with the narrower number of plants they consumed their health decreased. This decrease in life expectancy was quite apparent in the research done on burial sites in Ireland that determined the life expectancy of the earlier hunter-gatherers to be longer than the following agriculturists.
Hunting deer and other animals was very different during the hunting-gathering era than it is now. My reading and my experiences with ecstatic trance have repeatedly taken me back to the hunter-gathering era, especially to the Ohlone of the San Francisco Bay Area, and to the Sami Reindeer Herders of Lapland. My ecstatic journeys with the Chumash of the Santa Barbara Area of California, the Lenape of Pennsylvania, and the Inca and Pre-Inca peoples of Peru have added to understanding these differences.
Now, with the high powered rifles killing has become easy except for the fear instilled in the animals, causing them to be harder to find. During the era of the hunter-gatherers and for the contemporary hunter-gatherers such as the Sami, people lived with the animals. The animals knew the hunters and trusted them. The youth of the tribe as experienced in my journeying with the Ohlone were expected to sit quietly near a herd of deer for days at a time to gain their trust until the deer were eating out of their hands. When hunting the shamans of the tribe could easily locate the herds through their ability to see in trance, and before the age of depending upon the shaman all hunters had that ability, thus making hunting easier but with less powerful weapons.
For the Sami the reindeer learned to appreciate the herders, because they protected them from wolves, and with this appreciation they were willing to occasionally sacrifice one of their own to the Sami. They knew the Sami would not take advantage by killing more than they needed, and killing more than they needed was impossible because of their frequent moving to follow the herd. The deer would likely chose to sacrifice an elderly deer about ready to die or possibly a disabled younger deer, and with this choice would position the deer to make it much easier to kill. A close relationship between animal and hunter existed for the benefit of both species.
For the Sami the reindeer herd was still wild except for a select few fawns that were rescued when the mother was for some reason lost, and they were raised to become more domesticated. These domesticated deer were those used as pack animals when the people moved from place to place with the herd otherwise they would run with the herd. The herd remains in charge of it movements and the humans would follow.
This life of living with the animals was much different and humans were much more in-tune with nature, not living the Earth destructive way we live now. This life style also applies to how people lived with the plants that they gathered to eat and for healing. They knew not to pick the first plant they came to, knowing that it could possibly be the last in the area, and they were able to listen to the plant to know which ones to harvest. This life was paradise, the Garden of Eden, and the people of the time lived longer than the following generations of agriculturists whose life on the surface may have appeared easier but was actually more difficult. With these new stresses, living is larger communities where disease became more wide spread, and with the narrower number of plants they consumed their health decreased. This decrease in life expectancy was quite apparent in the research done on burial sites in Ireland that determined the life expectancy of the earlier hunter-gatherers to be longer than the following agriculturists.
August 5, 2019
Plant Spirit Medicine
Plant Spirit Medicine
As I have mentioned previously, I have noted that many if not most of the questions asked regarding medicinal plants is what plant can I use for a specific medical problem, the same question that is asked of commercial pharmaceuticals. From my reading I have learned that each medicinal plant has a very broad range of what it can be used for and that the plant elixir goes to the cause of the disease whereas the commercial pharmaceuticals generally treat the more advanced symptoms of a disease and do not get to the cause. Another characteristic of plant medicine is that if you listen to what the plant has to say you find that the plant has greater understanding of what you may need than we do as humans. In the evolution of life on Earth plants are much-much older than animal life and much more experienced in adapting to environmental conditions in which they live. Their intelligence needs to be valued.
How do you listen to plants? I have listened to animal spirit guides for fifteen or more years using ecstatic trance for which I am a certified instructor. I do not need to ingest anything of the animal spirit guide to receive its healing guidance, but many people believe that the plant needs to be ingested to benefit from it. As I have pursued listening to plant spirit guides using ecstatic trance I find that they offer me the same kind of story narratives that the animal spirit guides offer, stories that tell me how to live, and what I need to change within myself to live in a more healthy manner, giving me new directions in life. These physical, behavioral, emotional, and spiritual aspects of life that are the deeper causes of disease are what need to change to bring about health in overcoming most all diseases. Treating the symptoms of these diseases does not get to the source of the problem as happens with the use of commercial pharmaceuticals.
There are those who use plant essences and homeopathic remedies that contain nothing or next to nothing of the plant. These remedies are used in the initiation or ritual experience that brings about an altered state of consciousness as in the ritual to induce ecstatic trance thus opening a person to listen to the plant and learn what needs to be done physically, behaviorally, emotional or spiritually to bring about health.
As I have mentioned previously, I have noted that many if not most of the questions asked regarding medicinal plants is what plant can I use for a specific medical problem, the same question that is asked of commercial pharmaceuticals. From my reading I have learned that each medicinal plant has a very broad range of what it can be used for and that the plant elixir goes to the cause of the disease whereas the commercial pharmaceuticals generally treat the more advanced symptoms of a disease and do not get to the cause. Another characteristic of plant medicine is that if you listen to what the plant has to say you find that the plant has greater understanding of what you may need than we do as humans. In the evolution of life on Earth plants are much-much older than animal life and much more experienced in adapting to environmental conditions in which they live. Their intelligence needs to be valued.
How do you listen to plants? I have listened to animal spirit guides for fifteen or more years using ecstatic trance for which I am a certified instructor. I do not need to ingest anything of the animal spirit guide to receive its healing guidance, but many people believe that the plant needs to be ingested to benefit from it. As I have pursued listening to plant spirit guides using ecstatic trance I find that they offer me the same kind of story narratives that the animal spirit guides offer, stories that tell me how to live, and what I need to change within myself to live in a more healthy manner, giving me new directions in life. These physical, behavioral, emotional, and spiritual aspects of life that are the deeper causes of disease are what need to change to bring about health in overcoming most all diseases. Treating the symptoms of these diseases does not get to the source of the problem as happens with the use of commercial pharmaceuticals.
There are those who use plant essences and homeopathic remedies that contain nothing or next to nothing of the plant. These remedies are used in the initiation or ritual experience that brings about an altered state of consciousness as in the ritual to induce ecstatic trance thus opening a person to listen to the plant and learn what needs to be done physically, behaviorally, emotional or spiritually to bring about health.
July 30, 2019
Importance of Ecstatic Trance
Importance of Ecstatic Trance
At this time in our lives upon the Earth my biggest concern is the effect of Global Climate Change and the dire potential for our demise. I believe that Ecstatic Trance is important in our journey through this time and into the New World of Time-Free Transparency.
Yes, there are other important reasons to use Ecstatic Trance. The first is for journeying into our unconscious mind for healing and personal growth. But upon this healing we are then ready to go beyond our interior concerns to see beyond into what I have called the Universal Mind, an awareness and ability to communicate with the spirits of our ancestors and with the spirits of the Earth as did our early hunter-gathering ancestors. It is how these ancestors experienced life that brought them into oneness with the Earth, oneness that now is lacking in our greedy attempts to control the Earth and everything of the Earth.
According to Jean Gebser, the German philosopher and historian, we are now entering the fifth stage of the evolution of human consciousness. He recognized five evolutionary stages of human consciousness beginning with the Archaic Era of Consciousness when we lived in what was experienced as a dream world. This stage led to what he calls the Magical Era when we became aware of the magical powers of these dream like experiences and used them to give direction to life, to aid us in hunting by giving us direction to our prey, what plants to eat, what plants can be used in healing, and how to live in oneness with the Earth. During this Era the Shaman of the community became the seer to give us this direction.
The Magical Era was followed by the Mythic Era, the era when we attempted to explain why things are the way they are and our creation. During this era was the beginning of recorded history. Until then the stories and directions from the Shamans were passed down orally. The Myths of the Mythic Era came about from the nighttime dreams and other dreamtime experiences that cohered in their telling and retelling. This era began approximately 10,000 years ago when we began moving from a hunting-gathering society into the agricultural society and domestication of animals, when we began to seek ways to control the Earth, when “we were thrown out of the Garden of Eden,” and when the distinctions between good and evil started becoming apparent to us.
The following Era, the Era of Rational Consciousness began about 2500 years ago, the Era which we have been living in while rejecting mythology and the world of the spirits, thus limiting our experience of the Earth to our five senses of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. The transitions between each of these eras were difficult with considerable violence when some tried to hang on to the older era of consciousness while feeling threatened by going into the new ago in the evolution of consciousness. Gebser sees that we are now going into the new era of Time-Free Transparency, an era in which we realize the reality of power of journeying into the spirit world, the world of dreams, daydreaming and other trance experiences that brought our hunter-gathering ancestors into communing with the spirits of all life, the spirits of other species of life, of the fauna and flora of the Earth, that have a consciousness and have important information to share with us.
We are practicing many ways we are preparing for the New Age, e.g. recycling, raising our foods and eating organically, valuing nature to overcome the malnourishment of living in the concrete world of a city, listening to what our Native American brethren have to teach us in how to live with the Earth, and appreciating the diversity of all life, but one thing that the hunter-gathering cultures of our present world have to show us is how to listen to the world beyond our five senses. One way to listen is through Ecstatic Trance, a form of trance for which I have become a certified instructor through the Cuyamungue Institute in New Mexico. This ability to listen to the spirits of the Earth is quite central to the new era of Time-Free Transparency, i.e. to listen to the spirits that are free of time, from the past, present and future. I personally find excitement in what these spirits are showing and teaching us, and this is the major reason why I have put my energy into teaching others of the power of entering the world of the spirits.
At this time in our lives upon the Earth my biggest concern is the effect of Global Climate Change and the dire potential for our demise. I believe that Ecstatic Trance is important in our journey through this time and into the New World of Time-Free Transparency.
Yes, there are other important reasons to use Ecstatic Trance. The first is for journeying into our unconscious mind for healing and personal growth. But upon this healing we are then ready to go beyond our interior concerns to see beyond into what I have called the Universal Mind, an awareness and ability to communicate with the spirits of our ancestors and with the spirits of the Earth as did our early hunter-gathering ancestors. It is how these ancestors experienced life that brought them into oneness with the Earth, oneness that now is lacking in our greedy attempts to control the Earth and everything of the Earth.
According to Jean Gebser, the German philosopher and historian, we are now entering the fifth stage of the evolution of human consciousness. He recognized five evolutionary stages of human consciousness beginning with the Archaic Era of Consciousness when we lived in what was experienced as a dream world. This stage led to what he calls the Magical Era when we became aware of the magical powers of these dream like experiences and used them to give direction to life, to aid us in hunting by giving us direction to our prey, what plants to eat, what plants can be used in healing, and how to live in oneness with the Earth. During this Era the Shaman of the community became the seer to give us this direction.
The Magical Era was followed by the Mythic Era, the era when we attempted to explain why things are the way they are and our creation. During this era was the beginning of recorded history. Until then the stories and directions from the Shamans were passed down orally. The Myths of the Mythic Era came about from the nighttime dreams and other dreamtime experiences that cohered in their telling and retelling. This era began approximately 10,000 years ago when we began moving from a hunting-gathering society into the agricultural society and domestication of animals, when we began to seek ways to control the Earth, when “we were thrown out of the Garden of Eden,” and when the distinctions between good and evil started becoming apparent to us.
The following Era, the Era of Rational Consciousness began about 2500 years ago, the Era which we have been living in while rejecting mythology and the world of the spirits, thus limiting our experience of the Earth to our five senses of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. The transitions between each of these eras were difficult with considerable violence when some tried to hang on to the older era of consciousness while feeling threatened by going into the new ago in the evolution of consciousness. Gebser sees that we are now going into the new era of Time-Free Transparency, an era in which we realize the reality of power of journeying into the spirit world, the world of dreams, daydreaming and other trance experiences that brought our hunter-gathering ancestors into communing with the spirits of all life, the spirits of other species of life, of the fauna and flora of the Earth, that have a consciousness and have important information to share with us.
We are practicing many ways we are preparing for the New Age, e.g. recycling, raising our foods and eating organically, valuing nature to overcome the malnourishment of living in the concrete world of a city, listening to what our Native American brethren have to teach us in how to live with the Earth, and appreciating the diversity of all life, but one thing that the hunter-gathering cultures of our present world have to show us is how to listen to the world beyond our five senses. One way to listen is through Ecstatic Trance, a form of trance for which I have become a certified instructor through the Cuyamungue Institute in New Mexico. This ability to listen to the spirits of the Earth is quite central to the new era of Time-Free Transparency, i.e. to listen to the spirits that are free of time, from the past, present and future. I personally find excitement in what these spirits are showing and teaching us, and this is the major reason why I have put my energy into teaching others of the power of entering the world of the spirits.
July 26, 2019
Plant Consciousness
Book Review – Plant Spirit Healing: A Guide to Working with Plant Consciousness by Pam Montgomery, Rochester, VT: Bear & Co., 2008.
I was drawn to this book by the words in the title “Plant Consciousness.” Pam Montgomery beautifully describes many ways of how to listen to the guiding spirits of plants and to become aware of their consciousness. More and more of us have come to realize that the Earth is alive and conscious, actively alive in creating the environment needed for each species to survive with the ability to communicate with each other, with other species, and with the needed substances for their health and survival. All of Earth’s species are interdependent and each species makes constant environmental adjustments to maintain the needed balance within this interdependence for survival. Plant life has led the way in the creation of the Earth and is 99% of all living organisms. It is the most experienced in making these frequent adjustments and is aware of and able to provide for our needs and the needs of other species as co-creative partners. With this understanding of the importance of this co-creative partnership I can no longer believe in the biblical command that we shall have dominion over the Earth and all that is of the Earth. For our survival we cannot continue to believe that we are superior to all that is of the Earth. We are only one step in the process of evolution and in the interdependence of all that is of the Earth. Recognizing that our life is dependent upon Earth’s flora to give us the oxygen we need to breath and plants depend upon the carbon dioxide we exhale for their own life, how can we consider ourselves superior to this plant life.
The spirit of a plant is ever present and is available to us anytime and anywhere. Plants are as sophisticated in behavior as animals. “Plants have an enormous capacity for computing and for making decisions about complex aspects of their environment like light, water, gravity, vibrations, chemicals, temperature, sound and predators” (p 24). Shamans are able to communicate with the spirits of plants, spirits that give them their gift of the power for healing.
Pam Montgomery frequently refers to the heart, soul and spirit of a plant. The analogy of these aspects of a plant to a house helped clarify their relationship. The heart is the decorations inside the house, its personality. The soul is the structure of the house, solid, long-lasting and archetypal. The spirit is who lives in the house, filling the rooms with undeniable presence, (p. 181).
The healing nature of the heart as a primary organ of emotional perception depends upon the coherent and harmonious emotions of love, compassion, appreciation, gratitude, innocence and forgiveness to generate a smooth and harmonious heart rhythm for health. These positive core heart feelings are what lead to coherence in heart rate variability, feelings that determine the heart’s positive personality, while negative feelings weaken the heart and lead to disease the healing of which can be brought about with Plant Spirit Healing.
Whether the soul structure is solid or crumbling depends predominately upon our primary relations, our immediate family. Early childhood and past ancestral trauma set the stage for the weakening or loss of one’s soul. Soul retrieval is an integral part of the healing process to help a person become more fully who they are, and the plant spirit can facilitate this healing retrieval.
Regarding the spirit, spirit is all-pervasive both at the individual level and at a greater unity level. It is intelligent, coherent and ordered in nature. Our connection to spirit is readily found in the natural world, but it is the way we live in the modern world, closed off from the spirits of nature that causes spiritual malnourishment and spirit loss. As a result of our current spiritual malnourishment there is a movement towards again connecting with our spiritual and shamanic heritage. A shaman is selected to be a shaman by the spirits, and it is the spirits themselves that become the teachers. In order to enter the spirit dimension an altered state of consciousness is required whether in the state of nighttime dreams, daydreaming, or lucid dreaming, and I would like to add such trance states as hypnosis or ecstatic trance. Calling the experiences that come from these altered states of consciousness dreamtime experiences, much information is gathered for personal healing and guidance, for the healing of others, for learning of one’s direction in life, and for bringing balance to the earth.
To develop a co-creative relationship with plants engaging each of your five senses is a beginning, but to effectively and coherently communicate our intention needs to be through our heart. As you experience the felt-sense that comes from the plant, as images and sensations come alive within you, it is important to send them back to the plant to confirm them “in waves of ‘yes’ vibrations,” (p 97). From my many years of using clinical hypnosis I recognize the importance of developing the “yes-set” to induce trance, (a concept offered by Milton Erickson). Confirming images and sensations with ‘yes’-vibrations recognizes the role of hypnosis as another avenue to a dreamtime experience. Pam Montgomery recognizes that these dreamtime experiences in communicating with plants can be experienced nonlocally across time and space, a quantum physics concept of nonlocal coherence, a concept that I again find very central to the dreamtime experiences provided through hypnosis and ecstatic trance.
Another dimension to opening one’s self to coherent communication with plants is to use one’s imagination. The images that come to one’s mind are relevant to what the plant is attempting to communicate.
Another issue that is very important to me is what is going on currently in our relationship with the Earth in terms of global climate change. There are many prophecies for a time of Great Healing, and Pam Montgomery describes a few. I believe that this time is immediately before us, leading to a huge paradigm shift in again returning the ways of our hunting-gathering ancestors, ways that are so beautifully described by Pam Montgomery as “the feminine path of cooperation, nonaggression, inclusiveness, noncompetitiveness, servicer rather than dominance, the use of psychic and spiritual gifts as well as technology, and living in conscious harmony with nature’s ways” (p. 111).
In Chapter 10 she offers a number of teaching activities that can aid her students in coming into coherence with nature and open the door to the world of the spirits, activities that include Night Walking, A Fire Vigil, A Vision Journey or Vision Quest, and the ritual of A Sweat Lodge.
In the next chapter Pam Montgomery offers three foundational healing modalities, the Chinese modality of the five elements, the Yogic modality of The Seven Chakra, and the Native American modality of the Medicine Wheel. Though I have read much about these three modalities, what has resonated most within me and is central to my own work with the spirits are the seven directions of the Medicine Wheel, and occasionally to the Seven Chakra. What I appreciated most from this chapter is Pam Montgomery’s description of the Chinese five elements. For the first time the relationship of these five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water to healing has become meaningful to me in her description of the personality of each element.
• Wood reaches for sunlight and is grounded in the Earth. Its regenerative energy has a strong sense of self and reaches for new heights.
• Fire radiates passionate energy, brings heat of the sun to life and desires to join in union in relationships.
• Earth is the nourishing Mother who feeds us and others. She is the peacemaker in mediating conflict. She is caring, giving, and the healer. For her saying “No” is difficult.
• Metal is the energy of pure essence. It gets to the core of issues, seeks to know and understand. It is the Father, the artist with an aesthetic sense, lofty in discussion of higher truths, and ethical in high moral standards. It seeks the principles of life and how things fundamentally operate.
• Water’s energy when contained shows stillness and when in motion is flowing. It seeks balance between the two. Lao Tzu says “Water resists nothing and overcomes everything. It is the source of life, the reservoir of knowledge.”
Dis-ease comes from the shadow side of each of these elements, whether one is addicted to the element or relates inadequately to the element. The addictive side of Wood is the person who always seeks more and is never satisfied, while the inadequate side is of the person who has no sense of self and accomplishes nothing. For Fire the addictive side is the person who is over-involved in controlling others, and the inadequate side is the cold person with no passion. For Earth, the addictive side is when a person is over involved with nurturing and the inadequate side the person who is unable to nurture. The addictive metal person is sharp, cutting, and hording, and the inadequate metal person shows no creativity, no curiosity and has no self-esteem. For the Water person, the addict is out of balance, either addicted to stillness or constantly in motion, while the inadequate person lacks energy. Pam, Thank you for bringing me to a deeper understanding of these five elements.
When a person gains the ability to see beyond what the eyes see, i.e. beyond Consensus Reality, the person can begin to see the energy bodies of others. In seeing one’s energy body the location of dis-ease becomes evident. The location of dis-ease can also be felt when passing your hand over the person’s body about four inches above the body, or by using the pendulum in divining the source of the dis-ease. I have frequently used the pendulum to find answers and I find it quite effective. I first ask the pendulum a question that has a clear “yes” answer and then a question with a clear “no” answer to see which way it swings or does not swing in each case. From Pam Montgomery’s ways of identifying dis-ease I found it especially interesting when she noted that a weakness on the left side is from ancestral trauma, that ancestral trauma has a continued effect on the body. So often I find spirits appearing to me from over my left shoulder. I have researched my genealogy quite extensively and one trauma I am aware of that occurred eleven generations ago in 1662 when my ancestors emigrated from the Netherlands to the Hudson Valley of New York. In the conflicts that arose between the invading Dutch and the Esopus Lenape Indians of the area, during the “Second Esopus War” my 9xgreat grandmother and three of her children along with a number of others of the Dutch community were captured and held by the Indians in various Esopus villages. My ancestors were held the longest, for three months until a truce was negotiated. The Esopus were a peaceful and gentle tribe, and while my ancestors were held they were incorporated quite gently into the Esopus community with the children having other children of the village with whom to play, but my 9xgreat grandfather was quite traumatized by their capture. When his wife and children were returned he and the other men of the Dutch community were unable to hear or believe the positive side of his wife’s and children’s experience. It turned out that of those others who were captured, two decided to remain with the gentle Esopus. The Second Esopus War began only after a couple of Indians were killed and a number of captured Indians were sent to the Caribbean as slaves. It began when the peaceful Esopus were pushed to their limits and set fire to the Dutch village as they took the captives.
After having recently moved to this area of the Hudson Valley, not far down the road from Linda Law whose photographs add heart to this book, I have repeatedly visited these ancestral spirits through ecstatic trance to get in touch with these feelings, especially the positive side of their experience and the frustration experienced by my ancestral grandmother in wanting to tell others of her new understanding of the Esopus.
The book concludes with Pam Montgomery’s description and use of ten herbs that she favors in her herbal work: Mugwort, Sacred Basil, St John’s Wort, Calendula, Trillium, Hawthorn, Dandelion, Angelica, Agrimony and Rose, six of which grow quite hardily on our one acre, and I intend to plant the others.
Plants lead the way in the creation of the Earth and now they guide us in our evolving spiritual awakening in our co-creative partnership with them. Plants become an evolutionary imperative both for us and the Earth. This book is a very important read for us as we go into the New Age, a book with which I deeply resonate in my own work with ecstatic trance that I use for journeying into the spirit world of plants.
I was drawn to this book by the words in the title “Plant Consciousness.” Pam Montgomery beautifully describes many ways of how to listen to the guiding spirits of plants and to become aware of their consciousness. More and more of us have come to realize that the Earth is alive and conscious, actively alive in creating the environment needed for each species to survive with the ability to communicate with each other, with other species, and with the needed substances for their health and survival. All of Earth’s species are interdependent and each species makes constant environmental adjustments to maintain the needed balance within this interdependence for survival. Plant life has led the way in the creation of the Earth and is 99% of all living organisms. It is the most experienced in making these frequent adjustments and is aware of and able to provide for our needs and the needs of other species as co-creative partners. With this understanding of the importance of this co-creative partnership I can no longer believe in the biblical command that we shall have dominion over the Earth and all that is of the Earth. For our survival we cannot continue to believe that we are superior to all that is of the Earth. We are only one step in the process of evolution and in the interdependence of all that is of the Earth. Recognizing that our life is dependent upon Earth’s flora to give us the oxygen we need to breath and plants depend upon the carbon dioxide we exhale for their own life, how can we consider ourselves superior to this plant life.
The spirit of a plant is ever present and is available to us anytime and anywhere. Plants are as sophisticated in behavior as animals. “Plants have an enormous capacity for computing and for making decisions about complex aspects of their environment like light, water, gravity, vibrations, chemicals, temperature, sound and predators” (p 24). Shamans are able to communicate with the spirits of plants, spirits that give them their gift of the power for healing.
Pam Montgomery frequently refers to the heart, soul and spirit of a plant. The analogy of these aspects of a plant to a house helped clarify their relationship. The heart is the decorations inside the house, its personality. The soul is the structure of the house, solid, long-lasting and archetypal. The spirit is who lives in the house, filling the rooms with undeniable presence, (p. 181).
The healing nature of the heart as a primary organ of emotional perception depends upon the coherent and harmonious emotions of love, compassion, appreciation, gratitude, innocence and forgiveness to generate a smooth and harmonious heart rhythm for health. These positive core heart feelings are what lead to coherence in heart rate variability, feelings that determine the heart’s positive personality, while negative feelings weaken the heart and lead to disease the healing of which can be brought about with Plant Spirit Healing.
Whether the soul structure is solid or crumbling depends predominately upon our primary relations, our immediate family. Early childhood and past ancestral trauma set the stage for the weakening or loss of one’s soul. Soul retrieval is an integral part of the healing process to help a person become more fully who they are, and the plant spirit can facilitate this healing retrieval.
Regarding the spirit, spirit is all-pervasive both at the individual level and at a greater unity level. It is intelligent, coherent and ordered in nature. Our connection to spirit is readily found in the natural world, but it is the way we live in the modern world, closed off from the spirits of nature that causes spiritual malnourishment and spirit loss. As a result of our current spiritual malnourishment there is a movement towards again connecting with our spiritual and shamanic heritage. A shaman is selected to be a shaman by the spirits, and it is the spirits themselves that become the teachers. In order to enter the spirit dimension an altered state of consciousness is required whether in the state of nighttime dreams, daydreaming, or lucid dreaming, and I would like to add such trance states as hypnosis or ecstatic trance. Calling the experiences that come from these altered states of consciousness dreamtime experiences, much information is gathered for personal healing and guidance, for the healing of others, for learning of one’s direction in life, and for bringing balance to the earth.
To develop a co-creative relationship with plants engaging each of your five senses is a beginning, but to effectively and coherently communicate our intention needs to be through our heart. As you experience the felt-sense that comes from the plant, as images and sensations come alive within you, it is important to send them back to the plant to confirm them “in waves of ‘yes’ vibrations,” (p 97). From my many years of using clinical hypnosis I recognize the importance of developing the “yes-set” to induce trance, (a concept offered by Milton Erickson). Confirming images and sensations with ‘yes’-vibrations recognizes the role of hypnosis as another avenue to a dreamtime experience. Pam Montgomery recognizes that these dreamtime experiences in communicating with plants can be experienced nonlocally across time and space, a quantum physics concept of nonlocal coherence, a concept that I again find very central to the dreamtime experiences provided through hypnosis and ecstatic trance.
Another dimension to opening one’s self to coherent communication with plants is to use one’s imagination. The images that come to one’s mind are relevant to what the plant is attempting to communicate.
Another issue that is very important to me is what is going on currently in our relationship with the Earth in terms of global climate change. There are many prophecies for a time of Great Healing, and Pam Montgomery describes a few. I believe that this time is immediately before us, leading to a huge paradigm shift in again returning the ways of our hunting-gathering ancestors, ways that are so beautifully described by Pam Montgomery as “the feminine path of cooperation, nonaggression, inclusiveness, noncompetitiveness, servicer rather than dominance, the use of psychic and spiritual gifts as well as technology, and living in conscious harmony with nature’s ways” (p. 111).
In Chapter 10 she offers a number of teaching activities that can aid her students in coming into coherence with nature and open the door to the world of the spirits, activities that include Night Walking, A Fire Vigil, A Vision Journey or Vision Quest, and the ritual of A Sweat Lodge.
In the next chapter Pam Montgomery offers three foundational healing modalities, the Chinese modality of the five elements, the Yogic modality of The Seven Chakra, and the Native American modality of the Medicine Wheel. Though I have read much about these three modalities, what has resonated most within me and is central to my own work with the spirits are the seven directions of the Medicine Wheel, and occasionally to the Seven Chakra. What I appreciated most from this chapter is Pam Montgomery’s description of the Chinese five elements. For the first time the relationship of these five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water to healing has become meaningful to me in her description of the personality of each element.
• Wood reaches for sunlight and is grounded in the Earth. Its regenerative energy has a strong sense of self and reaches for new heights.
• Fire radiates passionate energy, brings heat of the sun to life and desires to join in union in relationships.
• Earth is the nourishing Mother who feeds us and others. She is the peacemaker in mediating conflict. She is caring, giving, and the healer. For her saying “No” is difficult.
• Metal is the energy of pure essence. It gets to the core of issues, seeks to know and understand. It is the Father, the artist with an aesthetic sense, lofty in discussion of higher truths, and ethical in high moral standards. It seeks the principles of life and how things fundamentally operate.
• Water’s energy when contained shows stillness and when in motion is flowing. It seeks balance between the two. Lao Tzu says “Water resists nothing and overcomes everything. It is the source of life, the reservoir of knowledge.”
Dis-ease comes from the shadow side of each of these elements, whether one is addicted to the element or relates inadequately to the element. The addictive side of Wood is the person who always seeks more and is never satisfied, while the inadequate side is of the person who has no sense of self and accomplishes nothing. For Fire the addictive side is the person who is over-involved in controlling others, and the inadequate side is the cold person with no passion. For Earth, the addictive side is when a person is over involved with nurturing and the inadequate side the person who is unable to nurture. The addictive metal person is sharp, cutting, and hording, and the inadequate metal person shows no creativity, no curiosity and has no self-esteem. For the Water person, the addict is out of balance, either addicted to stillness or constantly in motion, while the inadequate person lacks energy. Pam, Thank you for bringing me to a deeper understanding of these five elements.
When a person gains the ability to see beyond what the eyes see, i.e. beyond Consensus Reality, the person can begin to see the energy bodies of others. In seeing one’s energy body the location of dis-ease becomes evident. The location of dis-ease can also be felt when passing your hand over the person’s body about four inches above the body, or by using the pendulum in divining the source of the dis-ease. I have frequently used the pendulum to find answers and I find it quite effective. I first ask the pendulum a question that has a clear “yes” answer and then a question with a clear “no” answer to see which way it swings or does not swing in each case. From Pam Montgomery’s ways of identifying dis-ease I found it especially interesting when she noted that a weakness on the left side is from ancestral trauma, that ancestral trauma has a continued effect on the body. So often I find spirits appearing to me from over my left shoulder. I have researched my genealogy quite extensively and one trauma I am aware of that occurred eleven generations ago in 1662 when my ancestors emigrated from the Netherlands to the Hudson Valley of New York. In the conflicts that arose between the invading Dutch and the Esopus Lenape Indians of the area, during the “Second Esopus War” my 9xgreat grandmother and three of her children along with a number of others of the Dutch community were captured and held by the Indians in various Esopus villages. My ancestors were held the longest, for three months until a truce was negotiated. The Esopus were a peaceful and gentle tribe, and while my ancestors were held they were incorporated quite gently into the Esopus community with the children having other children of the village with whom to play, but my 9xgreat grandfather was quite traumatized by their capture. When his wife and children were returned he and the other men of the Dutch community were unable to hear or believe the positive side of his wife’s and children’s experience. It turned out that of those others who were captured, two decided to remain with the gentle Esopus. The Second Esopus War began only after a couple of Indians were killed and a number of captured Indians were sent to the Caribbean as slaves. It began when the peaceful Esopus were pushed to their limits and set fire to the Dutch village as they took the captives.
After having recently moved to this area of the Hudson Valley, not far down the road from Linda Law whose photographs add heart to this book, I have repeatedly visited these ancestral spirits through ecstatic trance to get in touch with these feelings, especially the positive side of their experience and the frustration experienced by my ancestral grandmother in wanting to tell others of her new understanding of the Esopus.
The book concludes with Pam Montgomery’s description and use of ten herbs that she favors in her herbal work: Mugwort, Sacred Basil, St John’s Wort, Calendula, Trillium, Hawthorn, Dandelion, Angelica, Agrimony and Rose, six of which grow quite hardily on our one acre, and I intend to plant the others.
Plants lead the way in the creation of the Earth and now they guide us in our evolving spiritual awakening in our co-creative partnership with them. Plants become an evolutionary imperative both for us and the Earth. This book is a very important read for us as we go into the New Age, a book with which I deeply resonate in my own work with ecstatic trance that I use for journeying into the spirit world of plants.
