The Spirit of Plants

The Spirit of Plants

Our August plants apprenticeship weekend took us deeper into some questions we had dipped into in previous months, questions on engaging with the spiritual aspects of the plant world, and exploring how we could tune into understanding the gifts that plants bring to us with our hearts and intuitions, as well as our minds and hands.

The energy of the weekend was quiet and receptive, quite different from our previous weekends of adventurous exploring, meeting plants in new locations, researching species, and working with ethically-harvested wild plants and farmed plants in medicinal and culinary ways. This time we stayed on site at the home of Earth Tracks and Rebel Roots Herb Farm, and spent much of our two days under a large black walnut tree that sheltered us against the bright August sun.

The weekend was primarily composed of a series of deepening meditations that worked on our abilities to open up to intuition and deeply listen to the energies of the living beings all around us. We were encouraged to keep our minds and hearts open to visualize, imagine, dream, find metaphors, listen to our inner voices, and engage in the unseen world in whatever way worked for each of us. We made space to speak of our personal experiences of the sacred, and a container of trust and respect was created that honoured each participant’s individual beliefs and experiences.

 

To set the tone and bring us into a quieter frame of awareness and connection, we wove in elements of ceremony and ritual into the weekend.  Alexis incorporated some good context on the lineage of the rituals we were using, and we had opportunities for questions and dialogue on how to incorporate ceremony into our own lives in ways that felt authentic to each of us.

Along with group meditations, we had time to sit individually with plants and trees on the landscape to deepen our relationships with them, as well as to practice meditation and visualization techniques on our own. We spoke of dreams and how to find meaning in them – in a personal, intuitive, non-formulaic way - to help guide us in waking life, and we learned a useful word-association exercise for dream recall and interpretation. We also did a number of playful paired and group exercises on reading energy from each other, from plants, and from objects that we were deeply connected to.

The atmosphere of the weekend was open, exploratory, curious and connecting.

It was also nourishing and relaxed. And above all, it introduced us to a set of approaches, tools and possibilities for engaging with the natural world through spirit, and engaging with spirit through the natural world.

Written By: Malgosia Halliop - 2nd Year Plants Apprentice