alchemy of modern perspective, ancient practices

Herbalism taught me the foundation of my spiritual practices. The plants are Nature and by bringing them into our awareness and connecting with them on an animistic level we open ourselves to a new lens of perceiving reality. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in Being Peace; “there are so many methods of stopping and seeing…in Buddhism it is said that there are 84,000 Dharma doors for you to enter reality. Dharma (the way of understanding and loving according to Buddhism) doors are means of practice, ways of practice.” This is the practice of understanding and loving yourself and the world around you. I am not a Buddhist per se and I can also see the wisdom in this view. Through my practice I’ve experienced Nature as one of these Dharma doorways. Herbalism gave me the gift of “stopping and seeing”.

When we practice herbalism we engage with the intelligence of our body and learn how to sense and our spiritual side within. Knowledge expands us until we reach the unknown and then it’s up to us to co-create the new known.

The heart and joy of my practice is making space for people to seek their own spiritual path and practices. For those that struggle to find their voice in other traditions, it can mean we make our own way through learning many perspectives and perceivings of the world around and within us to synchronize them in completely new ways. There is intelligence found in both the ancient and the innovative, in the seen and the unseen; there is intelligence in the alchemy of both.