Edgar Cayce

Making Healing Allies in Nature

By Ross Heaven

 

Since the beginning of human experiences, plants have played a role in the evolution of our species, not only in the provision of food and medicine but in our deepest spiritual experience and the development of consciousness.

Their form, beauty, enchanting scents, their healing and emotional qualities, have all provided a gateway to the Great Mystery of Nature, which our Celtic forebears called "The visible face of Spirit."

Though our lands are not longer forested as they were, we try to recreate a sense of their beauty and tranquility in our gardens, parks, and the green spaces in our cities, giving us at least a taste of Nature with which we can sustain ourselves against the soulless backdrop of the steel and concrete jungle that are our homes today.

For many people, plants are still the messengers of divinity, harmony and beauty. They are also the source of our health and well-being, not just as medicine but also in their ability to relax, refresh and excite us.

Some deep part of us knows that the healing power of plants is inherent in what they are as much as what they do. Flowers have a role to play, for example, in all of our most primal celebrations of life and death – birth and birthdays, coming-of-age, marriage, illnesses, funerals and deaths. They are there at the first "I love you", and they are there for our endings too. Even after death our connection to the natural world continues and our spiritual destination in many religions myths is some form of paradise, which is often symbolized as the "Heavenly Garden," or the Garden of Eden.

Archeology shows that plant spirit shamanism has been part of our healing experience for thousands of years, predating other practices by millennia and going back to a time when healers worked in harmony with Nature.

Plant Shamanism is – and always has been – a person-centered approach and incorporates in a holistic way, practices such as herbalism, energy work, aromatherapy, and counseling to provide a unique blend of therapies that is most needed by each individual client, based on the healer's attunement to a state of balance or otherwise of that client's soul. But it is also fundamentally spirit-centered, and all traditional healers – from the Curanderos of the Amazon to the 'folk magicians of Ireland – regard plants as sentient, aware, intelligent, alive and as 'doctors' in their own right.

Plant shamanism involves practices for meeting these spirits, such as shamanic journeying, soul retrieval, rituals using flowers and fragrances, offering to Nature, flora baths for protection, and the use of visionary plants to find purpose, clarity and new directions in life. All of these, to the shaman, are implied by the term 'healing'.

Ways of Healing

As a young boy, I was apprenticed to a Welsh sin eater – a 'cunning man,' as they were called in Wales, who used plants and flowers in the healing work. One of the methods was to bury the name of a patient, etched on a piece of bone, in a corner of his garden, next to a patch of sunflowers. Each day he would say his prayers over the flower, consulting with them on the condition of his patient, then squeeze a few petals so their aroma would be released. As the scent drifted upwards, he said, a little more of his patient's illness was carried away until he or she was healed.

This may seem like a strange approach in our culture today, but when I grew up and went traveling I found the same essential methods used in Haiti, Peru, Africa, Greece, America, Turkey.... So it is not an eccentricity or even unique to Wales.

The world over, in fact, wherever shamans work with plant spirits rather than extracts and compounds as Western doctors do, it is understood that plants are alive, aware and willing to teach their healing secrets. Plant spirit shamanism is therefore learned ally - by getting out into the fields and making contact with natural forces, not by reading about plants in some dusty library.

The sin eater communicated with plants in this way and knew several magical uses for them that they had told him of. For example, the sunflower's, he used were actually marigolds, but he called them sunflowers, because they are "bright as the sun" and warmed the soul with protection. It is interesting then, that we find the same belief in Andean Peru, where rosa sisa (African marigold) are also used for protection. Here, they are often planted by the door of a house so if someone should pass by and give the 'evil eye', the flowers will catch these negative energies and protect the soul of the houses from diseases. The petals turned black when this happens, but revert to their bright color when the energy is discharged through their roots to the soil.

The sin eater I knew had never visited Peru and yet the message from the plant was the same: marigolds - sun flowers' – protect.

Working with Plants

The key thing with plant spirits shamanism is to establish a connection with the plant. Once that is done, the plant spirits themselves teach you everything you need to know and reveal the many ways of using them in healing, most of which are very unlike the Western medical notion of ingesting them in a tablet or even herbal form.

In Haiti, Peru, Brazil, Indonesia, and even in our own Celtic past, there is a practice, for example, of taking floral baths, where flowers and herbs are added to blessed water. The sick person then bathes to wash away his ailments. These baths are not restricted to physical healing, but can be used to draw good fortune and change your luck (which is regarded as real and tangible force), making you more open to the receipt of money, love and spiritual power.

Other ways of working with plants include the making of pockets, power pouches, containing herbs that remove negative energies, while returning life force to the patient as the pouch is brushed over his/her body. The packet has similarities to the Amazonian chacapa, a bundle of dried leaves which has medicinal powers to rebalance the patient's energy field, and is rubbed over the body in the same way.

The segure of the Andes, a bottle which contains a mixture of plants and herbs in Holy water and perfume uses the same principles of spiritual connection with the plants. Here the shapes, colors or qualities of the plants invoke various powers that the client wishes to draw into his life. Round, golden, seeds attract money, for example, while cactus spines embody protection. The seguro, according to the Andean shamans, becomes a "friend" you can consult with. Every time you speak out your problems to this friend, they are removed, while the powers of the plants draw good energy in.

One rule that comes consistently in this work is that we must treat our plant allies with respect. In Haiti, healers literally pay the plants for their work by dropping coins at the base of the tree they 're collecting leaves from. They are then 'fed' and there is a fair exchange: we charge the plants with energy so they have the power to heal us.

We must also treat plants kindly. Research shows that they have feelings, intelligence, language – even the ability to count and make music! – and they can sense our intentions and respond to our actions. If we treat them with love, they flourish and grow. If not, then their spirits die and we do not have the healers we need.

Getting Out of Our Minds

One of the biggest challenges for the Western mind is learning how to work with plant spirits is our cultural fascination with science and measurement. This socialization into 'scientific thinking' is hard to overcome because as part of it, we have been taught to stifle our dreaming and imaginative selves. Luckily, however, there are also plants, which have a spiritual intention to re-establish our connection with the spirit-universe and open us up to the true nature of reality.

One of these is guayusa. In the Amazon it is known as "the night watchman's plant" because of its ability to bring lucid dreams and dissolve the boundaries between wakefulness and sleep. Thus, the night watchman can take guayusa and nap, while remaining alert to the sounds and sights around him as he watches over the tribe.

The shamans say that in every country we have plants to cater for our own needs; thus in Europe, it may be difficult to find guayusa, but a tea made of vervain, valerian and chamomile will achieve similar effects.

Another way of getting 'out of our minds' is through a special state of trance consciousness known as shamanic journeying.

To take any shamanic journey, find a time and a place where you can be alone and undisturbed for 20 minutes or so. Then dim the lights or cover your eyes, lie down and make yourself comfortable. Most journeys are taken to the sound of drumming, which encourages 'dreaming' patterns to emerge in the brain, taking the shaman deeper into a more holistic experience of the world in its fullness. You can drum yourself, have a friend drum for you, or use a drumming tape to guide your journey.

Expressing your intention and keeping this in focus is again important, Intention is the energy that guides the journey and enables you to engage with the mind of the universe so it can work with you.

You can try this yourself by setting your intention to meet with a plant ally - the consciousness of a plant that will guide you into the world of the collective plant mind. You do not need to have a specific plant in mind. Stay open instead - to whatever comes.

As soon as the drumming begins, imagine yourself entering a place, which connects you to the earth in a way that is meaningful to you, and then allow your imagination to take you where you will. All you need to do is to receive. When your plant ally appears to you spend some time in conversation with him or her (in the imaginative world, most plants take a human form). Enquire about its healing gifts and the way these properties manifest in the plants themselves, Ask how you can work with this ally and the plants that embody him or her.

Visit your ally often in this way and you will learn more about the world of the plants, the nature of reality and indeed, about yourself, as part of this vast and beautiful universe.

Ross Heaven is the director of the Four Gates Foundation and the author of 10 books of the psychology of empowerment, shamanism, plant medicines, healing and love and relationships, including Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul. Ross also teaches Plant Spirit Shamanism workshops and medicine retreats in France, Ireland and the Amazon Rainforest. Details of these are available at www.thefourgates.com or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Shesat through Norma Gentile

So often in New Age circles, we speak of illness as “dis-ease.” It is true that there is usually a sense of discomfort in illness. It is not always in the exact location where physical disease may eventually manifest, but it may instead be felt as discomfort or imbalance in the lifestyle or emotions. Very often the physical body registers discomfort at a subtle level. This happens long before the disease has manifested in the body. The physical body registers sensations of what is going on all around us kinesthetically, two, three, four, five or six feet away from us. Often times when something begins to register as illness or noticeable discomfort, we look at the body itself. We forget to look outside of the body, where it is probably coming from – the subtle energy field two feet, three feet or more outside of the physical body.

In these surrounding spaces, we intersect with other people. Our energies intersect with those groups of people we have agreements with, such as our biological family, those who live in our neighborhood or city, coworkers and people we know from the school we attend or the sport we participate in. Most people have easily a dozen primary agreements between themselves and a group of people in their life.

These soul-level agreements are typically unconscious. But sometimes, particularly in groups we meet with daily, such as work partners, a group will bring to consciousness an unconscious agreement that does not serve the group well. For example, if an employer has allowed someone at work to behave poorly towards other employees, there will be pressure upon the unconscious agreement among the employees that allows this behavior. Either the agreement will be brought into consciousness and addressed, or the one who brings it into consciousness might be fired. The outcome depends on the agreement and soul’s journey of all those involved. It is not about one side being right and another wrong. It is about setting up situations that our soul desire can learn from.

We can see this play out on a national level as well. All those in form in Canada manifest a certain quality of energy. Those in form in the United States have a different quality of energy. People residing in these countries have agreements to resonate or tune their bodies to some portion of the energetic signature there. There are also agreements between these two larger soul groups as to how these energies will interact – or may interact – in the near future. Each person’s soul has an agreement with their own national consciousness and their soul has chosen a quality of energy that reflects its agreement with that larger national consciousness. Therefore, whether they live in Canada or the United States or China, each person’s physical body resonates with some aspect or national consciousness and each person affects that consciousness.

Generating Stillness

By simply being in a human body, you carry an agreement about the quality of energy that you will manifest. As long as you are in that body, the quality of energy that you have agreed to bring is present. The quality of energy resonated out and is perceptible to everyone. When you take time to sit in stillness and do nothing, you have the opportunity to turn within and find the vibration that your soul has agreed to bring into the Earth plane on behalf of humanity. In many cultures, this concept of simply being and allowing your presence to radiate out is not spoken of or thought about. Yet it is the most powerful way to be a resonant factor that has an influence upon events in the world. Take, for example, the rising use of adrenaline in your society. In the last twenty-five years you have embraced a lack of sleep into your culture and the addition of caffeine into your diets. Coffee and chocolate are ubiquitous. There is nothing wrong with it; it is a direction that has been chosen. But as a result, fewer people possess the ability to sit and feel the subtle energies. Ironically, just as the awareness of Spirit and healing energies has increased, you have also increased your intake of substances, that, when used beyond moderation, decrease your power to access to these same energies.

Is this not a bit funny? Caffeine allows you to purposely work in a linear fashion. Spirit works in more of an upward spiral. As you have greater access to the energetic tides of Spirit, the rise of consumption of caffeine continues. And even while you feel the impulse of honor the spiral creation of Spirit, your over consumption indicates a choice to create a linear fashion. Perhaps this is a last minutes rush to function outside of your connection to Spirit. However, I see that those things built in a purely linear fashion will not stand. They will not last.

Allow yourself to wonder. What is it that you have done in this linear fashion? What is it that you have simply pushed through, using your own will, rather than listening you how Spirit wanted to co-create with you? When we allow ourselves that quiet place to simply sit and listen to Spirit, what we manifest appears to take a little longer to complete, but the result is permanent.

Linear Creation Versus the Spiral Path of Spirit.

As more and more people within the Earth have embraced a linear way of creating, they have also embraced the idea that they can utilize their own personal energies to bring forth what they desire. This type of linear manifestation has led to rise in “trouble waters.” Spirit has to navigate these troubled waters, and in doing so there is not always an easy flow in its creation process with others. Any time the flow of creation is troubled by anyone manifesting in a linear fashion, it makes it just a little harder for us to easily hear what Spirit is suggesting as our next step. We become so accustomed to the troubled waters around us and to the constant subtle static in our bodies.

Continuing to force the body into linear behavior that is simply not in alignment with the soul and spirit eventually brings much tiredness and fatigue into the physical form, depleting the adrenals and kidneys. Because we are preoccupied with the success or failure of our other doings, we may miss the fact that our inner quiet is no longer really quiet. And it is this constant static that block our ability to heard deeper levels of what Spirit wants to give us naturally and easily. This block continues until we choose - - or we are forced – to take action that releases our insistence on moving linearly, we allow Spirit to move us along with it its own spiral path.

My guides remind me that peace is the result of inner stillness, connection to Spirit and knowing oneself. When we spend time being who we truly are, we generate a quality of stillness that makes peaceful actions more appealing to us than violence. Our unique quality of stillness resonates through our shared human consciousness and through that living quantum space within the atom of all form.

Allowing Spirit to Flow Into Religious Conflict

Many religions have arisen within the Middle East. Over and over, each of these religions has veered slightly from its original intent. Whether it was to help manifest cleaner bodies (Judaism), or whether it was to help to safeguard the integrity of the divine feminine (Islam), with linear creation there has been a misconstruing of the various religions. As we look now upon the Middle East, we see that something different might arise. Yet this one is one of the principle power points of the Earth. Eventually, something will resolve. The creative stroke of your own artistry and your ability to sit steady presence of Spirit.

Being reactive means you are not within the scope of Spirit. As you sit quietly and see the entire reaction-taking place now upon the Earth, being still within the body center, that stillness within you is then offered to whatever you behold. Each moment, each issue, each obstacle as you behold it, can no longer stand in the way of the flow of the creative waters.

Stillness Brings Remembrance

For many people, particularly women and men who are very sensitive to their feminine aspect, emotions play a huge part in how we create our reality. More and more, the outer reality that we observe can be affected by the inner reality that we experience. Your own stillness draws forth a remembrance of stillness from those involved in conflicts, wars and battles. It draws that remembrance of home through them, within the atoms of their bodies. Your stillness awakens the soul within their body, and reminds them of the communion they share with you as humans here upon the Earth.

In this manner we do not aim to force peace or to inflict an artificial straight line of resolution to conflict. Instead we offer that service of remembrance that each might be nourished and fed, simply because there are those who sit in silence and sit in alignment, which is true peace.

A Stillness Mediation

Even as you read these words, you may choose to allow your own stillness to move out to all those in your life. Let the still vibrations of who are move through you and therefore be audible to all those with who you have agreements in your neighborhood, your city, your country, and throughout the world. Do not inflict the stillness, but simply find it within your body, and so offer it as remembrance.

Know that as you listen in silence, what is truly your soul’s journey is dawn out from within you. As you meditate, know that your next step might be to the side rather than directly in front, following the spiral path of Spirit. Our blessings upon each of you.

Printed with permission from Norma Gentile

Thank you

Norma Gentile is a professional recording artist and singer. Considered one of the leading specialists in the performance of Gregorian Chants of the 12th Century mystic and Abbess Hildegard von Bingen, her performances are of the sacred sound and healing.

Norma: I believe that singing, chanting, toning, prayer and healing are the same. We are creative beings, responsible for our bodies, emotions, thoughts and minds. What we give attention to – we give energy to. By connecting consciously and intestinally using sound, we discover ourselves as co-creators.

www.healingchants.com
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