Being raised in a culture that chose to abstract the divine in the form of an impersonal God beyond my comprehension left me in a precarious situation and raised a very important question. How is it possible to connect with something that by definition is beyond my understanding? I realized later in life that my heart needs tangible objects of adoration that bridge the gap between the infinite, universal force and little old me in this seemingly separate material body. Without beings to which I can devote my love in a reciprocal manner, I feel lost, but when I walk past a plant with my heart open to offer and receive love and the plant responds with movement, I know there is a very real connection. Working with and developing relationships with plants that I can feel, hear, see, smell, and taste helps restore a link that touches me at the core of my humanity, and as I continue to develop devotional relationships with the elemental forces of nature, the spirits of the earth and the sky, and the spiritual beings embodied within plants, I remember my connection with the divine and gain access to all of the healing, wisdom, and blessings available to me and all beings via our connection to the natural world.

Each plant is a living embodiment of great spiritual teachings, and each plant carries a distinct flavor of consciousness. When we ingest a plant with intention, receive the plant as our teacher, invite the plant into our lives, and develop a relationship with the plant something special happens. If we commune regularly with the plant spirit and allow its energy to move through our physical and energetic bodies, our own consciousness and energetic capacities broaden, and the teachings of the plant imprint themselves upon our beings.

The plants illuminate, each in their own way, the energetic blockages caused by the wounds and traumas we have suffered in this life and others. Through dream-like visions, auditory messages, bodily sensations, memories of past experience, direct intervention through energetic release, or other forms of trans-species communication, the intelligent and wise plant teacher, presents us with opportunities to understand the blockages that keep us separate or that inhibit our full expression as humans. In this way the plants can help us transform ourselves on the cognitive, emotional, physical, and energetic levels.

Once the plant has cleared these pathways it highlights the practical skills and spiritual gifts that we are destined to bring to this earth and to our local communities. The healing benefit of each plant runs along a continuum. On one side we see the imbalanced or unhealthy aspects of ourselves. We are conditioned to stop the process when the discomfort or unease ceases, but if we follow the trajectory of the plant’s medicine, previously hidden, highly functioning aspects of our beings emerge and become normal and integral parts of who we are.

As you get to know and understand the plant’s medicine by repeatedly connecting with it, you cannot help but understand its essential nature in an increasingly deep and refined way. This process triggers self-remembrance as the plant reveals your own true identity, and a reciprocal and unending spiral of illumination occurs.

-excerpted from Yarrow and the Path of the Magician  from Numen Naturae: The Magician's Wand