MORE ON PLANT POWER
AND THE GROWING BEINGS
Plants have the amazing ability to help us heal and be whole, apart from their aesthetic nature and beauty or their part in giving us transcendent pleasure by their "Soft Fascinations."
When we relate to plants and try to connect with their meaning and personality and how they might heal us it helps to be in an altered state of consciousness with some form of inner technique. If we have that intention and are in a light alfa state the plant is more likely to impart its wisdom. Nature can also "meditate us" especially if we connect to the other Soft Fascinations around us; the sounds and mantra of the bush (of water running or the wind in the trees,) aromas, scents, sunsets, sunrises, the daily, monthly and even seasonal changes and fluxes. Some shamans will pay attention to plants during a full or new moon as well as the season and harvest them then for healing. We can entrain our rhythms to nature the longer we immerse ourselves in her energy and the less "stuff" we have between us and the Earth Mother. We can even follow the Bushman lifestyle of sleeping on the ground around a fire and walking barefoot.
When we do this we can discover a little of the mystery and the fact that ...
The Ancestors
Plants can be a medium for a message to our spirit guides and the spirit world for a request for a specific intention, for instance protection or asking for a dream. Our guides live in a non local space time reality - there is no time across the veil and they live in the present moment. For them free will is always in the present moment. They are also bound by the cosmic law of free will, so we MUST ask to receive! The request, because of free will, should be very specific. We cant ask them to help us with our life - they need to know exactly how. Sadly the trickster spirits or dark forces because of their "criminal" like intent do not have to abide by this law and may appear to have free reign but we are always protected by our guides, angels and the Great Spirit if we have trust and integrity.
The Ancestors
A ritual with a plant is a container and is a powerful way of connecting and making a request. My sense is that prayer works but if its wrapped in the container of a ritual it works more efficiently. The spirit world responds favorably to strong intention, passion and will. The more creative the ritual and the clearer they are about what we want, the better they will respond. A ritual also has a stronger impact on our conscious and subconscious minds. It can make an indelible impression.
Our main requests are for calling, cleansing, protection and requesting a dream for a specific question.
The Ancestors
The spirit world responds to Intention, Attention (to detail,) Action and Affirmation. Affirmation is key because they are living in the moment and because of free will they need to know if you still want it, next week, next month...? We must sustain and maintain the intention. Its ok if the details vary slightly if the basic intention remains - there is no objection to fine tuning. This is why guided imagery and imagination especially when sensory driven (because feeling deeply to them means passion) can accompany the ritual.
Cou'e who was one of the first to draw our attention to the power of the subconscious had the mantra;
"every day in every way I am getting better and better at ..." because the subconscious needs to be constantly reminded as do our guides need the affirmation. It works both ways.
So how do the plants "work?" They work through placebo, distant healing, often but not powerfully through their pharmacology and no doubt through the consciousness or "spirit" of the plant itself as a container for a request to our guides. Placebo, unlike what medical science tells us, can go well beyond 30% especially in a ritual given by a charismatic shaman where it may be as high as 80%. We are now learning the same thing with psychotropic medicines for instance SSRI drugs for depression work 80% of the time but so does placebo and psychotherapy.
There are numerous double blind studies showing that distant healing or prayer works. In comparable groups of sick patients randomized to get standard care alone versus standard care plus distant healing (they did not know they were getting this, did not know the healers and the healers did not know them) - the studies showed significantly better results with the group that got both standard treatment and distant healing.
A ritual with a plant with our request is a prayer to the spirit world for help and is tantamount to the same thing.
We should be conscious when we harvest a plant; make a request for their help, show gratitude and take only as much as we need without harming the plant. Indigenous plants are protected so if we want to use these we should buy them or grow them.
There are many alien plants or "weeds" which being pioneer plants that can survive almost anything and are very powerful so we should look for these. In our habitat in Santa Barbara for e.g. plants like morning glory, thistles (maybe for protection because they are prickly,) mustard, oxalis and many others. The spirit world is not fussy about what we use as long as its given with strong intention and preferably for the good of another or for our own good but so that we can better help others. They may not respond to a request for a want rather than a need. Asking for a new Porsche through a ritual would not impress them.
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(Re the soft fascinations)
Those interested in "Wilderness Rapture" can check the website and download the pdf summary of the book
Inner Passages Outer Journeys.
There is also more information on the site on The Inward Bound experience which can be like a mini samadhi, peak experience or a prolonged alfa state of equanimity and harmony in nature. When in this state connecting with plants becomes a default.
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