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Plant spirits

  
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
11:50 / 31.10.05
What with the animated discussion of the magical/spiritual use and abuse of tobacco over in the Sight of Blood thread, I thought it might be worth starting a thread on working with plant spirits.

Money $hot has described hir experiences with entheogens and syncretic religions, and it would be interesting to hear from others who've also worked with very powerful spirits like this. However there are other, more subtle plant allies such as mugwort, which could profitably be discussed.

It would also be good to address the issue of sacred plants that have been removed from the cultures that originally used them, and pressed into more mundane service (sugar, chocolate, coffee). We consume them every day; what does this mean for us if we begin working with other plant spirits? Should we also pay our dues to the spirits of Coffee and Tobacco?

What about plants with no obvious psychoactive effects? Would it be worth finding out how to work with the spirit of basil or oregano, or the spirits of spuds and green peas? (I'm being a bit flippant here, but it might be a useful line of enquiry).

Right then, over to you...
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
12:55 / 31.10.05
Ah Mordant, you sure know a thread that's close to my heart and likely to get me a-postin'.

My work has gone completely stratospheric, I have had to reassess every single foundation belief I had about the Universe and what is going on, and start again from the ground up. Scrap the old software, it doesn't work anymore, and start again from scratch. I'm still reeling from a double the weekend just past, which was the darkest work I've ever experienced...*shiver*. Be great to meet up sometime and have a good old chat, cos I'm not really down with that thread anymore (sorry) and think it stands pretty well where it finished.

Anyway, I haven't read the Sight of Blood thread re: tobacco, but I think it's important in any discussion of plant spirits to clearly establish and divide them into a fairly essential duality : healers and not-healers.

Tobacco is a very powerful and dangerous entity, which has a place, no doubt - but, only if it is consecrated, and, I would say, used very rarely...it's just not good for you, at all...bad for your brain, heart, lungs, organs, skin...everything, basically.

I was interested to note that Fly Agaric is still legally (greay area probably, but hey) available in Camden...great...ban psilocybin, the friendliest little healer, a tryptamine which is fundamentally very similar in molecular makeup to DMT (and tryptamine itself), which is endogenous in the human body (and just about everything else that's alive) but leave Amanita muscaria available, which is a far more serious journey by far...ho hum.

On the domestic front, I'm using ginger a whole lot at the moment, making a brew in a cafetiere with fresh root ginger, organic limes, cinnamon and nutmeg, boiling water, then once the water cools significantly stir in organic honey, and maybe add fresh mint as well...its essential not to put honey in boiling or near boiling hot drinks, because it releases volatiles and scuppers all of its healing qualities. Anyway, leave to stew for about 10 minutes, then plunge the cafetiere to trap all the floaty bits, and voila! This drink is extremely good for your throat and stomach (actually, all plants which are kind and healthy for the stomach are beneficial to the throat, as the two are fundmentally linked and unified...

Can't think of much more to say at the mo', back later.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:36 / 31.10.05
I'm using ginger myself at the mo'. Wicked good for asthma, and for throat ailments. If I miss a couple of days, I really notice the lack.

I'm also building a tentative relationship with Mugwort, for her dream-enhancing properties. I'm hoping she can help me with my trancework, which the Powers that Be have suddenly flagged a important.

There's a very complex relationship going here between me, the plant spirits, and the Gods and other spirits I have dealings with. Sometimes it's like the substance is acting as an intermediary between myself and the Gods, sometimes it's more as if the plant is somehow 'ruled' by a God or Gods, who will wish to oversee its use. I'm still hoplessly confused about what goes where and feeling my way around.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
18:31 / 31.10.05
Interesting...I guess the [xxxxx], for me, is a hybrid of both those forms...it has its own consciousness, its own signal and forms, but at the same time isthe vehicle by which access is granted to all of the other ideascapes with which it has association - Amazonian, the Orishas, various Indian Godforms and of course Catholicism...

The Christian doctrine present at the forefront of [xxxxx] has become vitally important to my work of late, because it's just a tad scary in there once you know your way around (or it knows its way around you maybe), and there is a demonic host, and The Deceiver to contend with...but help is at hand...I've discovered a protectorate, inviolable, an unpassable barrier to that darkness, and it's Angelic...the most noble beings, beatific and beautiful and totally stoic, beloved of the Unnameable Source, (whatever you might want to tag it), and with the well-being of those who would call on them at the absolute core of their raison d'etre...They simply banish the horde, it cannot pass, and bring in the light, or the Light if you will...It still staggers me that I'm talking like this and engaged with these things, which is about as far from who i was about a year ago as its possible to get...

Tobacco, to my mind, is not a gateway to contact, it is the thing. Santa Maria (weed) I am taking a more and more dim view of, and tend not to consecrate during the work anymore...she's a slippery one. Very seductive, and again, not really a healer, to me...she's a bit like TV, really...entertainment, has a function, can be informative, but essentially not fundamentally beneficial.

What's mugwort? Explain please.

(*) [redacted]
 
 
power vacuums & pure moments
18:37 / 31.10.05
For reasons unknown ive never actively persued any shamanic type relationship with the ethenogens. The mushroom addressed me directly once, but only to giggle and make light of an egotistic inner dialogue. Still amazing.

A friend of mine has had a lot of success working with salvia. Apparently entity contact experiences are very common and relatively easy to obtain given the reverse tolerance effect of the plant. Ill definately be experimenting with this soon.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
18:39 / 31.10.05
Sorry, didn't notice the link in the first post.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:24 / 26.11.05
Apropos of entheogens, I thought this link might be interesting to some. The website, basementshaman.com, deals in live plants, preparations and extracts.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:15 / 27.11.05
As if it didn't go without saying, but for the foolhardy and devil-may-care, I'd advise extreme caution dealing with some of the plants listed at that site...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:51 / 27.11.05
Oh yeah. Peppermint betel-nut is one thing, belladonna quite another.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
06:57 / 04.08.06
One of my virtual chums has put together this site on working with entheogenic plant spirits, based on hir own experiences.
 
 
EmberLeo
07:18 / 04.08.06
What about plants with no obvious psychoactive effects? Would it be worth finding out how to work with the spirit of basil or oregano, or the spirits of spuds and green peas?

Are you only counting the effects of chemically interacting with them?

I ask because I've had dreams and other encounters with Redwood as an Ally (or something), and while I'm not clear on what is wanted of me, I'm pretty sure using parts of the plant for food or ritual drug isn't it...
 
 
Saturn's nod
08:15 / 04.08.06
What's mugwort? Explain please.

What I know as mugwort is Artemisia vulgaris, visible in the UK in summer on waste ground. Tall, silvery leaf-backs, flowers/buds in spikes that look slightly cannabis-like. The only other native UK artemisia is wormwood, the absinthe plant Artemisia absinthium, which you would know I think by the great bitterness, if nothing else.

What about plants with no obvious psychoactive effects? Would it be worth finding out how to work with the spirit of basil or oregano, or the spirits of spuds and green peas? (I'm being a bit flippant here, but it might be a useful line of enquiry).

Count me in, I'm a great fan of wholehearted, conscious, sacred engagement with the allies who keep me alive.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
08:42 / 04.08.06
I'd forgotten all about the oregano and pea business, as it goes. Stumbled across the concept, was briefly entranced by shininess, completely failed to do any actual work with it. Le sigh.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
09:28 / 04.08.06
I do a lot of work with the spirits of basil, cinnamon, nutmeg, rosemary, cloves, black pepper, chilli and all sorts of non-psychoactive plant spirits - in fact I work with them a lot more closely and frequently than psychoactive ones to be honest, which I don't really have too much to do with.

I have little alliances with these spirits and they help me in my magic. This is all just something that has come out of hoodoo practice really. By involving herbs and spices in making gris-gris bags, condition oils, incenses and so on, you get to know them as personalities. I don't just know what the alleged magical properties of cinnamon are by having looked it up in a book, but I know what the cinnamon spirit is like as a personality and why it can be used for certain things and not for others. My understanding of the parameters of its magical efficacy come from knowing a bit about it as a spirit and what its magic is like. It's a weird, intuitive psychic thing that comes out of handling them. Their personalities are expressed through their scent, appearance, texture, taste, etc and it's as if the plant species is a kind of morphogenetic field or a consciousness that is expressed through the plant life.

My working theory is that plants, trees and vegetable life are physical expressions of an ancient form of consciousness much older than the human race who have their own business on the planet that is decidedly non-human and cannot really be understood in human-terms. We can interface with them and make alliances, but it's important for us to grasp that when we do so, we are dealing with an intelligence that's been on the planet for much longer than us and will likely be around long after we are gone. Some elements of plant consciousness interface directly with human consciousness in a psychoactive way, others can be interfaced with on different levels. Ultimately we exist in a symbiotic relationship with vegetable life, it sustains us, provides oxygen, food, medicine, magic, teaching. I think its a mistake not to try and grasp the fuller picture of vegetable life and what it seems to be about, and only focus on the entheogens as they are just one communicative/instructional node on a much larger, complex branching system of intelligences.

I'll stop here, before I get onto my telepathic orchid obsession...
 
 
EmberLeo
09:38 / 04.08.06
So given how alien plant intelligences are, how does one go about figuring out what they want?

Redwood keeps pinging me, and I don't know what I'm supposed to DO about it.

--Ember--
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
09:55 / 04.08.06
Have you tried asking it? Just hang out with it. Spend a lot of time around it. Some veg species might have weird cosmic instructional messages for the human race, but most of them just have their own business on the planet, which is - as far as I can fathom - to simply be and express what they are. To do their Will, if you want to get Thelemic for five minutes. So I wouldnt get so hung up on what it might want from you or what it might be trying to impart. It might just want you to understand something about its nature. Observe it, touch it, try to understand its growth cycles and the mysteries inherent in them. Try and get a grasp of its magic. If you can understand how the personality and magic of an oak tree differs from that of a weeping willow or a silver birch, then you start to get a sense of what trees - and indeed all vegetable life - express by their existence. Redwood will have its own mysteries and if you get to know what they are, you will come to understand how its leaves and bark might be used in magic, when it might be appropriate to bury things under its protection, or a myriad of other interactions that it might tell you about. The key is just to get to know it, and the only way to do that is in the same way that you get to know any other living intelligence. By spending a lot of time with it, interacting with it and observing its nature.
 
 
illmatic
10:08 / 04.08.06
With regards to something like cinnamon though, we tend not to come into contact with the original plant. Do you factor this in as important, Gypsy?

I'd add I guess academic study could be a good route in here as plant and tree species are so complex and fascinating. I have this on my bedside table at the moment, as yet unread. But can't wait to start it.

Extract from the review:

The other day I learned a fact so astounding that I had to call a house meeting. The fig, I told my assembled family, has, as you know, its fruit in the centre of an enclosed sphere. Which means its flowers are internal, too. So how does it get pollinated? Amazingly, none of them had wondered about this before. I have learned from this book, I continued, that figs are pollinated by wee black wasps which climb into the small opening at the top of the syconia - the correct term, by the way, for the bulbs which develop the fruit. The female lays eggs into up to half of the flowers. She then dies. The larvae hatch into their flowers and eat them. Those that are male emerge from the seeds, check out which flowers contain females, eat their way into them and mate with the females. Then they die. The pregnant females emerge and, as Tudge so beautifully puts it, "now fossick around inside the syconium, picking up pollen from the male flowers". Then they fly off, covered in pollen, and so pollinate the flowers of the next syconium they visit.

What the fuck!! If that's not bloody magicial, I don't know what is.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
10:24 / 04.08.06
That book looks amazing.

I don't have the same sort of relationship with cinnamon that I'm able to have with the maple tree outside my flat, in the same way that I don't have the same sort of relationship with, say, someone on barbelith who I've never actually met that I do with the various people I see fairly regularly. That doesn't change the fact that I do have relationships with them, and interact with them quite a bit, it's just different. I've never seen a cinnamon plant, but cinnamon is a big part of my life. I like it in tea, I use it in magic quite a bit, certain Goddesses I work with love cinnamon incense. It's around, I have a relationship with it. It is what it is and it works how it works. Yeah, it would be a far more potent relationship if I had a crop of cinnamon plants in my garden that I raised from seeds and speak to every day. But that's not the reality of the situation, I work with the environment around me as it is, which means some vegetable intelligences I only really know in their dried form, given the nature of how they exist in my locality.
 
 
EmberLeo
10:39 / 04.08.06
Well, I've spent rather a lot of time around redwoods all my life, and know quite a bit about them, so that's bound to help. I admit, I haven't specifically meditated on that recently - maybe that's all.

I got the impression Redwood wanted something specific, but you're right, that may just be me thinking like an animal.

I know I associate them with home, and that I've been having issues with homes lately. That doesn't tell me what to do about it, but I may well be overestimating the doingness factor. I'm so used to being given tasks and craft projects that I've sort of forgotten that some things just want me to meditate for a while...

--Ember--
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
12:13 / 04.08.06
Hmmm... I'd speculate that it might be slightly more than just meditating on redwood, and maybe a bit more to do with deepening your living emotional connection with the tree. Strengthening the bond that you feel with it. Just making a concerted effort to be aware of the magical field that they put out and interacting with it. Involving them more in your life. I think the practical dynamics is really just a case of paying more attention to them and finding ways to involve them in your life and magical activities. Just little low impact things like noticing them more when you walk past them, saying hello, trying to tune into their field, etc. Getting to know them slowly over a period of time is good.
 
 
Saturn's nod
12:37 / 04.08.06
One of the things I loved about the Eden project was the chance to meet plants 'in person' of whom I had only before met cut, dried or otherwise processed parts.

With regard to being pinged by a species - I personally tend to interpret the experience I've had that I would describe similarly as some kind of message/lesson I need to learn from that species.
 
 
Ticker
13:09 / 04.08.06
I've worked on and off with plants and trees for most of my life. I clearly remember having a particularly strange relationship with the yews that were growing outside of my childhood home. Even at a young age I knew the berries were poisonous and would play mashing them up in my hands as pretend deadly potions and laughing with the plant. We were great friends and I've always thought of plants as people.

There are a few trees that I have formal relationships with and others that are very casual. My house plants and I cycle through our relationship almost like human roommates where sometimes you hang out and other times you just nod in passing. I have more daily interaction with my office plant and often I've gotten through a shit day by taking a few moments to hang out him. My garden plants are semi wild as I let them freerange a bit.

Lately I've been working with plants' energy a lot more. One of my favorite in town group of plants is a set of four clematis beds that have over run a pair of benches downtown. I've stopped and admired them over the years and interacted with them over the various seasonal shifts. I'm always excited to see them in the spring.

This week I asked them if I could use their essence to embed in my new tattoo. These particular plants have taught me about letting go of self consciousness and clematis in general has taught me about diverse beauty (on one vine you may encounter flowers with different numbers of petals). The plants are very vigorous and over the years have escaped their trellis breaking free of imposed boundaries.

While interacting with them I was a bit overly aware of being watched by the customers inside the giant sports bar across the mall. When I reflexively drew my hands away I clearly felt the clematis respond with a bubbly sort of humor and they gently asked me why I should care what others thought of me if I was doing something I knew was of value. It can be a bit strange talking to plants in public, even non verbally. But for the first time I was able to clearly see that this is what I'd always gotten from interacting with the clematis, a implied permission through their example of being comfortable doing as they wish because they have faith in their purpose and place. It felt a lot like when you suddenly realize your friend of many years has been inspiring you all along.

I've also started using plant energy to help heal people. For example I can now use the essence of clematis to help people who are dealing with self consciousness and anxiety over public misinterpretation. As a vine it also resonates with the Oghamic essence of Muin which is a great protective energy. Muin works as a sort of guardian letting in beneficial energy but setting up a defensive rejection of negative energy. Pouring the two into my tattoo felt very intense and I was surprised when my subconscious prompted me to use other plant essences as well.

I've started offering treatments to the crabtree outside of my home as I noticed the heat has been bothering it. Hopefully I'm going to also continue my dialogue with one of the cemetary maples which has been a bit standoffish and see if I can't improve the relationship.
 
 
grant
13:27 / 04.08.06
I've never seen a cinnamon plant, but cinnamon is a big part of my life.

I could possibly get a leaf, some seeds, mmmaybe a cutting, if you like. It grows here -- I know of at least two places that don't mind occasional "poaching." The Customs folks wouldn't like it, though.

My parents have an allspice tree, we both have a few varieties of ginger, and I've got dwarf cardamom (not the same species as *real* cardamom, nearly useless as a spice, but a very similar plant). It grows well for me.

This is, I suppose, an offer -- I'm willing to try sending bits to people. I'm imagining southern Spain would be good for cardamom as well (after all, the oranges do well in both places), for example. Although if Kew can't grow cinnamon, then I'm not sure a home gardener in London could.

Spices, from a gardener's perspective, tend to have personality. They're not dramatic plants, but are often good at avoiding one particular group of pests (aromatic oils) and thus have kind of specialties. Basil, for instance, makes a good companion plant for tomatoes, since they tend to nourish each other and drive the right pests away from each other. Oh, and herbs & spices tend *not* to like chemical fertilizers & foods. They show their best flavors/aromas when under a little bit of pressure -- they improve when they're working.


I've also got a few sultry angel flowers (formerly datura, now brunfelsia) who aren't sure if I pay them enough attention (my mother does much better). Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever try using them, but I doubt it.

I get a lot out of my bamboos. It's funny -- their personality matches the "wood" element in the Chinese system. They're very expansive, exploding out with huge new shoots when you least expect it. But the plant teaches you something the elements don't exactly clue you in on -- they're hungry as hell, and pretty thirsty too (at least while they're getting established). Like a slow, green fire, constantly needing fuel.
 
 
Ticker
14:21 / 04.08.06
Like a slow, green fire, constantly needing fuel.

That's a great description!
 
 
33
18:11 / 10.08.06
I have tried to work with plant spirits but had the odd problem, I am in the US right now though and looking for peyote ceremonies I could experince..
 
 
Ticker
19:39 / 10.08.06
33, sadly due to the current laws regarding the use of said plant it isn't possible for anyone to direct you to these ceremonies. Google on the other hand maybe of greater service to you about the Native American religious groups which have won the right to do so.
 
 
33
14:50 / 11.08.06
I tired last year with little success.
I heard it was legal to use this plant in OR , AZ some other states though...

33
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:04 / 11.08.06
Why do you think you need these experiences?
 
 
33
21:47 / 16.08.06
Why do you think you need these experiences?

because I am not a well person and i had success and positives using them given my intent and the fact I am not in it for escapisms , purple dragons or just boredoom.

What about you ?
 
 
Katherine
06:12 / 20.08.06
Interesting stuff, at the moment I have been growing various plants some decorative and others for use. I have found that when using leaves from plants I have taken time to grow and care for the results are stronger. The relationship is stronger as well, I know that is probably quite self explanatory but I think worth noting.

One of my plants is mint which is a fairly easy plant usually to grow, normally should grow like wildfire if you are daft enough to let it out of a pot. However in my garden it seems to stick to one spot and refuse to let one root out of place, quite unfriendly to start with to. However with regular care and attention it has lent itself to be very helpful especially with meditation work, I have found that fresh mint tea helps me center myself when I have had one of those days where you just want to scream. I wouldn’t have thought that mint would have been of use originally with this type of work, usually I used mugwort but one day whilst tending the garden it just came quite apparent that it wanted that attempt. You seem to learn things as the plant grows and you interact with it that you don’t see written.

The lemonbalm is doing great as well, it’s enjoying itself out of the growing pot it was in and seems to have it’s eye on garden domination unlike the mint. Very different plant to work with though, seems to resist the idea of being dried and stored, works better when used fresh, strange as I have always brought it dried from my suppliers.

I have been working more with healing plants just recently, they are pretty much all earmarked for something, the lemonbalm given it’s anti-dried views is going in part into a oil for headaches etc.. I’m trying to see plants and their spirits from a healer view point and get to know them. It’s slow but really rewarding work, especially when you end up with a bottle/jar of something which does what it says on the label and you have worked with them to achieve it.
 
 
Saturn's nod
11:24 / 02.10.06
There's talk of seasonal plant spirits (sorry for the pun) in Conversation Sloe Gin. It put me in mind to link up a couple of references on Blackthorn that I have to hand: 1, 2. (I tend to just read over the Christian-blaming enclosed therein: others might find it more problematic.)
 
 
Katherine
18:44 / 05.10.06
Sloe Gin, great stuff and easy to make.

Anyway that got me thinking about self made alcohols and the part the plants/fruits play in them. Last year during Halloween I made a pomegrate liquer with herbs, the fruit was due to the otherworld influence and the herbs were ones I use primarily for meditations such as mugwort and eyebright. It's had a year to mature now and I am planning the part it is to play in my Halloween.

It's not unusual to take herbs in a cup of wine but when you take the plant and make a drink brewed or cold made then you invest alot of your time and thoughts to it which enhances it, almost in the same way you invest time, effort and love in the growing of a plant.
 
 
Olulabelle
08:21 / 06.10.06
Sloe Gin is quite literally a plant spirit then. Ho.

For a while now we have been putting things in the roots of plants that we plant, We've got five mother salvia plants and everytime we take cuttings to make the new babies we plant them with quartz in their roots.

Then I found out that the Victorians used to put coins in the roots of trees they planted and that they still do this in Kew Gardens, they plant pound coins with each tree; there's a specific pound coin design featuring an oak tree and that's the one they use. So any tree in Kew Gardens probably has a coin somewhere in it's roots and some of those coins will be very old ones, in line with the age of the tree.
 
 
Rigettle
10:05 / 06.10.06
Meeting exotic plants in person is very interesting. I had some good experiences with Salvia but no entity contact to speak of, when a friend gave me a cutting. The plant was a very powerful presence in the room with a disturbing, slighly mood altering aroma. I collected some leaves then... the plant basically told me that I was not to use them unless I really had need & got the go ahead from the spirit itself. What followed were years of my getting used to this powerful ally as a plant rather than as a drug. I never really felt a need to ingest or smoke it. When I enquired, out of curiosity - I was politely but firmy rebuffed. The plant died this year, but having known it alive there is still a lingering sense of the intelligent presence that dwellt behind the physical form. It has taught me that I need to avoid entheogens in general & there seems to be a rightness about that where I am now.

Seasonal plants: one of my favourites is Dog's Mercury. It spreads vegetatively in ancient woodlands. It is a bit nondescript, but very powerful & poisonous. It begins to appear not long after Imbolc & it disappears at Samhain. One Samhain I needed a sprig for a rite - it was there one day & a week later had almost vanished. It took me ages to find a bit. I consider it to be a "plant of the Underworld", small, delicate, but thunderous, cthonic & initiatory. Treat with great respect.
 
  
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