Every moment of this human journey seems to be an opportunity to embrace being alive. Whether it is a moment of deep grief or blissful ecstasy, there is a kind of current that runs through all things, connects all experiences. The more we pay attention to the current, the more we are able to perceive new versions and perspectives of reality.
As I travel deeper along my spiritual path, remembering more layers of what it means to be a soul having a human experience, I have found comfort in this current, this ebb and flow of the energies that create. I have found that no matter the heaviness or darkness I seem to be moving through, the current is always there, initiating movement, growth, evolution...holding space for inevitable change.
What is high, must also go low, what expands, must also contract, as the universe is always seeking balance and expansion of the possibilities of creative expression.
A few years ago, I was in one of those "dark" places. In my perception, I had been abandoned and betrayed by those I held most dear. I had let down my walls, opened my heart, allowed myself to trust...and then an old familiar cycle played out once more.
I had been accused of things my mind could not comprehend - I was confronted and accosted by the anger and fear of those who could not find a way to claim their own power from within. So I became an external mirror, a kind of evil they chose to blame and rally against. During this time, my boundary systems became all knotted up, my inner self confidence diminished and frayed at the core. I felt like even my soul had been shattered with a sledgehammer - fragmented through every level of my being.
It was an initiation kind of moment, a place where the old me had to die so that the new (and more authentic me) could rise. I was required to pull my energy back into myself, to cocoon myself in my own sorrow and grief. I waded in waves of self-judgement and critical self-analysis. I questioned every life choice and every spiritual truth I once held as real.
It was a crucial moment of self-awakening...every moment I wasn't sure if I was living or dying...I felt stuck in-between and couldn't remember who I was.
During this time, I leaned heavily into my tools of meditation, energy work, sound healing, acupuncture and being in nature. I started seeking other kinds of teachers and teachings, not trusting my own conscious discernment or intuition to guide the way. I felt lost and alone, but somehow I could always sense the current.
Without realizing it, or even really knowing what it was when I said yes, I started being offered multiple opportunities to sit in sacred plant circles. I felt a pull in my gut, an illogical YES that couldn't be ignored. And so it began...
I started working with Master Plant Teachers from the Amazonian jungle. With their guidance, I started opening myself to new places, new people, new ways of seeing and being in the world. I started learning to navigate my empathic nature and re-creating healthy boundary systems. I started making friends with the darkness inside of me, instead of letting it convince me that everyone hated me. I began learning how to listen to the fears and judgements that were relentlessly running through my mind; how to lean in with compassion and recognize the inner child parts of me that never felt truly nourished in this life. I started learning what it really meant to love myself - my heart, my body, my essence.
For two and a half years I threw myself into the always loving, but sometimes harsh embrace of the plant teachers. They showed me where I was running away from life, where I was teaching about embodiment of high spiritual energies, but didn't know how best to ground them within myself. They showed me the old patterns of co-dependenacty in relationships and how those patterns were survival techniques learned in childhood. They showed me how to have compassion for the parts of me I had always tried to hide.
They showed me that my life had value and worth...that all life is sacred.
Working with these plants in powerful, spiritual ceremonies has become an invaluable tool that has not only saved my life, but helped me to heal and remember the true presence of my soul. There may not be one cure for all the wounds we carry, but there is a pathway of support if we are courageous enough to OPEN to the possibility of a new way of creating our reality.
The plants offer a path...we are the medicine we seek...
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