Conversations with Plants

Book excerpt: The idea of this book is to help us reclaim and restore a hugely important part of our heritage: our plant medicine path. In some parts of the world plant medicine is still taught at the kitchen table, by the cooking fire, or in the fields, passed down from parent to child and woven through the fabric of the culture. In many places it has been severely eroded, but it has not been lost. Plants feed us most generously and give their medicine freely, and we have the right to reclaim our ability to use plant medicine, to restore our access to the knowledge and the plants themselves - not just for humans but for all species and ecosystems. Conversations with Plants is an invitation to step into your own relationship with plants - their stories and meanings - feel into their medicine, and then understand how to work with them by bringing your own medicine into the conversation. Being an herbalist is not about prescribing, it's about reconnecting with the herbs and their consciousness and holding a discussion with them and the people for whom you are asking their help, nourishment, nurturing, support, protection, and healing along with their wisdom and ability to remind us who we are. This book is about bringing herbs back into your daily life and remembering the direct intimate relationship that has always existed between people and plants. There are plenty of books that provide information on preparations and dosages, but Conversations with Plants shows you how to relate to the green community and use specific plants in your daily food and medicine preparation, explaining the meaning and process behind it, so you can work out appropriate doses and preparations by using common sense.