One thing I just love about being a herbalist or walking a plant path, is that herbs really find you when they want to.
Perhaps you are walking down a street and keep seeing plantain popping up between the cracks in the sidewalk, or maybe you start seeing roses absolutely everywhere and all of a sudden a friend gives you some rose chocolate, you find a rose plant for a strangely affordable price and your favourite Substack writer publishes a newsletter on them too (ahem, ahem).
Sometimes it’s as simple as a thought about a plant you know nothing about and have no obvious reason for needing, but the thought keeps repeating over and over until you finally give in and learn more about them, only to find they are exactly what you’re needing after all. I often have these kinds of experiences, and I do find I connect with a plant and end up needing their support not too far into the future. I think to myself how wonderful it is, that I listened to their call and now I have exactly the support and relationship I need with this plant in the moment that I need it.
This connection and deep knowing, this call from somewhere, from some being that you can’t fully identify yet, a voice that is unexpected - I now know that this is a plant spirit experience.
As an individual I am prone to skepticism. I find reconciling the overly logical and practical parts of myself with the equally-as-present whimsical, spiritual and intuitive sides of myself difficult. How can all of these parts of me exist together, let alone in harmony? It’s one of my biggest lessons, to find a way to integrate these facets of myself and harmonise my essence so that I can feel truly fulfilled. So with saying this, it can take me a while to really connect and ground in with a spiritual term or experience.
One of these was a question I had for myself, what is a plant spirit experience and have I ever had one? Of course I have! I just didn’t recognise it until now. The first time I remember very clearly having a plant spirit experience was with Dandelion (I know, such a cliche, but Dandelion is a great first plant to connect with for many reasons). I was living in China at the time, and I remember looking out my apartment window and seeing dandelions absolutely everywhere. Every gap in the pavement, every patch of grass; good old Dandelion was there. I would watch the grandmothers walk up and down the paths harvesting them, and wondered what they could be doing with them.
At this time I was freshly nineteen, living with my Canadian now-husband Chris in an international school and still very early on in my herbal studies. I remember being absolutely captivated, seeing Dandelion everywhere I went. Their sunshine-y yellow faces peering up at me, bright and waving at me in the wind. Dandelion was constantly in the back of my mind, so when I had to pick a plant for my first monograph they were obviously my first choice. Here I was, thinking that I was choosing Dandelion when now I know that Dandelion was really choosing me.