A Strong Community Can Accommodate a Thief

The tiny off-grid community where I live has a lot in common with a fairy tale. Tucked away in the rainforest, connected by walking paths bordered with rambunctious fruit trees and flowers, you might stumble across the hand-made house where the weaver lives, cross paths with the carpenter on your way to gather water from the spring, or listen to the old fisherman tell tales of catching ono in the bay. In such an enchanting setting, it’s easy to feel that time has stopped: the ordinary rules of the world don’t apply here, and things will go on as they are forever.

In the six years I’ve called this Hawaiian valley home, I’ve become attached to the way things are: the sunset gatherings under the monkeypod tree, the evenings playing card games at my neighbor’s house, the familiar people who can almost always be found at one of a handful of familiar places. I’ve found deep comfort in the predictable rhythms of the day: the roosters crowing before sunrise, the sound of my neighbor cracking a coconut with a machete and pouring dry food into the dogs’ bowls, looking out my kitchen window to see another neighbor pushing her wheelbarrow across a big, open field, cutting through yet another neighbor’s yard to reach the place where we all park our cars.

Like an unsuspecting character in a children’s story who stumbles into a dream world, I’ve been lulled into the sense that this is just the way things are. I will always wake up to these sounds, and always see these sights. One neighbor will always be sitting on his porch doing the crossword puzzle in the daily paper while his little black and white dog comes out to bark at me; another will always be making his way down the trail with a pair of five-gallon buckets, harvesting windfall fruit to feed his pigs. In this version of reality, nobody ages, nobody argues, and nobody leaves; the roosters keep crowing and the flowers keep blooming until the end of time.

A few months ago, one of my favorite neighbors left the valley after making the painful decision to part ways with his longtime partner. Just like that, the Monday night badminton games which had been the social highlight of the week disappeared. We tried to carry on without him, but we barely had enough players to begin with, and the games just weren’t the same without his entertaining commentary and trick shots. To cement the tradition’s demise, the more elderly neighbors who used to come over simply to watch the game decided they no longer wanted to walk home after dark. With no spectators, and only two or three players, there wasn’t enough glue to hold things together. Just like that, a beloved tradition came to an end.

Well, I told myself, it wasn’t that bad. At least we still got together to play cards in the evenings once or twice a week. People were getting old; it was only a matter of time until more neighbors moved away from this extremely remote and demanding life. At least we could enjoy each other’s company for now.

But then one night, while we were playing a rollicking game of cards, two of my favorite neighbors each drank one more beer than they were accustomed to having. One of them made an ambiguous comment, the other one interpreted it in the worst possible way, and before you know it, they had escalated into a full-blown shouting match—an unprecedented event in the time I’ve known them. After gently attempting to help them de-escalate, the rest of us sat there in stunned silence as a thirty-year friendship imploded before our eyes.

Just like that, the card games which had formed the other social backbone of life in our community ceased to be, as both parties concluded that they were better off without the other’s friendship. I continued to visit both neighbors separately, but it wasn’t the same as the group dynamic we used to enjoy. When I realized that things might never go back to the way they were in what had been for me some truly golden years, I felt a quiet sense of grief. I had long accepted that the neighbors I love and depend upon would someday get old and die—I just didn’t expect that the community would die before them.

What do we do when things happen that are out of our control? How do we deal with change, especially when we experience that change as negative? As the senior editor at a self-help and spirituality publisher, I spend all day pondering these questions alongside the authors I work with—and yet, when it comes to living the answers in my own life, I struggle just as much as anyone else. I ask myself what advice the authors I’ve worked with would give, and the answers float into my head: words like acceptance, compassion, ritual, and imagination.

I tell myself that this time of seeming destruction is an essential part of my journey with this place, just as much as those precious evenings under the monkeypod tree. If we only lived through the easy moments, we would never learn wisdom. If we only saw people at their best moments, we would never learn true compassion. If we didn’t trust that things will unfold in the fullness of time, we would never receive the gift of perspective.

Years ago, when I was studying North Indian classical music, my teacher explained why a certain raga contained a bitter-sounding note. “That note is the thief,” he explained. “But this raga teaches that a strong queen can accommodate a thief in her queendom.” I’ve pondered that story ever since. A strong community can accommodate some discord; a strong heart can accommodate disappointment and grief; a strong life can flow with change. Without its bitter note, the raga would have less depth. Indeed, it is the presence of the thief which allows the monarch to practice true nobility.

While I don’t think it’s necessarily true that all negative events are blessings in disguise, it has been my experience that great upheavals often do give rise to unexpected possibilities—new chapters revealing themselves that never would have been written if the old fairy tale hadn’t fallen away. I remember other moments in my life when things felt uncertain, or when the structures and rhythms I’d depended on suddenly changed. Usually, it meant learning new skills or otherwise expanding; rarely are we called to contract in response to change.

Even when my neighbors inevitably make amends, it won’t alter the fact that our small community is dwindling, with fewer people moving to this remote area, and more and more residents growing old, dying, or moving away. As much as I exult in the life of this place—the green leaves, singing birds, and abundant fruit—it stubbornly, insistently teaches me about death. From the rotting tangerines on the forest floor, to the tumbledown shacks whose owners have gone away, to the old stone graves just steps from the walking path, this place has never pretended that nothing ends. It was only me who imagined otherwise.

To be noble in the face of change is to remain in harmony with your innermost values. What remains constant in your heart even as external circumstances change? What do you continue to do, say, and believe even when things aren’t going your way? I ask myself these questions as I gaze at the grassy spot where we used to play badminton, or sit on my neighbor’s porch in the evening, just the two of us, with the card games and dominoes gathering dust on the shelf.

In North Indian classical music, ragas are sung over the constant droning of a perfectly tuned tanpura, which provides the fundamental notes against which all other notes are measured. It is by listening to the tanpura that raga singers remain perfectly in tune, even as they travel far from the fundamental, moving from note to note at incredible speed. In this manner, the change inherent in melodic improvisation is anchored to something dependable and eternal.

In life, that dependable, eternal thing can only be love. The truth is, as much as I’ve felt challenged by the upheavals in my community, I also feel that in giving up my fantasies and projections of an idyllic world, I’m learning to love that world more deeply—indeed, to truly love it for the first time. Without stubbornness and contradictions, life would lose its poignancy. And without the knowledge that things can suddenly change, we might never learn to appreciate the fleeting nature of what we are given to experience while we are on this earth.

This spring, I hope you all find that dependable, eternal thing in your own lives—and when a bitter note appears in your raga, may you sing it with grace.

Sincerely,

Hilary T. Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing

Treasures Past and Present

I've never been a particularly sentimental person when it comes to material things. Living in a small cabin in a warm and rainy tropical climate means being ruthlessly practical about possessions, as anything that doesn’t get used on a regular basis will quickly succumb to mold, rust, or other forces of decay. Yet among the utilitarian tools that furnish my home, one object stands out: a tarnished silver candlestick that belonged to my great-great-grandmother in Saskatchewan. I remember rolling my eyes when my mother gave it to me to me shortly after I graduated from college. What was I supposed to do with a candlestick? Who even used candles anymore?

At the time, I was living in San Francisco, and my life in the city felt lightyears away from my ancestors’ existence on the prairie. In my brightly lit apartment, there was no need for candles, and with all the taquerias nearby my roommates and I rarely ate at home. Indeed, we didn’t even have a dining table. Yet somehow, I held on to the candlestick through frequent moves, reluctantly packing it up even as I felt vaguely foolish for doing so. So what if it belonged to my great-great-grandmother? The candlestick was a nuisance, a random knick-knack I didn’t really need. Still, something in me couldn’t quite let it go.

Somehow, the candlestick stayed with me for the next eighteen years, outlasting books, instruments, and items of clothing I would have told you I cherished far more. It survived friendships, relationships, and versions of myself that were all destined to fade. And when I made the biggest move of my life, leaving city streets behind to live off-grid in the forest, the candlestick came with me. It sat on a milkcrate during the years I lived in a tent, and eventually graduated to a simple shelf I built out of scrap wood.

So many things in my life had not endured, and yet my great-great-grandmother’s candlestick had stayed with me all that time. After years of seeing it as “useless,” I now appreciated the unexpected dignity it lent to its humble surroundings. I realized that in my grandmother’s hut on the prairie, it had probably done the same thing. Like me, she lacked many of the luxuries and conveniences that people in the city take for granted; and yet she could still light a candle and eat a meal in its glow.

After a lifetime of feeling little connection to or appreciation for my ancestors, I began to wonder what else I had in common with them—what other shared threads ran through our lives? Which of their skills and talents had I inherited, and which of their wounds did I still carry? In which ways were their choices still shaping my life, just as the candlestick exerted a subtle but powerful presence in my cabin?

Last year, I had the opportunity to edit Dr. Steven Farmer's book, Healing Ancestral Family Patterns: A Practical Guide to Ending the Cycle of Intergenerational Trauma. Dr. Farmer writes that we inherit four types of traits from our ancestors: physical traits such as tallness or a proneness to insomnia, emotional traits such as a melancholy streak or a reputation for being irrepressibly cheerful, behavioral traits such a love of long-distance running or a tendency to flirt, and mental traits such as a facility with numbers or a way with words.

He points out that when these traits repeat themselves over many generations, family patterns emerge. These can be positive patterns, like loving and enduring relationships, or more challenging patterns, like a tendency to burn bridges and sever ties. In some cases, children can seem to be reruns of a particular ancestor’s life: the older brother who amasses a fortune at a young age and squanders it all by the time he’s thirty, just like his grandfather, the younger brother who seems cursed with misfortunes, just like his great-uncle, the daughter who’s the spitting image of her great-grandmother and has the same sharp sense of humor.

As I edited Dr. Farmer’s book, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own ancestry. Unlike my Hawaiian neighbors who can recite not only their own family lineage but the lineages of friends in their community, I know relatively little about my parents’ families, having grown up far from their hometowns. Yet this in itself constituted the first of several family patterns I ultimately came to recognize: like me, many of my ancestors moved far away from the places where they were born, and expressed few regrets about doing so.

Although my living relatives are scientists, teachers, and writers who live in cities, it warmed my heart to remember that most of my grandparents and great-grandparents had grown up in settings far more rural and isolated than my tropical homestead. They would surely relate to ordinary tasks such as carrying water from the spring, preserving a big harvest of fruit, and coming together with neighbors for seasonal celebrations.

I realized that many of the values I thought I'd discovered independently, such as resourcefulness, thrift, and community building, were actually family traditions—I just hadn’t recognized them as such. At the same time, I realized that some of the things I struggle with mirror the struggles of the generations who came before me. My family tree contains several sets of siblings who are estranged from one another, just as my sister and I have been estranged throughout most of our lives. Maybe this wasn’t “my” problem, but just one manifestation of a bigger wound that had its origins deep in the past—and by studying the histories of my aunts’ and grandmothers’ relationships with their siblings, I could better understand my own.

Throughout Dr. Farmer’s book, he emphasizes that you do not need to be a genealogy expert to heal ancestral family patterns. In some cases, it isn’t even necessary to know who your ancestors were at all. Simply opening yourself to the fact that you represent one link of a chain of being can be enough to change your mindset, empowering you to question which energies are really “yours” and which have simply been passed down, available for you to transform through your own wisdom and benevolence for the benefit of future generations.

When my solar batteries run low, I light a candle in my great-great-grandmother’s candlestick, and the flame illuminates my small space just as it once lit her prairie home. In those moments, the physical and temporal distance between us seems to collapse.

In the soft light of that candle, I sometimes wonder what she would make of me—a woman living alone in a hut in the rainforest, typing on a laptop which is powered by a handful of solar panels. Would she recognize in me the same deeply practical nature that allowed her to survive in Saskatchewan? Would she understand my choice to live in this unusual and inconvenient way? I'll never know for certain, but I like to think there would be a spark of recognition between us that transcended our physical traits.

As Dr. Farmer points out, our ancestors were far from perfect—they made mistakes, often held beliefs we would consider offensive today, and sometimes caused damage that reverberated through generations. Yet by engaging thoughtfully with our inheritance, neither rejecting it out of hand nor accepting it uncritically, we can weave something new and healing from these ancestral threads.

Toward the end of Healing Ancestral Family Patterns, Dr. Farmer describes the thrill of diving into your ancestry, which can be akin to a treasure hunt or mystery novel: “Just when you think you understand your story, some new piece of information comes to light, revealing insights that may have eluded you before.”

As I was drafting this essay, I picked up my great-grandmother’s candlestick and inspected it closely for the first time in years. I noticed nicks and scratches on its stem, and some kind of patch or repair just under the depression where the candle goes. Picking up a cloth to polish it, I was startled when the candlestick came apart into three pieces; I had never noticed they were held together by a long screw. For a moment, I had the wild thought that there might be a secret note hidden inside one of the sections. How incredible it would be to find an old love letter in faded, spidery handwriting, or a yellowed photograph slipped in there for safekeeping.

Of course, the candlestick was empty—yet it still felt like some imaginary threshold between the deep past and present had been unexpectedly breached. In the instant it came apart, I saw it for the first time—not as “my” candlestick, but as its own being, a thing which might well outlive me, just as it had outlived my great-great-grandmother. For a moment, I felt my own mortality. Then I screwed it back together, and pushed a brand-new candle in.

Sincerely,

Hilary T. Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing

The patterns of the past don’t have to define your future.

Drawing on decades of experience in psychology, family systems therapy, and shamanic practice, Dr. Steven Farmer reveals how the physical, emotional, behavioral, and mental traits passed down through your family tree influence your relationships, decisions, and overall well-being. This compassionate and practical guide will help you:

Identify the traits and patterns you’ve inherited from your ancestors.

Heal emotional wounds that have been carried across generations.

Break free from cycles of addiction, trauma, and dysfunction.

Enhance your connection with your ancestors to draw on their wisdom and strength.

Create a legacy of healing that benefits both you and your descendants.

With a blend of modern therapeutic techniques and ancient shamanic practices, Healing Ancestral Family Patterns offers a clear path to ancestral healing. Whether you’re seeking to address deep-seated trauma, understand your family’s history, or simply connect more deeply with your roots, the practices within will empower you to transform your ancestral patterns into sources of strength and resilience.

Healing Ancestral Family Patterns

A Practical Guide to Ending the Cycle of Intergenerational Trauma

The Wisdom of Plants

Living on an off-grid homestead in the Hawaiian rainforest, my days are defined by encounters with plants. I pick lemongrass and mamaki to boil for tea, dig up a long, thin ‘awa root to chew for its relaxing effects, pull back the sweet potato vines that are trying to claim my spinach patch, chop down racks of bananas to share with neighbors, and relax in the hammock strung in the shade of two big, sturdy monkeypod trees. As I work at my desk, I can hear the wind rustling in the bamboo grove and the birds cheerfully raiding the fruits on the guava trees. My after-work to-do list is always packed with plant-related activities like pruning, foraging, and deciding what new trees and herbs to grow.

In the lush valley I call home, plants play the role of food, medicine, fuel, shelter, and unofficial currency. In the six years I’ve lived here, they’ve also become close friends. I look forward to seeing them when I wake up in the morning, and love to hear them whispering all around me as I fall asleep at night. When nobody’s looking, I’ll sometimes talk to them, bury offerings of coffee beans near their roots, or pour out a small cup of tea just outside their dripline. And when I go to visit a waterfall or sacred site in a distant part of the valley, I’ll try to bring some flowers or ‘awa with me in the manner of a respectful guest.

One of my neighbors, a basket weaver who is forever harvesting thin, sturdy roots and palm fronds for her work, is fond of saying that the valley where we live has “plant-dominant consciousness.” In her view, there are so many more plants than people in this remote and rugged part of the island that we can’t help but tune in to their mode of existence and be influenced by their constant presence.

I’m delighted by the idea that my neighbors and I are outnumbered by plants, and that our thoughts, worries, and opinions leave little trace on the vast green consciousness that surrounds us. I love knowing that I’m a minority in this plant-dominated world, and that even if I live among them for the rest of my life, there will always be new things to discover and understand. Most of all, I love the beauty and serenity of an environment in which sunlight filters through banana leaves, geckos chase each other up and down the sugar cane, and human-made structures are few and far between.

Of all the authors I’ve worked with since joining Hierophant Publishing, I think Wendy Dooner would enjoy this lush and remote patch of rainforest most of all—and she would almost certainly resonate with my neighbor’s ideas about plant-dominant consciousness. In her new book, Plant Spirit Herbalism: Discover the Power of Medicinal Herbs for Inner Transformation, she writes, “Shamanism taught me that herbs are so much more than the compounds we can extract from them. They are wise teachers and loving friends, and when we take the time to connect with them—not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—our lives become much richer for it.”

In Dooner’s experience, plants have distinct personalities, much like people—and like people, they’ll open up to us when we introduce ourselves, pay attention, and offer to be friends. The technical descriptions of herbs in Plant Spirit Herbalism are interspersed with stories of the ways they can show up for us on an emotional or spiritual level, and techniques for deepening our awareness of the varied and subtle ways they communicate. It’s clear that for Dooner, a walk in the woods or a stroll through a garden is an experience imbued with magic and meaning, every plant a living spirit with important wisdom to convey.

However, this holistic perspective didn’t come easily to her. The child of New Age parents who were more partial to meditation and crystals than chemistry, Dooner rebelled as a teenager by studying plant science, physiology, pathophysiology, and herbal constituents. As a student at a four-year herbal medicine program at a local university, she reveled in wearing a white lab coat and looking at plants through microscopes. She writes, “I certainly had no time for what I considered the ‘woo-woo’ nonsense that some of my older classmates were discussing about herbs—their ‘energy,’ their ‘wisdom,’ and the ‘healing’ they could offer human beings that had nothing to do with their physical medicinal properties.”

It was only after running her own herbal medicine clinic for several years that Dooner began to feel a tug towards a richer, fuller understanding of plants—and began to move from a relationship based on extraction to one characterized by loving reciprocity. In other words, she stopped using plants as objects, and started interacting with them as living beings.

The shift from extraction to reciprocity is perhaps the key marker of growing maturity in human beings. This is true at both the practical and spiritual levels. As babies, we’re extraction machines: our only job is to take as much food and attention from our parents as we can, no matter how much sleep or stress it causes them. As we grow older, we slowly learn to share, help out, return favors, and consider our impact on others. Ideally, this process would continue at a consistent rate throughout our lives, so that by the time we reach middle age we’d be deeply oriented towards reciprocity, having left our extractive instincts far behind.

However, this ideal is rarely easy to achieve—especially in a culture that teaches us to grab all that we can before someone else takes it, or to dismiss or minimize the existence of any type of consciousness that differs from our own. All too often, we limit our circle of empathy to include only our immediate friends and family: the people most like us, who speak our language, share our customs, and towards whom we most readily extend our assistance and concern. The people, plants, and animals who fall outside of that circle become abstractions: resources we extract, rather than friends we know.

For thousands of years, spiritual traditions from around the world have taught the value of expanding our circle of empathy, whether by loving our neighbors, practicing hospitality towards strangers, sending compassionate kindness to all beings, or bringing respect and restraint to our relationships with animals and plants. It’s clear that we are meant to grow beyond the extractive tendencies which can be so automatic, and bring our full selves to every relationship, no matter how unfamiliar it may be.

In Plant Spirit Herbalism, Dooner gives us tools for expanding our circle of empathy to the trees, plants, and herbs that surround us, no matter where we may live in the world. Whether it’s through journeys, offerings, rituals, or everyday conversations, Dooner shows that plants are more than mere matter to be steeped in a tea or mashed into a poultice, but friends and allies who can console, uplift, and inspire us every day of our lives. Far from simply relieving a headache or clearing up a rash, herbal medicines can also affect our minds, moods, and level of consciousness when we relate to them with reverence, curiosity, and respect.

Although bringing plants into your circle of empathy may feel unfamiliar at first, it soon becomes second nature. As Dooner writes, “We are always in dialogue with other forms of consciousness, whether we realize it or not.” Recognizing this dialogue is the key to expanding your circle, and inviting new kinds of friendship into your life.

As I edited Plant Spirit Herbalism, I loved to imagine Dooner strolling around her land in rainy Scotland, checking in with stands of nettle and lemon balm the way I check in with clumps of ginger and pineapple on my land almost seven thousand miles away. I’d love to know what she’d make of the enormous monkeypods, or what messages she’d hear from the kukui trees whose pale green nuts litter the forest floor. I imagine sitting down to a Sensory Tea Ceremony with her, a core practice she teaches in her book, and discovering all of the aspects of soursop leaf or mamaki I’d never noticed before. I have a feeling she’d know exactly what my basket weaving neighbor means when she talks about plant-dominant consciousness, and that she’d enjoy tromping through the forest with another neighbor of mine, looking for herbal medicines.

For now, I will have to content myself with leafing through Dooner’s beautiful book, recalling the friendships I’ve shared with plants like nettle, elderberry, and dandelion when I lived on the mainland, and whose spirits, according to Dooner, are still available to guide and delight me no matter where I live in the world.

This winter, may you all be surrounded by the wisdom of plants—and engage in the dance of reciprocity wherever you go.

Sincerely,

Hilary T. Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing

Herbs are powerful medicine. Cultures around the world have cultivated relationships with healing plants for thousands of years, respecting them not just for their physical medicinal properties, but also for their spiritual power.

In this book, you will enter the world of what author and licensed medical herbalist Wendy Dooner calls Plant Spirit Herbalism—a rich, colorful landscape populated by benevolent plant spirits. Each chapter focuses on a specific herb, exploring its history, healing properties, and role as a spiritual ally. Every herb discussed grows in the world around you, from the humble dandelion to the stately rose.

Dooner’s unique combination of scientific rigor and intuitive insight provides a holistic approach to working with herbs that honors both their capacity for physical healing and their power for spiritual transformation. With her expert guidance, you will:

Create herbal preparations, including tinctures and flower essences

Develop a personal connection to plant spirits, accessing their unseen healing properties

Deepen your relationship with specific herbs through rituals and practical medicine-making

Undertake plant spirit journeys to deepen your relationship with specific herbs

Let Dooner be your guide on this journey as Plant Spirit Herbalism provides a fresh perspective on the natural world, inviting you to form deep and lasting relationships with the nurturing plant spirits which already surround you.

My Rainforest Monastery

This December marks the six-year anniversary of my moving to the small piece of land in the Hawaiian rainforest I call home. As I am drafting this newsletter, it is sunny and warm, and I’m sitting in a simple eight-by-twelve structure with pink walls, mosquito screens, and a sturdy metal roof; a painting by one of the Hierophant authors I’m working with sits on a shelf made out of a rough, old board, and a motley assortment of new and salvaged solar equipment hums in one corner. A few minutes ago, one of my neighbors stopped by with some ‘awa to share, a traditional Polynesian beverage brewed from the roots of a knobby-limbed plant with heart-shaped leaves, and we drank it together on my front porch. Living here has brought me a sense of peace, contentment, and belonging unlike any I have known in my life.

Today, I would describe the simple homestead I’ve built as a kind of monastery: a place characterized by natural beauty, solitude, quiet, and humble manual labor. The challenges of living in such a remote location have profoundly altered my body and mind, such that no aspect of who I am has remained untouched by this wild and willful place. I’ve learned to value the simple things: shelter, water to drink, fruit to eat, the presence of kindly neighbors, the opportunity to be of service, and accepting help from others in return. Perhaps most astonishing have been the lessons this place has taught me about surrender. On stormy days, it isn’t possible to leave this land bounded by rivers and streams and a crashing ocean; you quickly learn that your own will comes second to that of nature, and that existing happily here means embracing that reality.

With all this being said, you may be surprised to learn that when I first moved to this land, I experienced it not as a temple, but as a prison. Six Decembers ago, my then-partner was in the throes of a manic episode; he had decided that uprooting our lives in California and going to live in the jungle was the only cure for what ailed him. At his insistence, and in great haste, we bought the land sight unseen. The first time I laid eyes on the muddy, lightless thicket that was to be our new “home,” I cried.

My objections to this move were numerous. I didn’t want to live in a tent, with mosquitoes, geckos, and spiders, when I was used to living indoors; I hated the way the thick mud and relentless rain saturated my clothing, which were then impossible to dry; I was conscious of being an intruder in a place and culture to which I had no ties. With no cell service, internet, or electricity, I couldn’t even phone my friends on the mainland. Meanwhile, I was so desperate to go “home” that I resisted making new friends, as that would only make this nightmarish situation seem more permanent.

While my partner reveled in our new and exciting surroundings, I boiled with anger and sadness, refusing to take joy in anything. I hated the valley, with its dangerous roads and rivers; I hated the roosters which woke me up at 4 AM, and the tiny frogs whose chorus screamed into the night; I hated the tent, whose walls flapped in the wind, and which offered no protection from falling branches and no privacy from the strangers strolling past on the trail nearby.

Deep in depression, I decided my life was over. I had always wanted to be a writer, and had even published four books in happier years. Now, on a trip back to California to collect the last of our belongings, I took every journal I had ever written, starting from age eight, and dumped them all into a trash can, along with the half-filled bags of expired rice and car repair records I’d cleaned out of our old place that morning. As I pushed the thirty-odd journals and notebooks to the bottom of the can, I told myself that I would never write again.

Several months ago, I had the pleasure of editing My Good Friend the Rattlesnake: Lessons of Loss, Truth, and Transformation by don Jose Ruiz. Part memoir, part collection of teaching stories, My Good Friend the Rattlesnake is organized around a central question: how can we learn to control our own poison—the negativity, anger, and false beliefs which can be so damaging to ourselves and others?

In Chapter One, Ruiz writes: One of the most important things you learn when you live in rattlesnake country is that baby rattlesnakes are far more dangerous than adult ones. This is because when a rattlesnake is young, it hasn’t yet developed the ability to control its poison. If a baby rattlesnake were to bite you, it would inject all its poison in one go, and you would be far more likely to die. Once a rattlesnake grows and becomes an adult, however, it learns to control its poison. If an adult were to bite you, it may only release a small amount. This makes your chances of survival much greater.

He goes on to recount his long and twisting journey from a baby rattlesnake to an adult one, including some never-before-told stories of the years he was addicted to crystal meth, and during which the stakes for learning to control his poison were literally life and death. Like many of us, he clung to his own pain, holding tightly to the identity of “victim” and “junkie,” while keeping the friends and relatives who were desperate to help him at arms’ length. During one of the most emotional moments in the book, Ruiz’s best friend Emilio confronts him at his home in Tijuana after a particularly destructive binge, saying, “You know, gallo, if you stay here, you’re gonna die.” Lucky for all of us, Ruiz listened and left.

Looking back on my early days in Hawaii, I can see that like Ruiz, I had a lot in common with a baby rattlesnake. When faced with a set of circumstances I didn’t like and hadn’t chosen, I made a pact with despair. When I put a lifetime’s worth of journals into the trash can, I told myself that I was reclaiming some small bit of agency: by destroying something I cherished, at least I was taking back a little control. Sure, the poison I’d unleashed was hurting me, but that felt better than facing a complete unknown.

Luckily for me, I, too, had a friend like Emilio. Later that morning, my old music teacher stopped by. When I told him what I had done with my notebooks, he insisted I take them out of the garbage and bring them back to Hawaii with me. “Why bother?” I said. “They’re just going to get ruined in the tent.” At that moment, I couldn’t imagine a future in which I was living happily on the land, any more than don Jose could imagine the life he presently leads, complete with puppies, hard rock music, vegan treats, and a role as a beloved author, teacher, and speaker.

Today, the journals I once attempted to destroy live on a shelf in the small cabin I built with the help of a neighbor. Over six years of living here, this place has taught me much about controlling my poison. When the river is high, when the mosquitoes are biting, when the hurricane winds blow, and when one more thing needs repair just when I finished fixing something else, I know there is no sense in giving into despair, frustration, or self-pity. Instead, I do what I can to make myself comfortable, whether that’s brewing a cup of tea, listening to music, or just sitting still.

Although I’m not sure I qualify as an adult rattlesnake quite yet, I think that after living on my homestead for so long I might finally be growing into a teenage one. I’ve learned that the darkest of times can give way to the brightest of days, and that first impressions of a place or situation can be deceptive. I’ve also learned that when a negative or despairing voice feels like “myself,” I should treat it with a whole lot of skepticism, and refrain from giving it control over my supply of poison. As don Jose writes: No matter what kind of self-destructive path you have been on, there is always a part of you that wants to live—a tiny seed that wants to grow and thrive. And no matter how many negative thoughts you have in your mind, this tiny seed knows its own worth.

This December, as we pass through the darkest time of the year, I hope you all feel the presence of this tiny seed in your own hearts. A rattlesnake can be a fearsome foe, or it can be a good friend—and the difference is the skillfulness with which we approach it, the respect with which we treat it, and the reverence with which we hold it every day.

Sincerely,

Hilary T. Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing

Few understand the difficult work of overcoming trauma, abuse, and addiction better than don Jose Ruiz.

In My Good Friend the Rattlesnake, Ruiz, now a bestselling author and spiritual teacher, reveals the dramatic twists and turns he experienced on his own path to personal freedom and inner transformation.

Through this series of deeply intimate stories, Ruiz explains how he overcame his addiction to suffering and embraced a life of love, clarity, and self-awareness. In one example, he recounts his unexpected journey with temporary blindness, which paradoxically allowed him to see what truly mattered. In another, he celebrates individuality in spiritual practice, challenging the idea that it must look or sound a particular way to be authentic.

Throughout, Ruiz incorporates the teachings of his father, don Miguel Ruiz (author of The Four Agreements). The lessons he shares are practical, profound, and accessible, making this book an essential companion for anyone seeking spiritual growth and emotional healing.

Honest, vulnerable, and rich with exercises and meditations, My Good Friend the Rattlesnake redefines what it means to heal, grow, and live authentically.

Just who do you think you are?

One of my favorite fall activities is mushroom hunting. I first got into this pursuit when I was living on the coast of Washington, many years ago. When the dark, rainy winter descended, I knew I needed an activity to get me out of the house, keep me connected with nature, and ward off seasonal depression. Mushroom hunting provided exactly that.

My first foray was thrilling. I’ll never forget the smell of the cold, damp forest floor with its thick blanket of leaf litter, and the amazement I felt when my eyes began to pick out shapes and colors and textures I’d never noticed before. What was that slimy, orange thing that looked like jelly, or those round white spheres that let out a cloud of dark green spores when you poked them? Why did the purple, gilled mushrooms grow under deciduous trees, while the spongey, red-capped mushrooms grew under evergreens?

I began to realize that there were mushrooms everywhere. They were all around me, their variety astounding. How had I ignored them for so long? Filled with a beginner’s exuberance, I picked one of each, then hauled home the heavy, soggy bags of fungi and arranged them on the kitchen table. Tired and wet, I took out the mushroom identification book I’d bought—and quickly realized I didn’t have the energy to carefully key out forty different mushrooms from six different families.

Over the next few days, I managed to identify perhaps nine or ten of the mushrooms I had gathered. Although one or two were edible, there seemed to be little point in cooking a single mushroom—and they were decomposing quickly. Sheepishly, I carried the whole lot of them to the backyard and flung them under the trees.

On my next foray, I was determined to do better. I didn’t want to pick any random mushroom that caught my eye, only to toss it out when I got home. Instead, I followed the advice in my mushroom-hunting book to focus on a single, easily recognizable family, foraging with purpose and intention instead of merely hoping that whatever I picked turned out to be edible. This time, the forest spoke to me in a new way. Instead of an indecipherable cacophony of shapes and colors, my eye began to pick out the patterns I’d read about in my field guide. I looked for white, shelf-like fungi growing on the sides of trees and fallen logs—and was ecstatic when I spotted my very first harvest of oyster mushrooms.

That evening, instead of dumping out a slimy mishmash of edible, inedible, and unknown mushrooms onto my kitchen table, I cleaned a few oyster mushrooms, dry-sauteed them in a pan, and tested a bite to see if it would make me ill. When it didn’t, I joyfully cooked the rest—and my career as a mushroom hunter had begun.

When I moved to Hawaii, it meant saying goodbye to many of the mushrooms I’d come to know on the mainland and getting acquainted with a whole new set of fungal friends. However, by then I was familiar with the process of identifying new mushrooms, slowly building out my repertoire from a few safe and easy mushrooms to more “advanced” ones. Before long, I was finding monkey ears, witches’ butter, and jelly fungus on my daily walks, and I learned to recognize the marzipan scent of the almond agarics that grace the forest floor a couple of times each year. I also made friends with experienced foragers who taught me things about the tropical ecosystem that would have taken me years to learn on my own.

Every now and then, a skeptical friend or relative will ask me if I’m really “qualified” to forage for mushrooms. How can you be sure you don’t pick something poisonous? they say. This question always makes me laugh. Sometimes, I’ll ask them a cheeky question in return: How can you be sure you don’t accidentally pick an orange instead of an apple when you go to the grocery store? Most people have no problem distinguishing between an orange and an apple, even though they are both round, medium-sized fruits; to an experienced mushroom hunter, distinguishing between an agaricus and a bolete is just as simple and obvious. We learn the necessary discernment through focused effort and practice; and although it’s certainly possible to get advanced degrees in mycology, this isn’t a prerequisite to safely foraging and cooking a great meal, any more than getting a degree in food science is necessary to safely shop for fruit at the store.

At the same time, I’ve come to understand that often when people ask what makes me qualified to hunt for mushrooms, they’re not really worried about me confusing a Destroying Angel for a chanterelle; instead, they’re expressing their own anxieties and yearnings about their relationship with nature. What gives you the right to tromp around in the forest, filled with joy on a rainy day? Who gave you permission to be part of it, instead of looking in from the outside? And I can only answer: I did. And so can you.

Last month, I had the pleasure of teaching a workshop about self-help and spirituality writing—my second time teaching this class. For four Tuesdays in a row, I met on Zoom with a group of writers who all came bearing the bright and precious seed of an idea for a book. In many cases, they’d been carrying this seed for many years, tending it and keeping it safe until conditions were right for it to sprout. They had gathered stories, done research, and thought deeply about what they wanted to share, and why. In many cases, they also had professional and educational credentials—they were therapists, nurses, teachers, and healers with years of experience to draw on.

Towards the end of the last class, one participant asked a very good question: “How will I know when I’m qualified to write my book?”

There was a noticeable shift in energy in the classroom. I realized that, although only one person had voiced the question, everyone had been thinking about it—and in some cases, worrying about it.

I hesitated, as a number of competing answers piled up in my mind. On the one hand, there is a baseline of knowledge, experience, and technical skill that needs to be reached before one is well-positioned to write a successful book, go on a successful foraging mission, knit a sweater, or undertake just about any other complex task. On that very practical level, the more training and experience you have, the more qualified you will be.

But I also sensed that the student’s question extended beyond practical considerations. What she was really asking—and what made the other students listen with such alertness when she asked it—was how to quiet the voices in her head that whispered, Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are to try to help people with their problems or guide them towards a better life? Who do you think you are to talk about God or Source or the Divine? Who do you think you are to share the life stories that were supposed to stay hidden, in the hopes that they will ease another person’s pain? Who do you think you are to call yourself a writer, a teacher, a healer—or for that matter, an artist, a musician, a dancer, or a creative?

We struggle with these questions no matter how many advanced degrees we've obtained, classes we’ve taught, or years of experience we’ve had with our subject matter. Any time we embark on a creative project, whether it’s writing a self-help book or planning a party, these questions and doubts are bound to show up, whether they are voiced by other people or come from deep within ourselves.

Now that I’ve had a few days to mull it over, I’ve realized that to me, the answers to these questions are felt, rather than thought. When I go into the forest to forage, I feel a sense of pleasure, ease, and competence. My body and mind relax; I trust that my years of experience, and the knowledge I’ve gained through research and training, will guide me in the right direction. I instinctively move towards certain trees, knowing that certain mushrooms are likely to be there; I kneel and smell the ground, and a telltale red color catches my eye. The joy I feel springs from my competence, and I love sharing that joy with friends when I bring them foraging with me.

Is joy a qualification? I believe it is. To be sure, we need the appropriate skills and knowledge to do the task at hand, especially if there are risks involved. But once that baseline has been established, I’ve often found that joy is a sign of increasing mastery. Do you relish your creative task, or do you feel stuck, stymied, and uninspired? Does your mind feel fertile and alive when you contemplate the possibilities, or do you struggle to come up with ideas for where to go next? Although I couldn’t quite articulate it on a moment’s notice, what I wanted to tell the students in my class is this: Beyond possessing the necessary knowledge, you’re qualified to write your book, record your podcast, or embark on any other creative pursuit when you enjoy it.

This autumn, I hope you all have the chance to go out in the woods and delight in the abundance of fungi, whether you have any interest in cooking them or not. And if you find yourself lost in a thicket of Who do you think you are? questions, let your joy be the answer.

Sincerely,

Hilary T. Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing

Plant Spirit Herbalism

Stars, Souls, and Stillness

The off-grid homestead where I live in the Hawaiian rainforest is many miles from the nearest town. In the evenings, there are no downtown streets to stroll in, performances and lectures to attend, or restaurants to sample. Without the unlimited electricity and internet access that city dwellers take for granted, people here go to bed by eight or nine PM, shortly after the mynah birds who make their home in the bamboo grove have finished their nightly racket, and the frogs have begun a chorus which will continue until dawn.

After a long day of editing books and working on the land, I’m often tired by eight PM myself—but I’m rarely able to fall asleep until after ten. Having had my fill of reading during the daytime, and being naturally averse to screens, I often find myself sitting on the tiny front porch of my hut, gazing at the stars. With no artificial lights or cities nearby, the sky is a wonderland of constellations. Shooting stars abound. I find myself filled with wonder as I contemplate the many generations of human beings who lived in this place and gazed at this night sky long before I arrived.

Hawaii is a special place for stars. The ancient Polynesians used their extensive knowledge of celestial navigation to make their way across vast ocean to this remote island chain, using no charts or instruments whatsoever. They also used their observations of the stars to determine the best times to plant crops and harvest fish, practices which continue to this day. And although their knowledge of the stars emphasized scientific astronomy, they sometimes ventured into astrology, using the position of the stars to predict important events or to ascertain the significance of the birth and death days of chiefs.

The Polynesians aren’t alone in looking to the skies for both practical and spiritual information. For thousands of years, humans have looked to the stars for evidence that there is order and predictability in the universe. In some cases, this order and predictability was a matter of life or death: plant the crops too early and they’d freeze, overharvest the fish and you’d risk going hungry the following season. Yet human beings have also long looked to the stars for the answers to more personal questions: Who am I, really? Why are some people watery, while others are fiery? Why does a child born in winter act differently than one born in summer?

To many ancient peoples, it only seemed logical that if the position of the stars could predict the behavior of plants and animals, it would also exert a meaningful effect on human lives and personalities. In Mesopotamia (the part of the Fertile Crescent now known as Iraq) there are records showing that astrology was practiced as far back as 1950 BC; the Chinese zodiac system consisting of a twelve-year cycle represented by different animals dates to the 5th century BC.

In ancient times, astrologers may have had important positions at court, tasked with advising emperors on affairs of state and identifying auspicious dates on which to hold important events such as weddings or coronations. Everyday people also consulted astrologers for advice on family, marriage, and important milestones and decisions. For many people, both then and now, the stars are just too important not to take into account, and the effect they exert on us is too powerful to deny.

Hierophant author and intuitive astrologer Molly McCord is one of those people. She was only ten years old when she stumbled across her first astrology book at the public library, having exhausted all the Nancy Drew books on the shelves. Before she knew it, she had become fascinated by the zodiac. As a child growing up in a modern, technological society, astrology felt like a portal into a richer and more meaningful world. At age sixteen, she had her first professional astrology reading, and by the time she went to college, she was helping friends understand their charts and planets, while lecturing them on the importance of getting birth details when you first meet a guy at a party.

Although she explored other careers, astrology kept tugging her back. She began to study with notable astrologists every chance she could get, gradually increasing her understanding of the language of the stars. Over time, Molly realized that, far from determining our fates, our astrological signs offer a jumping-off point for healing and personal growth. In her new book, Soul Growth Astrology: A Workbook for Realizing Your Heart’s True Desires, coming out from Hierophant Publishing in December, she writes, “We choose an astrology chart based on the things our souls most crave to learn, heal, and experience in this particular lifetime.”

The idea that our souls choose a particular incarnation has a long history. Spiritual seekers and thinkers from Eckhart Tolle to Louise Hay have promoted the idea that the Earth is a kind of classroom where souls may sojourn as part of a bigger journey, and that we may in fact choose details such as our place of birth and our parents to maximize our learning. In Soul Growth Astrology, McCord takes this one step further, suggesting that we also choose the unique constellation of traits associated with our astrological sign, knowing that we will be tasked with evolving them to their highest form during this lifetime.

When I tell people I’m the senior editor at a self-help and spirituality publisher, people often imagine that my desk is bedecked with crystals and shamanic drums. They are often surprised when I reveal that I’m a scientific materialist who is far more conversant with tide charts and span tables than astrology readings. Yet as I read Molly’s book, I realized that you don’t need to be a die-hard astrology fan to benefit from the ideas she proposes. We all come to this life with certain strongly-ingrained personality traits, and we all find ourselves in the same types of situations again and again—that is, until we have the insights and make the behavioral changes that allow us to “graduate” from those particular modules in our education.

We also have the opportunity to transform the trickier aspects of our personalities into gifts that will benefit others. Although we can’t reach up and change the position of the stars, we can nourish our souls on their journey of learning, knowing that there is always the best possible version of ourselves to reach towards.

Is life a giant classroom for our souls? After editing Soul Growth Astrology, I’m more inclined than ever to think so. Whether or not it’s scientifically true that we choose the lives into which we are born, and the astrological signs under which we fall, treating these things as true can pave the way to compassion, hope, and other positive states of mind that can light our way in difficult moments. Telling myself that my soul chose my unique mind, body, and personality because it was an interesting and productive vehicle from which to explore life on Earth elevates the challenges and gives them meaning.

Looking at life through this framework, the insomnia that keeps me sitting up late gazing at the stars isn’t a random curse, but a consciously chosen opportunity. Perhaps my soul wanted to learn about the humility of not always getting what you want (sleep!) when you want it (now!), or it craved the deep solitude and stillness that can only be found when the rest of the world is fast asleep. Or, as Molly puts it in Soul Growth Astrology, “Capricorn souls arrive on Earth with a long to-do list, and their strong need to ‘get things done’ keeps them going long after the other star signs have knocked off for the day.” Maybe my soul’s task on Earth is more being and less doing—a shift it will easily take me a lifetime to master.

It makes me smile to think that, on its transit through space and time, a soul thought that my rickety body, curmudgeonly mind, and Capricorn sun sign were just the thing for getting to the next phase of its evolution. Seen from this point of view, maybe editing Molly’s book was a key part of that evolution—another idea that makes me smile, and I have a hunch that, from wherever she is sitting this evening, watching her own starry sky, it would make her smile too.

This October, I hope you all find whatever it is that helps you bring your own unique collection of personality traits to their highest possible expression. Whether you find meaning in astrological charts or scientific papers, may your search guide you to a life filled with wonder, reverence, and opportunities for growth.

Sincerely,

Hilary T. Smith

Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing