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 

 

 

Plant Spirit Herbalism CoverHerbs 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.