Plant Spirit Healing by Marlow Brooks
What is a Plant Spirit?
“Everything in nature has a spirit, a resonance, just as we have a unique expression of our own. Even modern science has proven that what we perceive as solid matter is actually energy vibrating at different frequencies. The only reason we perceive ourselves as separate from others is because there are many kinds of matter and energy, all operating and vibrating at different frequencies. Rock vibrates so slowly that it appears dense and solid, while mind vibrates so fast that it appears immaterial. Similarly, each element (and plant) has its own frequency that is recognized by our body, mind, and spirit.
This elemental energy can be accessed through journeys to plant spirits, some of which represent the frequencies of the elements themselves. In a journey we travel to the lower world of plants and animals in a dream-like state, not all that different from the dreams we experience every night. If we are aware of our dreams and the images and characters in them, they can give us rich information about our psycho-spiritual state as well as messages reflecting the patterns of our life from the past, present, or future. The difference between our nightly dreams and a “journey” to a plant spirit is that we intentionally enter the dream world with a clear mission to find a specific plant that can benefit others and ourselves.
It’s important to note that we have already made friends with this plant in ordinary reality. We have taken the time to learn its botanical name, sit and observe it, get familiar with its local environments and give it an offering such as cornmeal to tobacco.
The Dream Journey
After making friends with the plant, we will journey to the lower world of animal and plant spirits to look for it, as it appeared to us in ordinary reality. When we find it, we respectfully request to meet its spirit, when the plant spirit appears we introduce ourselves again and humbly ask for it to reveal its healing powers, including any specific elemental medicine it may offer. We also vow to only be of benefit to all beings in the healing process.
If the plant spirit agrees, it will share the story of its healing powers perceived by us through words, images, somatic sensations or adventures. Often there is a conversation involving questions, answers and clarifications. At other times, the plant spirit may share its medicine by giving us a personal healing that reveals its medicine or by acting out the imbalances it treats.
When you return to ordinary reality, 10-15 minutes later, we record and decode in writing whatever occurred and share our journey with others. We keep the intention for the plants to serve in a way it has informed us it will in the journey. Anyone with a humble heart can journey to a plant spirit and to learn its specific healing powers. For many of us, this experience can be magical and transformative, and transmit wisdom that is difficult to communicate or access in ordinary reality. All this happens in the realm of the Heart. If we disrupt this delicate space with our thinking or emotional urge to “do” something, the healing and magic will be lost to our linear mind.
Learning this method is like learning a new language. The plant gives us information and our imagination “translates” the experience into a form we can accept, understand and work with. Many of these messages are very subtle and can only be received in dreamtime where there are no conventional beliefs of expectations to interfere with our receptivity. It’s humbling to remember that these messages are open portals to intelligence and information from plant species that have lived successfully on this planet for up to 450 million years longer than we have. They can transmit wisdom from a far greater source and access a sacred world that is palpable.”
— an excerpt from “Singing Our Heart’s Song” by Marlow Brooks (pages 123, 124)
Marlow Brooks is a healer, artist, writer, meditation teacher and long time student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and Kobun Chino Roshi. Marlow lives in Boulder, Colorado and conducts workshops worldwide. For the past 21 years she has taught a year-long course, “The Psychology of the Five Elements and Plant Spirit Healing” at Naropa University. Marlow has written 3 books, “Singing Our Hearts Song: A Guide to the Five Elements and Plant Spirit Healing”, “The Way Through”, a book of poetry and painting, and “Words of the Heart.” Her workshops are lively, rejuvenating, and inspiring. Participants can expect to walk away experiencing the deep support of the natural world and it’s elements as well as a fresh perspective on their life’s journey towards their personal health and true calling.
http://marlowbrooks.com
