7
THE SCREAM OF THE MANDRAKE
When a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower.
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
The root of the mandrake is shaped like a human being, complete with arms and legs. A powerfully magical—some say, dangerous—plant, legends tell that when it is pulled from the soil, it emits a scream of pain and rage at its violation and that of the Earth. Anyone hearing this scream is himself sure to die unless ritual precautions are immediately taken to honor the plant and its environment.
Myths and legends like these are often teaching stories and behind them lies a deeper truth. In the scream of the mandrake, there is a lesson for us about the need to “walk lightly on the earth”—to treat our world with respect, awaken to its spirit, and take only what we need. The human race and its “measuring mentality” has not been too astute at this in the past, leading to a situation of increasing climate change, which some scientists bluntly state is now irreversible. We will simply have to get used to and prepare for wilder and more chaotic weather—ferocious hurricanes, flooding, rising sea levels, blistering summers, frozen winters, failing crops, and scarcities of food and drinking water, which will increase in intensity year-on-year. We can, however, give more respect to the Earth now by cutting back on our resource plundering and pollution so that we bequeath a world with some comforts left for our children instead of a barren planet. Or they, too, may hear the mandrake scream.
THE DEATH OF A SHAMAN
Every time a shaman dies, it is as if a library burned down.
MARK PLOTKIN
There are nearly 270,000 species of flowering plants on Earth, and less than 1 percent of them have been studied for their healing properties. Moreover, most of the research that is taking place is conducted in Western laboratories, where scientific rather than spiritual methods are, of course, employed. The intention is to isolate one or two active ingredients and patent more drugs instead of finding more cures. And as part of this process, researchers sacrifice the plant itself. It is just as if we were killing a human being to take only the teeth and hair. Any other secrets that plant might teach us die with it on the altar of Western rationalism.
Around 125,000 species—almost half the plants on Earth—are found in tropical rainforests, which cover almost eight billion acres of the world’s surface One in three plant-derived drugs come from these rainforest plants yet only a fraction have been investigated for medicinal purposes.
Estimates vary, but it is well-known that several thousands of these rainforest acres are destroyed each year by Western companies or local farmers under Western sponsorship, so that cattle-grazing and mineral exploration can take place, in the interests of fast food and petroleum companies. There is no doubt that many of these disappearing plants hold the keys to lifesaving new medicines—we know this from the less than 1 percent that have been studied—and yet every year thousands more are destroyed. Once they are gone, they may never return.
But this is only half the story, because traditional ways of working with plants are also dying out as the West exports, not only its technology and needs, but its worldviews and values to these cultures. It is a frequent lament among Amazonian shamans, for example, that many fewer young people are now coming forward to learn natural medicine and to meet the spirit of the plants. They are migrating to the cities instead, or putting their faith in Western science, which sees their shamans as outdated, misguided, or a throwback to a naïve age.
These shamans, who cultivate their successors through apprenticeship, have no more students to teach, and their knowledge is dying as quickly as the forests around them. “I have always said to my children, you can be what you want, but don’t forget your culture,” says Guillermo Arevalo. “Come back to nature and your people.” Sadly, not all of them do, despite the pleas of the medicine men themselves.a
This is a tragedy not just for Amazonian culture but for all of humanity, since many of the drugs we use in the West are derived from shamanic knowledge. For decades, pharmaceutical companies have employed anthropologists and ethnobotanists to work with these shamans so they know where to look for the plants and what they are used to cure.
In Haiti, too, the situation seems somewhat similar. On this Caribbean island there is less of a temptation for the young to adopt Western ways, since all they have really experienced of the West, in a culture born in slavery and subjected to exploitation ever since, is Western oppression. But still, what the people aspire to is often power more than spiritual communion, and this is measured in Western terms, so that money and material possessions become the new gods. This is not so surprising, since the Western use of force to take power from others is what has been taught them from birth.
As a consequence, although shamanic initiation still takes place, for many this becomes a way of earning money in an otherwise deprived country—a job more than a calling to heal—and the older and more experienced shamans talk of a decline in the spiritual power of the newcomers to their profession. “Their heart is not in it,” they say.
In the heart of our own Western culture we can also chart the decline of traditional healing as science has come ever more to the fore. In the United States, many true healers and shamans live on the reservations, so their knowledge and expertise is hardly known to the wider world. And many age-old natural cures have been made illegal, along with the plants themselves. In Europe, herbalists are under increasing pressure to become educated, validated, and registered in the same way as scientists, leading to a decline in intuitive healing and knowledge about plant spirits. Throughout the world, the old ways are being denied or forgotten.
It is sad, oppressive, and potentially dangerous when cultural diversity and freedom of speech and belief are restricted in this way, but it is also self-defeating for those who oppress. Every plant is a complex mixture of interacting energies and healing processes, with at least thirty active ingredients in each one. A Western pharmaceutical drug created from any plant is lucky to contain only two or three of these active components, so we are all missing out on healing and making ourselves weak instead of well.
In his foreword to Patrick Logan’s Irish Folk Medicine, Sean O Suilleabhain of the Department of Folklore, University College Dublin, remarks that
The therapeutic effectivity of popular medicine cannot be judged solely from the viewpoint of modern practice. The early concepts of disease and the aims of ritual healing were quite different from those of our own time. A study of folk medicine must enquire whether it was really effective in its own environment; whether the folk healers of earlier generations were able to treat successfully the same ailments as modern man suffers from and which are now treated in a completely different way; and also whether folk remedies were especially suitable for certain diseases or groups of diseases.1
Not only were they, he concludes, but he offers examples of Western cures that could not have existed at all without the discoveries of traditional healers who worked in concert with their plant spirit allies.
African medicine men have for a long time used the bark of a certain type of willow to cure rheumatism with salicyl; the Hottentots knew of aspirin; the natives of the Amazon River basin used cocillana as an effective cough-mixture, and curare, which they applied to arrow-tips to stun their enemies, is now used as an anaesthetic; the Incas have left us cocaine; ephedrine reached the Western world from China; cascara was known to the North American Indians; from the juice of the foxglove was derived digitalin for heart ailments; and finally, here in Ireland, molds from which penicillin has been derived were traditionally used for septic wounds… early peoples used compresses, scarification, hot baths (tithe alluis), even vaccination.2
Furthermore, if humankind is spared from what the media is now calling the “modern plague” of avian flu, which as of this writing had claimed sixty lives, it may not be through the marvels of modern synthetic science, but through a simple fruit—star anise. According to an article in the London Independent newspaper, this is “the only defense the world currently has against the threatened flu pandemic.”3 Star anise, the fruit of a small oriental tree, is a natural source of shikimic acid, which is the basis for the only effective antidote to avian flu. Interestingly, this flu strain began in China, which is where star anise grows, giving credence again to the shaman’s claim that plants grow where they are most needed.
It seems dishonest and ungracious, at the very least, then, for modern medicine to take so much from the old ways and then belittle these traditions for their “primitive beliefs” and “lack of effective medicine.” To do so is a revelation of ignorance. As science wins the war against tradition, the old ways die out, leaving fewer folk healers and plant experts whose old knowledge our scientists can raid to develop their new medicines. One of the reasons that Patrick Logan gives for writing Irish Folk Medicine at all, in fact, is to document a tradition that has almost entirely been lost.
Logan, a medical doctor, makes another not insignificant point when he says that “almost all physical illnesses—over 80 percent of them—will get better no matter what treatment is given” (our italics). The important thing is “reassurance”—reconnecting patients with their body’s own healing powers and giving them back their balance.
Patients are much more likely to receive reassurance like this in traditional healing sessions where healers give their patients hours, days, or weeks of genuine care and compassion. This is in stark contrast to the modern medical setting where, due to the demands of an increasingly unhealthy population and the time constraints on our doctors, the average consultation now takes less than ten minutes. It is surprising that anyone gets well at all these days.
And, in fact, do people get well? Some observers don’t think so. Kevin Trudeau, in his book, Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About, contends that, for at least the last hundred years, a drug has never cured anyone.4 Indeed, he argues, if you think about it, there is no motivation for drug companies to find actual cures, since their profits come from sick people who buy the medicines they market. Their drugs are designed to alleviate suffering so that the “customer” (not the “patient”) will buy the product again. Offering a cure would be crazy; it would put the company out of business. The only thing that is absolutely required of any chief executive officer heading up a publicly listed drug company, Trudeau reminds us, is to make a profit for shareholders, and in his opinion, this actually runs counter to the idea of curing illnesses.
Of course, this attitude contrasts sharply with the approach of traditional healers, who were often paid to keep patients well and received no payment at all when their patients got ill. In China, for example, villagers paid the barefoot doctors, herbalists, and medicine men for every day they remained healthy. If a patient became ill, however, then the healer worked for free in order to cure him, only receiving payments again when the patient had fully recovered.
Furthermore, despite the grand claims of drug companies, their products may actually cause illness rather than cure it. A reporter on the London newspaper The Independent revealed this: “The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)—the government group responsible for regulating UK medicines, including herbs—says that between 2000 and August 2004, there were 451 reports of suspected adverse reactions involving herbal preparations, of which 152 were serious.” On the face of it, this sounds like a lot. But the journalist continues: “By way of comparison, consider this from a report in the British Medical Journal last year: ‘In England alone,b reactions to drugs that led to hospitalizations followed by death are estimated at 5,700 a year and could actually be closer to 10,000’. Herbs may not be completely safe, as critics like to point out, but they are a lot safer than drugs.”5
There have been some spectacular drug failures, despite the promises. In 2005, for example, the FDA, after an extensive review of hundreds of studies, issued a warning that the use of antidepressants may actually lead to an increase in depression and suicidal thinking—the very problems these drugs are supposed to cure. The Yahoo! news story that covered this warning noted the FDA’s concerns that “antidepressants may cause agitation, anxiety and hostility in a subset of patients… psychiatrists say there is a window period of risk just after pill use begins, before depression is really alleviated but when some patients experience more energy, perhaps enabling them to act on suicidal tendencies.”6
By contrast, the herbal cure for depression, St. John’s wort, has never harmed anyone. As the Independent newspaper article put it: “[St. John’s wort] is not only more effective in the treatment of moderate to severe depression than the SSRI Seroxat, according to the British Medical Journal, but it also has fewer side effects.”7
The latest “miracle drug” to cure arthritis, Vioxx, also ran into problems when it was discovered that one of its side effects was to double the risk of heart attacks. Aspirin-like drugs (NSAIDs) used for the same purpose have been estimated to cause 2,600 UK deaths a year as a result of intestinal bleeding. Once again, the herbal alternative, garlic and devil’s claw, has never harmed anyone. The Independent article does report: “A study expressed concern about herbal remedies that could interact with treatments like NSAIDs… leading to increased gastrointestinal bleeding.” But, as the journalist points out, “the herbs don’t cause the bleeding, it’s adding the aspirin.”8
In the face of all this evidence, the only sane conclusion is that it is time to do things differently: It is time for a return to traditional, compassionate healing methods, to concern for patients instead of for profits. And it is time for a new generation of plant spirit healers—you, the readers of this book—to step up to the plate to arrest this decline in the well-being of the world.
To do so, it will be necessary to free your minds from the conditioning of scientific rationalism, so you can explore, dream, meet, and work with your plant spirit allies, the energies of nature that are calling you. If enough of you answer this calling to rediscover the magic of plant spirit healing, together we can preserve the traditions and use them for the good of all, altering the course of this increasingly materialist and dis-spirited world.
It is time for us to kiss the earth again, It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies, Let the rich life run to the roots again.
ROBINSON JEFFERS
In the remainder of this final chapter we offer some suggestions as to where your explorations might take you, as well as a few more uses for nature’s great healers.
HEALING OUR ANIMAL BROTHERS
Some people are surprised that plants work as effectively with other animals as they do with humans, but there is really no mystery to this. As the evidence shows repeatedly, plant spirits have an affinity for all life. They are as aware of the presence of a spider in a room as they are of a human being, and they can communicate with both just as effectively, in a nonverbal language of their own.
Anthropologists tell us, in fact, that if plants were the first medicines, then animals were the first doctors, knowing naturally which herbal species to eat to cure their illnesses and discomforts. It was through the observation of other animals, these anthropologists suggest, that human beings learned to discriminate between the plants for different ailments and began to develop their own herbal knowledge. Modern studies of gorillas in the wild, for example, demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of plant remedies; and when human beings have tried the same herbs for the same conditions, they have worked just as effectively on us too.
Because of this affinity between animals and plants and the natural talent of animals to doctor themselves, some shamans trust them faithfully to prescribe medicines for their patients.
One Andean method, for example, is for the shaman to journey to his plant allies and, based on what they tell him, to select a number of possible herbal cures. He arranges these in several small piles in front of the patient. The final prescription is left to a guinea pig, however, which the shaman takes in his hand and rubs gently over his patient’s body so the guinea pig absorbs an awareness of the ailment and its probable cure. The shaman then places it on the ground, and whichever pile of herbs it runs to and begins to nibble is the medicine the shaman will use.
In the jungles, too, the spiritual connection between plants and animals is well-known. Shamans, in their ayahuasca visions, are aware of this shared energy, so that the jungle itself becomes a living, breathing entity that moves in the way of an animal. Vines become snakes, bushes become puma, and the rain on the leaves holds dolphin energy.
In Ayahuasca Visions, Luis Eduardo Luna records the shamanic view that there are plants whose ancestors were animals. Of the vine bejuco de las calenturas (vine for fevers), for example, he says, “Its ‘mother’ is a boa… Mixed with ayahuasca it is most powerful in curing extreme cases, patients with convulsions and typhus [convulsions, of course, being reminiscent of the writhing of a snake].… There is another [plant], shillinto blanco (white shillinto), whose mother is the rainbow.”9
Since shamans make no distinction of status between plant, human, and animal, it is also not uncommon for them to share the spirit of their visionary allies with animals. Thus, “Lamista Indians give ayahuasca to their dogs before hunting.… Among the Jivaro, dogs are given the hallucinogenic Datura (Brugmansia) to help them obtain supernatural power.”10
Once upon a time in the West, we also knew the power of plants for healing our animal brethren. Irish Folk Medicine lists numerous natural cures for horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, and dogs, all of which were treated with respect as companions and equals as much as chattels.
In the Bunratty Folk Museum, for example—a “living museum” between Shannon and Limerick in Ireland—there is a fine example of a “byre dwelling” from County Mayo, which was a traditional cottage occupied by both people and their milking cows. The bedrooms are on one side of the single-story building, the sleeping area for the cows on the other, and the living space was shared by both. And in Dingle, there are numerous examples of houses where the hearth fire was shared by the family and its pig, which, as a sacred animal in Celtic lore, was rarely consigned to a sty.
Nowadays, these healing traditions and the respect for animals that went with them has largely given way to commercial and factory farming; thus, “veterinary folk medicine is almost forgotten,” says Logan. “In order to learn about the treatments used it is necessary to ask elderly men who could have used the treatments; few young men, unless they have seen their fathers use them, know anything about them.”11
Among the cures that a fortunate young person might discover if he or she were to ask an elder, are horse parsley to calm an unsettled horse, furze bush tops and linseed oil to expel worms, and a dressing of an pocan (“buck mushroom” or “puff ball”) spores to stem blood flow from a cut (this also works for humans).
To relieve cows of “the bloat” (a painful accumulation of gas in the stomach), Logan records a cure of ginger, wood charcoal, nux vomica, gentian, and baking soda, which is given as a thin gruel every twelve hours.
Sheep were treated for the common disease of liver fluke with iris flowers, wallflowers, and ragwort, all of which are yellow, another example of the doctrine of signatures. Liver problems will produce a yellow hue in the sufferer and can therefore be cured by administering plants of the same color.
Other natural cures include the following:
All of these cures came from the quiet observation of animals in nature and the gentle attunement of keepers and healers with the natural world and the spirit of the plants. Such methods require nothing more than that we slow down to the pace of the Earth and break away from our modern obsession with frenetic activity. Then we find that nature itself becomes our university, and we begin to see the spirit in all things.
With animals, of course, it is most unlikely that any “placebo effect” is in play. If the cure works, it works. Our plant allies are simply happy to provide healing to those who ask. And if such cures work with animals, they will work for us too.
A FRAMEWORK FOR NATURAL HEALING
From your reading and your own explorations with the spirit of the plants, perhaps you are inspired to work more closely with natural healing methods and, one day, to extend your practice to working with patients of your own. We would like to offer a few words on this, as there is an effective and proven framework for healing used by many plant spirit shamans that may be of value in your own consultations.
The first thing to know, however, is that most Western patients these days have little idea about shamanic healing and may even be wary of talk about plant “spirits” and “otherworld allies.” This is part of the sadness of our times: many of us have become so out of touch with nature that we are now even scared of it.
The fact that the patient is anxious or afraid and still coming to see you despite his or her trepidations is indicative, however, of the deep need for healing that people are feeling in our unbalanced age.
On the way to you, because of his anxieties, your patient may feel strange, and more aware of himself and his emotions. This is exactly what you want. When you perform a healing, you are not just handing out a drug, you are asking the patient to meet you by shifting his consciousness into a slightly altered state so he can receive healing; and he is already beginning the process during the journey to you.c At the very least, in this frame of mind, he will be able to talk more easily about feelings and fears because he will be in a different mental space from “normal.” Your intention as a healer is to build on this so he can relax further into his true self and emotions.
Prepare your healing room with this in mind, and try to create an “otherwordly” feel so you are supporting the subtle shift in awareness. This may mean incense and candles (more relaxing and healthier than electric light anyway), ritual items, power objects and, of course, healthy growing plants—anything that creates a nonordinary impression without veering into flakiness. Medical doctors do this all the time—their “props” are white coats and stethoscopes, books on human anatomy, their medical degrees and qualifications on the wall; and traditional healers also display their medicine tools, probably for the same reasons.
There are also some things you need to prepare in advance that aren’t props, but essential tools. Make sure you have these items:
You also need to feel full of power, especially if you’re likely to be dealing with spirit intrusions (see chapter 4). There are a number of ways to call in power, all of which traditional healers use:
Whichever of these methods work best for you, these are the ones to use.
Welcome your patient when he or she arrives and begin by smudging him, yourself, the room, and the tools you will use. As you cleanse each one, ask for its help in the healing. Everything is alive and has the right to be asked and invited in.
Then you may talk for a few minutes to set your patient at ease. This is what the Andean curanderos call a platicas—a heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul consultation. As you talk, you should also watch and listen closely to your patient. This may give you further clues about the problem he needs help with.
Obvious examples include the following:
He says: “I really love my mother…”
Listen for the but, even if he never says it. Iis it there somewhere, spoken silently? Might this suggest a problem with power or even soul loss?
She says: “I’ve never been happier than in my current job.”
But notice how she wrings her hands as she says it. What might that mean?
Where do his eyes go?
Up and to the right: he’s likely to be remembering something. Up and to the left: he may be imagining something, or is not sure about it, but it might have happened, sometime, somewhere, once…
How is she breathing?
High up in her chest may suggest fear as she talks of a particular event (fear probably means an issue to do with power loss), low in her stomach may suggest grief (and this may imply the need for a releasing ritual). You will form your own relationship with the breath as you continue your work and come to understand what these clues mean to you.
These and other observations will help you to help him or her by getting an intuitive sense of the problem, which a patient may not be able to vocalize.
While you are conducting this platicas, also use your powers of gazing to see your patient. Allow your eyes to go slightly out of focus and use your peripheral vision to look just past him. As you do so, what do you see in his energy body? What images enter your mind about what might be going on for him? Trust your first impressions. If you start telling yourself “That can’t be right,” your rational mind will get in the way, and that’s when you can lose your connection to power again.
After you have chatted for a while, take the patient into your healing space, let him lie down, and relax him. Make sure your hands are clean, as you are about to touch his soul, literally. Agua florida or oils of frankincense, jasmine, geranium, sandalwood, or myrrh are good purifiers and can be simply rubbed on your hands. Then begin your healing work, which may include spirit extraction or power and soul retrieval. In all cases, your plant spirits are your strongest allies and will delight in
Shamans are “walkers between worlds,” and it is usual for them to carry out a healing in ordinary as well as nonordinary reality, so that a beneficial change is made to the patient’s energy field and plant medicine is also then administered in the physical world.
In our experience, this combination of physical and nonphysical healing is always more effective than just transferring or transforming energy. For example, a few months ago, one of Ross’s patients came for a consultation to help alleviate her problems with ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis; i.e., chronic fatigue syndrome), and he did energy work to relieve her discomfort and tiredness.
During the journey, however, the spirits also recommended that she take a tea of horehound, comfrey, or lungwort, plants that would not normally be prescribed for ME. Nevertheless, this information was reported to the patient, who said she would take these herbs.
She returned for a second consultation a few weeks later, and this time she was suffering from a severe cough, which, with her other condition, was proving debilitating. Asked if she’d taken the tea that the spirits had advised, she replied, “No. I didn’t have time to find the herbs.” Which was a pity—since horehound, comfrey, and lungwort are some of the finest herbs for chesty coughs. If she had followed the recommendations of spirit, she might never have caught an infection at all. Proof again that it is a foolish healer (and patient) who doesn’t act on the suggestions of the spirits; proof also of the value of combining plant medicines with energy healing.
When the healing is complete, your spirits should, as a matter of course, be thanked for their help and released. Then you can seal the energy body of the patient by rattling around it with a rattle or chacapa. If your plant allies have offered any guidance or counsel, this might be the best time to relay it, so the patient can make any choices or changes necessary or write down any herbs prescribed, if you will not be preparing these for him yourself.
EXTERNAL MEDICINES
For those patients who, for whatever reason, prefer not to use herbs internally, or where the nature of the illness suggests external application, there are other ways for you as the healer to pass on these plant medicines.
You can easily prepare a cream, for example, by adding an ounce of warmed olive oil to an ounce of beeswax and half an ounce of lanolin, along with half a teaspoon of borax. To this, add the liquor of half an ounce of herbs (chosen according to the nature of the problem or the spirit advice you have received), after the herbs have been steeped in a half-pint of boiling water for about thirty minutes. You can add a few drops of perfume or Florida Water if you desire; and then, of course, the mixture should be blown with tobacco smoke so your intention is contained within it. When the mix starts to thicken, pour it into a pot and refrigerate. It will last some months when stored this way, and the borax will help to preserve it.
An even simpler recipe for a cream is to melt petroleum jelly in a saucepan and stir in herbs that have been thoroughly crushed with a mortar and pestle in order to release their essences. After a while of gentle warming through, take the saucepan off the heat and let the liquid cool. Made in this way and kept in a refrigerator, it should last for up to six months.
Eyebaths can be made by adding a teaspoon of suitable and soothing herbs (such as fennel, rose, aloe, fenugreek, periwinkle, elderflower, or slippery elm) to a mug of boiled water and allowing them to steep for about five minutes. When cool, apply the infused water to the closed eye with a cotton wool pad, and invite the patient to relax for five or ten minutes as the plant energies soothe her eyes.
Similarly, you can make natural soaps and detergents by adding about three ounces of herbs to a pint of hot water and steeping them for ten minutes. Then sieve the solution and decant into a jar. Good detergent herbs include feverfew, marigold, chickweed, daisy, and goldenseal. The best herb for soaps is soapwort, which, as the name implies, was used for cleansing before the invention of chemical substitutes. All of these are natural alternatives to synthetic products and are especially useful for patients with allergies or eczema.
You can use plants as aromatic oils in a burner as well, of course, and, in this way, they need never make contact with the skin at all. One rich Hoodoo recipe for cleansing the aura of negativity is prescribed in just this way. It consists of ten drops each of patchouli, lotus, carnation, and gardenia, five drops of frankincense, myrrh, eucalyptus, and lavender, and two drops of cinnamon, added to plain water, which is heated with a candle flame.
If desired, this Hoodoo blend can also be used in a bath by mixing it with four ounces of grapeseed oil and adding it to the water. Invite the patient to soak in the bath for fifteen minutes, visualizing his limitations and negativity leaving the body. He then stands, leaves the tub, and watches as the water drains away, carrying the unhelpful energy with it, so he feels renewed and refreshed.
And, of course, herbs can be used in their purest form, without preparation at all. Lavender, hung above a bed, will aid restful sleep; vervain and valerian, hung in the house, will protect against unhelpful energies; and angelica stalks hung in a car will prevent travel sickness. In fact, more elaborate preparations are rarely necessary, as the spirit of the plants is all that you really ever need.
Prescribing Plant Cures
The following exercise suggests one approach you might take to consult with your spirit allies in order to prescribe herbal remedies for your patients, whether animal or human. This method has little to do with modern medical herbalism, in which, through normal face-to-face consultation and diagnosis, the practitioner prescribes a particular herb to treat a particular symptom, based on the chemical properties of that plant. Ours is a more traditional approach, which works by forming a holistic connection between the herbalist, the patient, and the spirit world, and which gives power back to the patient by involving him or her in her own healing.
Close your eyes and see before you the world tree, the axis mundi at the center of the natural universe, and, next to this, the entrance to a cave that leads into the Earth. As you stand before the tree, call your intention to mind: I am here to meet with an otherworld healer and take advice on the plant medicine most needed by my patient. When you are clear on this, enter the cave, and then follow it down into the Earth.
As you proceed, see that you have your patient with you and that you are escorting her on a journey toward healing. Take note of how she behaves in the cave. Does she move easily and fluidly toward healing, or withdraw from it and need to be led? Is she excited to be here and hopeful of a cure, or fearful and hesitant, relying on you to guide her? This spiritual or intuitive information may be useful to you and your patient in identifying the patterns underlying her illness and her obstacles to health. These observations can form the basis for a subsequent platicas, so remember what you notice here and allow all your senses to inform you.
Eventually you will come to the end of the tunnel and step out into the otherworld. The terrain will be unique to you, and it may also be influenced by the presence of your patient, who will have her own otherworld “dream.” But certain features are the same for everyone, and it may be that you find yourself standing on a plane, with a sea or lake to your right and a jungle or forest to your left. Move toward the forest, and you will come to a small wooden bridge across a shallow stream. Just beyond the bridge, toward the right, is a lone jungle hut made of branches and thatched with reeds. This is the hut of a healer.
Look around you as you enter this simple hut with your patient. The floor is of earth and straw, the walls plastered with clay and mud; shelves contain pots of herbs and leaves, and the only items of furniture are a small wooden table and a chair on which the healer sits. He rises to greet you and you notice that he is dark skinned, dressed simply, a short man, elderly you suspect (though his age is hard to tell), and he appears friendly, wise, and powerful—a perfect healing blend.
On this initial journey, you have two purposes: to find healing for your patient, of course, but also to introduce yourself to this spirit-healer who will become your ally. So talk to him, tell him who you are, what you are here for, ask for his name (some know him as Kinti, but to you it may be different), and request that he help you and your patient, which he will willingly do.
After this journey, it will serve you to return, this time without a patient, and meet this healer again. He has a vast knowledge to impart and you will find that, in time, he will also take over much of the healing and teach you through example and explanation. Being in his company then becomes as rich and valuable as an intensive course of one-to-one instruction with an expert herbalist and physician.
For now, though, the need is your patient’s, so introduce her to this healer and explain her symptoms of ill health. Then step aside so you can watch and learn.
Kinti’s healing methods are based entirely on plant medicines and magic, and he will use many of the techniques now familiar to you: chacapas to change energy, perfume sprays to “flourish the soul,” incense to cleanse, and floral baths to refresh and revivify. But it is the depth of his skill in using these tools and his ability to see the illness of a patient in her energy field that is most impressive. His other skill is in advising on the herbs the patient should take in ordinary reality. He will consult with you on this, so listen carefully to what he says.
When the healing is complete, thank your ally, and escort your patient back to the everyday world, retracing your steps through the cave and noticing, once again, her reactions as you move along the tunnel. Most often she will be much calmer, and any obstacles you encountered on your first passage will now be removed, suggesting a more harmonious and balanced relationship between your patient and the Earth, which is the outcome of all successful healings.
When you are back in ordinary reality, advise your client of the herbs recommended to her and also the method by which she should take them (as a tea, a bath, a cream, or in aromatic oils, etc.) and for how long. All of this information will have been given to you by Kinti.
It is amazing, actually, how accurate this healer is in his diagnoses and prescriptions, and how effective his treatments are. Since meeting him some years ago, Kinti has assisted in hundreds of our healings and has often prescribed herbs that we, as healers, would never have thought of for a particular patient, and even some that we had never used before.
An example of this was one of Ross’s patients, who presented with a rare bladder condition. Kinti prescribed “stone root,” an herb that is hardly used in the UK and which Ross had no prior experience with. Looking it up in an herbal encyclopedia, however, it turned out that stone root (named for its effectiveness in curing kidney and gall stones) is also a great bladder healer and recommended for many conditions of the urinary organs.d
Experiences like this, where information is received that the human healer did not and could not otherwise know, are proof of spirit intervention in the healing and examples, too, of why a relationship with this otherworld healer is so valuable.
RE-ENCHANTING THE WORLD
And so we come to the end of this book—and to the beginning, we hope, of your own adventures in healing alongside the plant spirit allies you have made.
People (none more so than scientists and clinicians) tend to over-complicate plants—their attributes and effects and the methods of working with them. There are plenty of scary stories, too, about the harm that herbal medicines may do to the unwary and “uninformed.” This has left many people today fearful of nature, and of course, has ensured that its healing knowledge remains in the hands of a commercial elite. In reality, there is nothing to be scared of. People are more at risk from the “miracle drugs” of medical science than they ever will be from plants (provided, of course, that we do not “genetically modify” them or pollute the environments in which they grow, and that we, as healers, are sensible in our use of them).
Actually, plants are simple things and they have our best interests at heart, enjoying nothing more than working with their human allies to bring healing to those who request it. As you explore the great medicine cabinet of nature, you will discover this too, and so liberate yourself from this mindset of fear that permeates the modern world.
Furthermore, by simply working with plants in these ways—touching, tasting, and smelling them—you will have begun an even more profound process of healing: one of re-enchanting the world by allowing your spirit and that of your patients to meet the greater spirit that is behind all things. And, through this, we may all find a more honorable and holistic way of being on the Earth.
If we apply our minds directly and competently to the needs of the Earth, then we will also have begun to make fundamental and necessary changes in our minds. We will begin to understand and to mistrust and to change our wasteful economy, which markets not just the produce of the Earth, but also the Earth’s ability to produce.
WENDELL BERRY
I have come to terms with the future.
From this day onward I will walk easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill no living things. Live in harmony with all creatures.
I will restore the earth where I am. Use no more of its resources than I need.
And listen, listen to what it is telling me.
M. J. SLIM
Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
ALBERT SCHWEITZER