The Imaginal Realm of Plants

Next week on Healing Wisdom, author herbalist Stephen Harrod Buhner of Gaia Studies discusses the natural treatment of Lyme Disease and its coinfections as well as the imaginal realm of plants.

We are rescheduling attorney Lindsey Straus for a following week.

Speaking of plants, plant spirit medicine is a little known tradition. The plant spirit kingdom is seldom tapped into as a resource, but drawing on the healing energy of plant spirits can be an incredibly useful and practical tool to employ. My paralyzing migraine this morning drove me past my house into a neighbors' patch of periwinkle and blackberry bushes where I dismounted my Kia steed, releasing years of suppressed pain in the form of hot blueberry vomit. First, it trickled from the side of my mouth, like I'd been shot. Next, the tidal wave from within erupted. Gaia was forgiving. Immediate relief washed over me, like tropical rain on a cool day. Except instead of litte raindrops it was violet upchuck blowing in a cool breeze across my arms and legs. There is nothing dignified about enjoying your own smurf-colored-bile-Sunday raining down on you. One cannot put on any airs, sliding into a patch of pink waffle puke on a hot leather seat, seeing Dutch angles, and falling out of yourself like a prolapsed organ. It is times like these when the earmarks of civilization, mailboxes painted in numbers, domesticated barking beasts, and car-lined driveways warming up for a commute are a welcome sight. Yell at me for puking in your bushes, sacrifise me to your dogs as a chew toy, fill my lungs with exhaust and call me crazy, I'm just so happy to be alive.

Hey, who drank the fairy berry cool-aid? In moments, the periwinkle pushed my ass back into the car and slammed the door. It drove me to our wild grape vines and pulled me into the realm of the fae. Celandine over mullein bush, the ferns and finches guided my wonky legs. Stumbling through grasses and chickweed, stooping under thorny blackberry boughs covered in new blossoms, tripping through buttercups, I skirted around a wild honeysuckle bend before falling onto our leopard couch where my husband, part Kahuna, awaited to give me the final miracle cure. When you have been with a loving partner for sixteen years, who is part angel, part super hero bandit, he can steal pain away from every muscle in your neck and face and replace it with gratitude...selflessly, expediently, miraculously. Particularly, where there has been plant spirit medicine eager to assist in rapid recovery.

Love is stronger than aspirin. Even ibuprofin.