I recently had the honor of being featured on the Feed Your Wild podcast, sharing about my perspective & story around working with plant medicine, healing and living as a human on this earth at this time. In this interview, I share stories around the personal process of my own healing and what walking the plant path has looked like for my own life. It digs in deep, gets real and personal in a way I haven’t told before. Listen in below!
In this episode, my host Vanessa Rodriguez and I discuss:
- What is Evolutionary Herbalism and how it’s rooted in universal patterns of ancient wisdom and traditions, while incorporating modern science and knowledge
- How can we work with plant medicines on a soul level and work with our soul evolution as well as heal our physical bodies
- How we got to the point of disconnection from these ancient systems of medicine, and what “convenience” has to do with it
- The importance of seeing the map of the human body as gardens and ecosystems rather than thru the western “machine-minded way”
- The power of plants in our perception shifts
- How reconnecting to our sources of food, water, and medicine is critical for us in developing a relationship with our home, where we live
- How I came to the “plant path” through play, activism, and the journey of self-discovery and self-healing
- My own experience with healing trauma by building relationships with plants and their medicine on all levels
- How the health issues I went through reflected what was going on within my emotional and spiritual body after an abusive relationship
- My first plant ally and how it was like a homecoming that helped me to reconnect and receive healing
- The various kinds of trauma and the chronic PTSD that most of us are experiencing in modern times
- Ways to connect with plants and how growing your own garden is one way to help heal our disconnection
- Getting outside of the allopathic mindset of using herbs, which can encourage disempowered thinking, by exploring what herbs were used by your ancestors
- The levels of healing trauma: working with the nervous system and heart with restorative nervine herbs
- How trauma can be stored in emotional memory of the heart space, and my top plant allies for healing the heart from traumatic experiences
- The importance of trusting in the ancestral, intuitive, and instinctual wisdom and connection to plants that we already have
- Some of the biggest challenges or blocks that most people first starting on the plant path and budding herbalists have, including fear and lack of confidence + trust.
- Why it’s essential to practice and study with other herbal teachers and schools as well as have direct and personal experience with plants
- What “wild” means to me, and how reconnecting to an ancestral way of living is feeding my wild
- The one game-changing practice that feeds my soul + wild in a deep way, and how it’s realigning my hormonal cycles and rhythms