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Ancestral Plant Medicine · Remember Why You Are Here

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  If you want to pull through some of the wisdom of your
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  ancestors,
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  one of the most richest and vividus ways to do this is to
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  practice ancestral plant medicine.
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  Hello and welcome back to Remember Why You're Here,
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  a podcast for seekers and sensitives where you can relax, receive,
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  reconnect yourself, and remember the most important thing of all,
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  why you're here. I'm Asia Suler, author,
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  earth intuitive. And in this episode today,
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  I'm going to revisit one of my favorite topics,
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  and that is ancestral plant medicine.
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  So I actually had the intention to record a new video
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  podcast for this week. And instead,
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  my daughter and I, as well as my girlfriend,
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  we all got super sick with some sort of virus,
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  some sort of viral thing, and we just got absolutely laid out.
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  You might still hear it in my voice right now. And it felt like,
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  well, A,
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  it felt a little early to have this kind of vibrant virus in the
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  season. I know we're entering flu and cold season,
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  but it still felt a little bit unfair to immediately jump into
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  full-blown fever virus mode.
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  But it also felt like, I don't know, in some ways,
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  a very fitting beginning to this month of October where there
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  is just this opportunity to see what's going on
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  underneath the surface, to peel back the veil.
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  There's something about being sick that is quite psychedelic,
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  especially when you are feverish,
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  and it's been giving me the opportunity to practice
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  ancestral herbalism.
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  So every time I've gone ahead and reached for the elderberry
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  syrup, that's exactly what I've been doing.
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  Every time I've made me or my daughter a cup of sage tea to help clear
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  our sad little sore throats, that's also what I've been doing.
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  And it just feels like such a potent time to reconnect
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  in this way. And in this audio recording that we're about to revisit,
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  I talk about three specific ways to start working with the herbs that
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  your ancestors were connected with.
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  I also talk about why ancestral herbalism in particular is
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  so potent.
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  I'm a really big fan of working with the plants exactly where you are,
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  but there's a special magic to working with the plants that were near and dear
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  to your ancestors.
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  And it really feels like that magic comes online in such a
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  particular way in this moment of the year,
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  especially for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere as we are entering fall.
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  Whether we realize it or not, a lot of us are actually already practicing.
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  We are already having some ancestral plant practices.
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  I remember realizing this at some point.
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  I grew up in a very suburban environment and I loved the decorations of
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  the hay with the decorative gourds on it and the pumpkins and
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  all of that.
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  And it really wasn't until I got older and I started having my own garden and
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  harvesting things and bringing them in that I realized, oh,
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  there's a reason why we have these decorations of pumpkins and apples and hay.
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  It's because this is the time of the year when you are making sure you have
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  hay for the next season, hay for the winter for your animals.
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  It's when you are harvesting the apples,
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  it's when you are taking the pumpkins from off the ground and you're bringing
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  them close to your house or just right within your house or wherever it is you
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  store them.
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  And so these things that we think of our decorations are actually ancestral
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  plant practices. And I just absolutely love this,
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  that it's almost like this time of the year we don't even realize that we are
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  engaging in these practices that bring us close to our own ancestors,
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  that bring us close to...
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  And what I talk about in this audio is bring us close to the ancestors who had
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  really deep, meaningful,
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  harmonious and profound relationships with their environment.
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  So that's who I'm talking about when I talk about connecting with the ancestors.
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  And I have seen basically every year,
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  my entire life, that when the veil starts to thin,
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  as I explored in the last episode, our ancestors just come close.
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  They're in our dreams. We sense them around us.
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  We start doing these things that we don't even think about like brewing
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  chamomile tea or putting more cinnamon when we're baking and we don't even
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  realize that we are touching this deep root in time.
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  So if you want to pull in,
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  pull through some of the wisdom of your ancestors,
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  these earth-based, wise ancestors,
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  if you want to pull that thread through into your life now,
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  I think one of the most richest and vividus ways to do this
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  is to practice some ancestral plant medicine.
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  So let's go ahead and drop into this audio now and
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  we'll explore these three super accessible ways to start working with the
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  medicines of your ancestors.
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  Autumn is the classic time of the year to connect with those who've passed on
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  from the Day of the Dead Festival in Mexico to Obon in Japan
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  or the Celtic holiday of Samhain. In autumn,
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  we have the ability to communicate with those who came before us.
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  As someone of European settler descent,
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  I wasn't always connected to my ancestors until I was,
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  and I found that there's actually a direct link between my herbal practice and
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  my ancestors. If you're anything like me,
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  this topic of ancestor work might come up and you might feel a little bit of
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  resistance. So I know for myself,
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  as someone who is of European descent and is really distanced at this point in
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  time from the lands that I'm originally from,
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  I had a lot of feelings around ancestor work.
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  Mix in there the history of oppression and colonialism that took
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  place throughout much of the colonized parts of the world and as part of the
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  Western imagination,
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  it can feel really intimidating to want to connect with those who came before
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  us. So I want to be specific here when I'm talking about this idea of ancestral
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  herbalism.
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  When I'm speaking of the ability to connect to those who came before us to
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  deepen our herbal practice,
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  what I'm talking to is the idea of connecting into those from your lineage
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  who were deeply connected to the plants,
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  those who had really vibrant,
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  intact communities and knew how to speak to the plants and how to work with
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  them for healing. All of our ancestors worked with plants. If they didn't,
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  we wouldn't be here,
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  but some of our ancestors were more connected to plants than others.
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  So when I speak of doing this kind of ancestor work to connect to
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  those who came before you who really know how to work with the plants,
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  what I'm speaking of is connecting with those who really were plant
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  medicine people,
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  those who lived in a culture where they saw the world around them as
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  alive. Now,
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  some of us might be farther away from this mindset than others.
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  I know for me,
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  I'm probably at least a thousand years away from ancestors who are truly living
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  in an animistic viewpoint. That said,
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  it's in all of our blood.
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  All of us have ancestors who were indigenous of a place.
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  And when we learn how to connect to them during this autumn time where the veil
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  is thin,
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  we can actually ask for their help and their guidance to deepen our practice
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  with the plants and our life path in general.
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  When we can connect with our well ancestors, we can receive their blessings,
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  their knowledge and their wisdom. But for me,
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  it's been a very essential viewpoint to actually start to see ancestors as
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  a way to connect to plants and plants as a way to connect to the ancestors.
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  So I've had the privilege now of being able to visit a couple places in the
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  world that my family are actually from,
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  and I was amazed when I actually got my body on that landscape,
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  how much I resonated with those places.
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  And I was also amazed to see that some of the plants that I had an innate
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  connection to were growing there in proliferation and were actually ancient
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  parts of the culture that had lived there for thousands of years.
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  For example, when I went to Ireland and I met the hawthorns that lived there,
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  it was like I understood for the first time why I've always been so deeply drawn
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  to this plant,
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  this plant that is known to be a gatekeeper to the realms of magic and the fairy
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  realm, a heart healer and a grief assuager.
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  When I met the hawthorns there,
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  something deeply clicked into place inside of me. That said,
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  you don't have to go to your place of origin in order to make these connections.
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  You can do a simple research project to find out what were the important plants
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  of your ancestors, your land-based ancestors.
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  So this could be ceremonial plants, food plants, or medicine plants,
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  and try connecting with these plants, this autumn,
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  to open a gateway to communicate with your ancestors,
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  the ones who are very well vibrant in spirit,
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  who knew how to live in harmony with the earth so that you can start actually
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  bringing this knowledge back into existence now for yourself and the lineages
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  to come.
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  So a couple ideas to incorporate this practice into your rituals this fall.
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  One is to actually make a dish for your ancestors to give as an offering
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  based on what would've been their favorite foods, their ancestral foods.
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  Not only does this connect you to the plants,
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  but it helps you connect to the ancestors through this bridge of the plants.
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  You can also look up and find a flower essence made in that land
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  that perhaps you're from.
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  You might still live in this landscape or if you're someone like me,
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  you might not,
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  but you can actually find a maker who makes flower essences on that land and
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  have it shipped over to you and connect that way. In general,
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  this time in autumn is such a rich space for exploring our consciousness.
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  This is the classic time of the year in which the veil between the worlds thins.
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  So if you're intrigued by this idea of deepening ancestor work and connecting to
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  the Otherworld, this place where the ancestors, the fairies, the plant spirits,
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  and the unseen beings live, then come join me for Herbs for the Otherworld.
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  In this online class, we explore some of those potent rituals, plants,
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  and practices for connecting into the medicine of Autumn.
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  The course includes a guided journey into the Otherworld as well as suggestions
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  for how to celebrate this time of the year.
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  So if you are interested in Herbs for the Otherworld,
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  I will go ahead and put that link here.
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  It's been so sweet to see some folks joining that class again
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  this autumn. It's one of my absolute favorites.
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  And if you'd like to go deeper into
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  herbalism,
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  in particular herbalism as a highly sensitive in this season,
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  I am a part of Ecoversity's online Herbal
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  Medicine Making Summit, which is starting this week.
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  So if you are listening this week,
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  this is a free summit live with 38 teachers.
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  It's actually quite special that this is all happening live.
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  And I will be teaching on October 15th,
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  and I'll specifically be teaching a class called Herbs for Sensitive Nervous
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  Systems.
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  This is the class that I wish that I had taken when I first started in
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  herbalism to understand why herbs tend to work different in my body,
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  what needs to be different in terms of the way I interact with herbs, dosage,
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  the kind of plants that work for me.
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  We are going to talk about specific plants that help those of us with sensitive
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  nervous systems in general in our life,
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  and I'm really excited to just dive into this topic that's really been at the
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  core of my practice forever.
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  And it's something I think my own ancestors would be particularly delighted to
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  know that I have been sussing out, figuring out over time,
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  because we know now that sensitivity is an inherited trait that
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  many of us are born sensitive as highly sensitive people, as empaths,
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  et cetera, because our ancestors were sensitive as well.
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  And so this feels like such a big nod to my ancestors to teach this
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  class. And I also find those of us with sensitive nervous systems,
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  we're also the ones who tend to be receiving messages through the veil,
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  interested in connecting with the ancestors,
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  and also here to transform some of what we've been carrying
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  from our ancestral lines.
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  So if you are interested in this totally free
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  class,
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  Herbs for Sensitive Nervous Systems as a part of Ecoversity's Online Summit,
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  I will also go ahead and put that link below.
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  So however you are marking this time with your,
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  whether it's pumpkin spice lattes or you've got your decorative gourds out
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  or you're out there making yourself some elderberry tea,
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  know that this is a time for deepening.
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  This is a time when the life from the upper world goes
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  into the roots where things like the canopy get clear,
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  but also the things within us get clear, our visions of our own lives,
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  of what's possible for us. And may,
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  as this time of the thinning of the veil occurs for you, this time of seership,
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  as we've been exploring this month,
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  may it help you come home to yourself,
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  may it help you deepen into life in all the ways,
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  and may it help you remember that most important thing of all, why you're here.