Excerpt from Communicating with Plants: Heart-based Practices for Connecting with Plant Spirits by Jen Frey (Bear & Company, 2023), p 1 - 11.
Introduction: An Invitation into the Plant World
I owe my life to Plants.
This is a simple statement and yet, can you feel the power in it? The truth is that while Plants have been the cornerstone of my life since I was quite young, we all owe our lives to Plants. Plants make this amazing, wonderful, fantastic planet livable. Among many gifts, they provide the oxygen that we need to breathe. Have you ever pondered this miracle? Have you ever breathed with a Plant or truly recognized the connection between Plants and your life?
When I do this, the word that comes to my mind is Love.
Some of my more scientifically inclined friends and colleagues would caution me against this or at the very least would start to squirm in their seats at the idea. They would say that we humans have a tendency towards anthropomorphism, assigning emotions and relationships to other species that do not exist other than through our human lens.
After spending many years communicating with Plants and having my life guided by them, I think Love is an accurate word.
I know that I am not alone. Talk with any true Plant lover about Plants and you will start to see the twinkle in their eye. I love Plant people. We come in many shapes, sizes, colors, and economic levels. We have various religious backgrounds and political beliefs. We can have greatly differing opinions on the best way to interact with Plants or grow them. However, all the differences and disagreements are quickly forgotten when we begin to talk about a well-loved Plant. In that moment, when the guard goes down and the Heart opens, we under- stand that this other person has experienced the magic of Plants. Once this magic is experienced, our lives are forever changed.
Numerous people have shared their stories with me about their childhood relationships with Plants and Nature. They were aware of magical worlds and knew a different language. Then they went to school or their families discovered their relationships, and they gave up their connections to fit into the societal norms and expectations. As they tell me their stories, their faces reveal a deep heartbrokenness, for they long to have that connection again. I’ll share with you what I tell them: you have not lost anything. The connection remains, the path is there, and, though it may be a little grown over, you can rediscover it more easily than you think. The Plants are waiting for you. I have yet to meet someone who was not able to return to the magical world of Plants. It is never too late, nor is the path ever completely lost.
As for myself and my own path, I have had a lifelong love affair with Plants. Really, I don’t know if I had a choice. Both of my grandfathers loved gardening and Plants. In their unique ways, they introduced me to the magic of Plants. From a young age, Plants were a solace, and as I got older, they became my teachers, my Guides, my medicine, and my friends. After all these years with them, I know that I am barely scratching the surface of their wisdom, gifts, and our relationship. Every day that I am able to spend time with them is a gift that I cherish. They have brought me back from the deepest depths of pain, lovingly chastised me when I was not listening, and have brought me great joy and pleasure. No matter how much I messed up or would try to ignore them, the Plants continued to show up, again and again.
My apprenticeship with the Plants became serious when I purchased my dream property in 2003. It took almost a year before my family could live there, but I quickly planted a garden and started to observe the wild Plants. In the spring and summer of 2005, I spent my mornings harvesting berries. While harvesting, information would come to me, problems that I had been stewing over suddenly seemed clear, and I found a deep calm. The idea that I should write a book about Plants came to me, but in my humility I quickly discounted it—I was in my twenties and didn’t think I had anything to share about Plants; there were people who were much wiser and had more life experience than me and they were the ones who should be writing.
At this time, I also did not believe that I could communicate with Plants. To be clear, I did believe, whole-heartedly, that some people were capable of Plant communication, but that I simply was not one of them. Little did I know that the solutions to my problems, the idea to write a book—all of the messages that I had been receiving—were the Plants communicating with me. Several years ago, I realized that my “humility” was actually arrogance, because it wasn’t me who was supposed to write; the Plants were asking to write the book through me.
Now I am endeavoring to be the Plants’ pencil. Since the early berry picking days, I have become a voice for the Plants and have taught many people how to communicate with them. I believe that Plant communication is, as Pam Montgomery says, our birthright. Everyone has the innate ability to communicate with Plants.
If you are reading this and thinking, “This is bizarre!” that’s fine. You are not the first person to think that. I invite you to put your dis- belief aside and simply wonder, “What if?—what if Plants could communicate with us?” Or perhaps you will read my stories as fairy tales; you do not need to believe that what I write is true.
If you are reading this and thinking, “That’s cool, but I’m sure I am not able to do this,” or wish that you had this skill, I assure you, you can and you do. The Plants communicate with us all the time. The difference between me today and me in 2005 is that I am now able to recognize the ways that the Plants are communicating. If you think that you are not one of the “special” people who can communicate with Plants, I ask you to please put that thought aside. I have taught Plant communication in various forms for around fifteen years to people of all ages and I’ve never had someone who did not receive information from a Plant. There are those who want to make this out to be a complicated process and it just isn’t. Again, communicating with Plants (really all of Nature) is your birthright. What I tell my students is that my job is to help them overcome the culturalization that tells them they are unable to communicate with Plants and help them remember this innate skill. Once we get rid of these blockages, the rest is easy.
For those of you who have already experienced the wonders of the Plant world, may my words be the magic dust that brings your own adventures to life and gives encouragement to delve deeper.
You see, we are a bunch of amnesiacs. This is no fault of our own. It is our nature. By the time we take our first breath on this Earth, we have already forgotten much of the wisdom of the universe. As we grow, the amnesia takes over like a giant eraser until we no longer know who we are or why we are here. Unfortunately, most of our Ancestors were also amnesiacs, so for generations we have been losing more and more Sacred knowledge, without even realizing it. Then, of course, there are those of us whose Ancestors had their wisdom stolen, beaten, and murdered out of them, usually in the name of money, religion, or progress.
I share this statement of our amnesia as a message of hope. For once we realize what we are experiencing, we can then choose a different way and remember. We can also stop the blame or self-sabotage, understanding that this is simply who we are and focusing our energy toward our remembering. We do not get angry with a baby because they don’t know how to talk or walk. We support and celebrate their learning and growing. We should extend this grace to ourselves.
Fortunately, there are humans (and cultures) who have managed to keep the threads of Sacred knowledge alive. We need to honor them and protect them, which means protecting their Lands, their languages, and their traditions. If we are invited, we can also learn from them. This remembering is too much for any one person or group of people to do—it is a collective endeavor.
Many of the younger generations are being born with more Sacred memory. We need to protect them and raise them with Love and reverence in a way that keeps their Souls intact and honors their Sacred roles as catalysts and awakeners. Sadly, many of them are given labels and medicated to try to make them conform to our amnesiac ways, rather than having their gifts recognized and heeded. We want to listen to these wise young ones and also do our own work. It is not fair to hand the problems of the world to the younger generation, hoping that they will “fix” them. We have an active role in the remembering.
We can learn from the same Source who helped our Ancestors and the Wise Ones alive today: the Earth herself, including Plants, rocks, waters, animals . . . They are able to help us to heal, to learn, to grow, and to remember who we are, why we are here, and how we can live in harmony with all Beings. With their help, we re-member the future.
One word of caution: our amnesia makes us hungry. We know that something is missing (often on an unconscious level). We try to fill this void through consumption, of anything and everything. This is quite obvious when we look at our relationship with Earth—clear cutting old growth Forests and the Amazon Rainforest; mining for gems, minerals, and coal; fracking and sucking out the last drops of petroleum; the accumulation of islands of plastic floating in the ocean; and so on. It’s also evident in the enormous role addiction plays in our lives, including television, shopping, food, alcohol, drugs, pornography, sugar, caffeine, and sex.
A less obvious form is our consumption of ideas, information, and experiences, which can sometimes take the form of appropriation. Sometimes we witness or we hear about someone who has a profound relationship with Nature, and our hunger pulls us to them like vultures to a freshly killed deer; we want to consume them and their wisdom hoping that this will fill the void and that we can remember our relationship with Spirit through them. But it doesn’t work. It feels as if our hunger is satiated for a little while, but we then follow the scent to the next Wise One or ceremony. Ultimately, we remain hungry.
We cannot consume our way to Spirit nor to our remembering. These actions only deepen our amnesia. I have witnessed this attempt at filling up quite often and have been both the consumer and the consumed. I can tell you that it does not feel good, that no one is served by this endless consuming. If you are finding yourself looking for the next “fix,” the next ceremony, the next medicine person, the next experience that will help you to awaken, I invite you to pause, slow down, and recognize the amnesia. We must do our own personal work, healing our traumas and listening to our Soul.
Mostly, I have been talking about the interactions of people; however, the same is absolutely true when we interact with Earth. The Plants are overwhelmingly generous Beings. We can get caught up in having experiences with or knowing a large number of Plants, or focusing on having incredibly intense interactions with Plants, which feeds the amnesia.
Receiving wisdom or a profound healing or experiencing a Sacred ceremony is an enormous gift. With that gift comes responsibility. It is an opportunity to remember your wholeness and your own innate relationship with Spirit, which is how we truly satiate the hunger. Generally, we need time to allow this gift to infuse into ourselves, to truly digest and understand it. Then we can discover what the gift is requiring of us. What we do with the gift, how we uphold our responsibility, is essential. Do we share this with others? Do we need to make a shift in our own life? The re-membering occurs through our response.
This does not mean that we should never aim to learn from someone else. We simply need to be mindful of why we are seeking. Is this a Heart calling or are we ego driven? Is our consumption keeping us from listening to or healing a wound, pain, or trauma? As I said, I have been a consumer, and perhaps I will be again in the future. There is no shame in this. It is simply a sign that I am experiencing amnesia and my Soul is not being fed.
When we are in right relationship with Plants and Earth, we naturally flow out of the consumer mind frame. We move into intimacy. We want to honor them and be of service to them. The Plants help us to remember our Sacred role as part of Nature, clearing away the amnesia.
Each of us engaged in this work adds a few threads to our collective awakening. Sometimes our threads are similar to others and sometimes our pieces inspire someone else or help them to understand their experiences. We need as many people as possible to listen, learn, heal, and remember so that we can weave our future together.
I offer you this book as part of the remembering.
The Plants are offering us guidance to help us live and thrive during this unique time on Earth and to help us to create a more beautiful and healthier world. The Plants included in this book are here because they asked to be and because they have been important in my life. There are many others who have touched my life in extraordinary ways. There may be other Plants who are more important to you. While we are all connected, we are all different. This is part of what makes life enjoyable. Trust who shows up for you and the wisdom they share that is specific for you.
As humans we like to categorize everything into hierarchical groups, which helps us to understand this expansive world. However, Nature does not work that way. While the Plants included here are most definitely special, they are no more or less special than any other Plant. Each has a unique role for our planet, for humanity, and for our evolution.
I share examples of how the Plants’ messages have manifested in my life as well as my clients’ and students’ lives. This is to help give more context and understanding to the lessons from the Plants. These are only examples; there are many different ways in which you can incorporate the Plants’ guidance into your life. I encourage you to allow these messages to take the form that you need most; in other words, make them your own.
This book also acts as your personal Plant Communication Guide; use it in conjunction with your own wisdom. Ideally, you will work with one Plant as you go through this guide. At the end of each chapter, you will find an exercise to help you connect and communicate with your Plant ally. Each exercise provides another piece of the puzzle for understanding and communicating with your Plant. You may find that you resonate well with some of the exercises while others are a struggle. This is fine. There is no one way to communicate with Plants; we all have our own unique journey. However, I do encourage you to at least attempt them, as you may find a new way of relating or learn something about yourself in the process. You can move at your own pace through the exercises; I encourage you to take your time. This process is about moving into intimacy with a Plant and intimacy requires an investment of energy, including time. The organization of the exercises is similar to how I teach them in my classes; they often build on one another. It is imperative that you are in Heart coherence when connecting with your Plant; therefore, please begin with the first two exercises, “Accessing Your Heart Space” and “The First Meeting.” However, this is your experience, so after these first two exercises, feel free to shift the order to what works best for you.
I have witnessed that some people need more assistance than others in the beginning. Some very fortunate people never forgot how to communicate with other species. Others simply need permission and perhaps a few tricks to remember. Some can attend one of my introductory classes, where we do not practice any of the exercises, and are able to go home and open themselves to a whole new world. Still others need more guidance, which is mostly assurance that they are capable and perhaps need help translating their experiences. Therefore, if you try my suggestions and feel like you aren’t connecting or receiving anything, I encourage you to participate in a class or have someone mentor you in person.
Plants come into our lives in amazing ways and each has much to offer us. The best herb books have a chapter written about each Plant; in reality, however, each Plant could have their own encyclopedia if we are willing to continue to listen and see them with new eyes. Plants meet us where we are. Our Plant ally will reveal new gifts and under- standings as we heal, evolve, and move through changing life circumstances. Therefore, we could have a group of people communicating with the same Plant and each person could receive different messages. This wouldn’t mean that people are not communicating “correctly” or that those messages are inaccurate. Simply, the Plant is offering to each individual the information that they need most at that time.
The most important thing is to have fun and enjoy the gifts the Plants have to offer you.
I focus on communicating with Plants because I have found them to be the easiest introduction into communicating with Nature. Plants are relatively stationary. They are our Ancestors. They have lived on this planet for much longer than humans and survived several major planetary changes. They are great adaptors and they tend to have a much broader, longer view than humans. They generally enjoy humans. They have an incredibly generous and forgiving nature. Plants know how to live in community and work with other species. They acknowledge their role as guides for humanity. Once you are comfortable communicating with Plants, it becomes easier to communicate with the other Nature Beings (including humans). Of course, there are those who are more attuned to animals or rocks or Elemental Beings. If this is you, that’s wonderful! Please continue communicating in the manner which feels best for you. You can use this book to broaden your communication abilities to Plants or simply digest the messages that the Plants want to share.
As we connect with the Plants, they help us to remember our Sacred role as part of Nature, which ultimately reminds us of who we are. Our connection helps us to align with our Soul’s path, re-membering our wholeness. We have been wandering for so long that sometimes we forget that we are lost. Still the Plants continue to gently call us back to ourselves, to our Sacred family. They believe in our ability to return to the Garden and, like any fabulous relative, they will continue to remind us of our Truth, until we can remember for ourselves.
And now, I invite you to breathe deeply, taking in this life-giving gift from the Plants.
Come to the Forest
Come to the Forest, my friend
Breathe in the mist
Let your lungs fill with the Green Mystery
Let your cells expand
Let your feet sink into the Humus
Let your roots grow
Feel them mingle with the Mycelium
Let them merge with Tree roots and
Tap into the Ancient Wisdom
Allow your hairs to become antennae,
Sensing the invisible
Your wings begin to sprout
Completing the transformation
As your Heart awakens and
Becomes Wild
Again
A Note on Capitalization, Ki, and Gender
One of my goals in life is to help elevate Plants and other aspects of Nature in our awareness. We have a tendency to think of them and treat them as unintelligent, inanimate objects. This allows us to make decisions without taking their well-being into consideration (such as cutting down a Forest). Therefore, I choose to capitalize their names as if they are human. For the purpose of this book and to create an easier reading experience, I am limiting the capitalization of some aspects of Nature, mostly focusing on those connected to Plants and a few other words which I believe could use more emphasis and awareness in our culture, such as Heart, Love, and Soul.
Language is an integral part of how we experience the world. The words we speak, the sounds we make, literally shape us. Their vibrations resonate both internally and externally also affecting the world around us. Language is also limiting; it is difficult to distill large experiences felt on many levels into words. As society evolves, so does our language. Words go out of fashion or are deemed too harmful. We create new words to better explain our current world. Adjusting our language helps us to discern what we value and, ultimately, helps us to create the world.
The language we use affects our relationships. Since Plants, animals, and the other Beings are alive, I choose (as best as I can) to use animistic language. Therefore, I refer to them as “ki” instead of “it.” To the best of my knowledge, this word was first suggested as an animistic, genderless pronoun by Robin Wall Kimmerer.1 After years of using this pronoun, I can notice an effect on how I view and think about Nature. I invite you to experiment with using the word ki. In my daily life, I sometimes refer to Plants as they, she, or he—though, since gender is a human construct, Plants are neither male nor female. In fact, many Plants fluidly shift between what we consider to be male (pollen-producing) and female (fruit-producing). I admit that sometimes I do refer to Plants as it. Mostly this is for easier comprehension, but sometimes I also slip back into the old pattern of “it.”
While we are on the subject of gender, let’s talk about humans. Since I was young, gender seemed like a strange concept to me. It seems a shame to try to cram a beautiful rainbow into a binary box. I am glad that we are beginning to shift our understanding around gender. We are multidimensional Beings—why put limitations on us?
Having said that, I am fully aware that our understanding of and language around gender is evolving, sometimes quickly and sometimes painfully slowly. My worldview and language shift as I continue to learn, heal, and move beyond my conditioning. Please know that my intention is to be inclusive and honoring of all Beings and their magnificent expressions. In this book, I rarely refer to men and women, mostly because, again, this is not a concept that the Plants utilize. They relate to the wholeness of you. They see your Soul, which is genderless. You, Dear Reader, know yourself better than I. Please feel free to put yourself in whichever description feels most appropriate to you, including none of them.
Ultimately, this book is meant as an offering of Love: an offering of Love from the Plants to you, an offering of Love from me to you, and an offering of Love from me to the Plants. My hope is that you feel this and know that you are Love(d).
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1. Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2013.
