A Poem: Herbal Medicine for Beginners
When I plant a lovely flower in my
garden, what is really happening?
Is it me in charge? Or is it this red and
living beam of light that has created me
so that I may create myself by planting
the light which is already shining everywhere?
Herbal medicine has no form, and yet we
can see it, feel it, and stumble into all the
universes that present themselves to us,
because we have been seen and recognized
by the intangible grace of a deeper order
of being, and the whispering entrancement
of a richer consciousness then our own.
It is literally the plants experience
of us that makes us real.
In herbal medicine, like in life,
there is no real difference
between the dreamer and the
dream.
It is the wild white ash, and the tender
sumac, with their attendant goddesses,
that conjure up the illusions of healer and
the healed, while all things are already full,
complete, illuminated and everywhere.
When we drink an herbal brew, it is
the wind, the skyway, the rivers and
the dark and amber breathed woodlands
we are drinking, and then it is our very
essence that flows through our veins.
The deepest levels of privilege are the
subtlest ones, who can ever be as lucky
as the person who has heard the golden
rod grow?
The presentational immediacy of a
lone motherwort plant reflected in
a cool moving stream, turns witnessing
into participation, and the seen becomes
the one who sees.
The spirit dense flowering yarrow are
not wild flowers in a field, they are the
field itself, it is they who brought the
earth down in this place, and it is their
vision we see through, and when we fall
asleep amongst them, it is their dreams
that come true.
The entire dusklit and scarlet forest can
be found within each sweet and acrid
buckeye seed, and that same owl haunted
and fragrant forest is found, also within
us, this is the secret of herbalism, we are
already what we seek, and this becomes
direct experience if our deepest prayer is
to listen, and then it is only the fluttering
madrone leaves that we hear, but of course
the madrone’s voice is our own.
Our interest in herbal medicine is nothing
but the plants consciousness speaking
through us, and the acknowledgement of
this is the fulfillment of a dream foretold.
It is the spirit of the plants that has
entered all who long for the redemptive
inner light of the flowering path, and
such is the beauty of herbal medicine,
that when we are engulfed, we forget all
about redemption, the deep rich soil of
living dream and inner communion is more
then redemption, it is nourishment, from
the forest that breathes inside us all.
– Matthew Becker, CSCH Teacher