What if the ‘work’ we are called to in the plant world is not really about learning to use herbs to heal the scrapes and sore throats (or even chronic pain and anxiety) of the people around us?

What if the call to the plant path is actually a longing to reweave human culture in collaboration with the plants?

It seems that the plants of the earth are working hard to restore balance to the ecosystems; maybe they are also working hard to restore to us a culture of (interconnection), belonging and reverence.

I’ve been reflecting on what matters to me about the teaching I’ve been doing these last 5 years.

It matters less to me which plants we study, which illnesses we cover.

It matters more how we are learning to be with the plants and through that with ourselves. Slowing down. Listening deeply to the whispers beneath the mind’s chatter. Learning to stretch our sensory capacity so that we feel at home in our bodies, and empowered with the awareness that comes from embodiment.

It matters to me that we are shifting our ways of thinking about the plant-human relationship, and of course our ways of feeling this relationship. I don’t know about you but I’m sick of just thinking things. I want to feel them, taste them, become them.

Let’s become the wise plant-connected elders that our psyche knows have existed throughout the ages.

Let’s reconstruct our culture so that humans feel their belonging to this earth in their bones.

So that the belonging fills all the lonely and broken places, and reminds us of our responsibilities to all life.

I don’t think we can do that alone.

Plants have always made us human.

That’s a huge statement, I know. But walk with me in this liminal space.

Plants literally made the air breathable for mammals. (and make the air breathable day in day out). They pull sunshine and water into carbon and fibre that literally builds our bodies. And they have been walking beside us since before we were humans.*

Plants are our ancestors, our teachers and our companions in this long arc of time. We are incomplete without them. I know this in my bones, and if you are called to the plant path, then you might know this too.

Perhaps ‘the work’ that I’m called to (and you might be too) is to turn towards that partnership, and apprentice ourselves to the plants again.

To find the rituals and practices that repair cultural drift, returning us to a worldview and a way of being in this life that is anchored in relationality and belonging.

From this anchored place is where we will find our deeper healing. Healing of chronic disease; of ecosystem decay; and the grief, anxiety and distraction that dogs our days.

Goodbye Anthropocene. Here’s to the era of the Planthropocene.

*60,000 year old Neanderthal graves have been discovered with seeds of yarrow, red clover and other herbs that we still use commonly in herbalism today! Please let this sink in and become a felt knowing that herbs are your heritage. You belong to each other.