Dear friends,
It feels like the calendar turned to December and winter arrived. My little house in the woods is surrounded with snow, lots of snow, in this full-moon tide. This afternoon I am going to walk down the road to a favorite stand of white pine; to visit the giant ones in their full wintery coats. I’m sharing about Herbal Mystery School today, which will enter its tenth year next year! I can’t believe it. It’s been such an amazing experience watching this program grow over ten years. Applications for next years online program are open now, there are twelve spots available for the next cohort.
In the very first class of Herbal Mystery School, I ask everyone in our circle to be a fool. To be completely fool-ish. I mean a few things by this: the first is to approach this work with beginner’s mind. Even if someone has been a practicing herbalist for twenty five years, I ask that they approach our ritual year with plants as if you are meeting this being for the very first time. Even if you think you know nettle, please be open to being surprised. The fool delights in surprise! There is a willingness to listen to what is emergent in there here and now. Instead of carrying expectation of how a particular plant is going to show up, we calibrate relationally with our bodies at this particular time and this plant at this particular time. What is Birch asking of us right now? How does the pulse of Burdock feel in our heart in this moment?
Mystery is often presented as something that is meant to be figured out, a puzzle to solve. It is defined as a quality of the unknown. It is commonly believed in the western mind that if we possess more knowledge then the amount that is unknown will decrease. The idea being that we could get rid of the unknown entirely! (Imagine!) But in Herbal Mystery School, mystery is not defined by what is unknown. Instead, it is an experienced state. Through our daily devotions to the plants, we move from a place of awe rather than from lack of knowledge. We don’t need to solve.
Being fool-ish is to lean into mystery, not mastery. If my expectation of nettle is defined by memorized herbal actions: diuretic, alterative, anti-inflammatory, rubefacient, etc., I deny myself the great pleasure of meeting the many faces of this plant and what thrums here, between us. Rather than defining what a plant does, we move into devotional practice. Devotion is how we experience mystery. Where can profound devotion with the plants bring us? I find that the answer to this question is the magic that fills our days; through cups of tea, prayer, dreaming, tracking patterns and synchronicities, writing poems, creating ritual and so much more. We will never be done! There is always further to go, another layer to peel back.
Fools are vulnerable. Here we are, at the edge of the cliff. We are willing to be shaped by what we cannot see. Molded by the unseen. Vulnerability opens us to mystery — be foolish, and
dive in with me?
xx Liz
