Yesterday I took a walk through the forest. I did not leave as the same person I was when I arrived. Over the past couple months, Nature has been leading me on a journey...out of my head, and into my heart. I have been working with plants for a few years now. I started working with the Cannabis plant in 2012. Some call Cannabis the ‘gateway drug’ and for me, she was exactly that; although maybe not in the way this statement was originally intended. Cannabis has been my gateway back to the natural world. When I met her, I was deep in a bottle of booze, disconnected from the Earth and its cycle, and most certainly disconnected from myself. I was in this phase of my life where I was doing anything and everything to avoid the pain I had been carrying around since a young age. Cannabis opened me up to the idea that plants can be used as medicine. This sparked something deep inside me, a truth that I have only grazed the surface of. I started making medicine with Cannabis, which then expanded to the use of other plants and herbs for medicine as well. The problem was, that I was what Sajah Popham refers to as an ‘armchair herbalist.’ I was making medicine with herbs and reading all about them, but I was missing a fundamental piece of the process: direct experience of and relationship with the plants themselves. I was still operating within an allopathic model. A ‘use this for that’ approach. A ‘what is this plant good for?’ mindset. As I peered out at the natural world I saw an inanimate, mechanical machine rather than an intelligent being whom I could commune with directly.

Over the past couple months, everything has started to change. I recently moved out of Portland and back into the lush forest of the Northern coast of Oregon. While I have lived in Oregon for the past 4 years, I started seeing things that I had never noticed before. All of the plants that I had been reading about in books started to reveal themselves in real life. I’ve gone on many hikes and nature adventures since I first arrived in this magical state, but it’s like I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. I was looking before, but not really seeing. Now, finally, the film is lifting from eyes, and what’s even more is that I am finally learning to see with the eyes of the heart.

So while this initiatic journey has been culminating since a very young age, it has really started to take root over the last couple months.  On the Taurus new moon, the path started to open up in a really powerful way. There is a beautiful creek right at the base of Saddle Mountain that I had been stopping at regularly. Meditating to the sounds of chirping birds and flowing water. Talking to the plants and trees; revealing to them parts of myself that I so often keep hidden from the rest of the world. Asking the spirit of Nature to take me deeper. At the time, I did not really even know what this meant, but I did know that I was ready; ready for a more tangible relationship with Nature itself, ready for the transformational healing that I so deeply desired (and needed). I was ready; to surrender to the mystery of not knowing what lies beyond the programming of a broken system.

So, on the morning of the Taurus New Moon, I started to bleed. This shedding felt profound, like I was letting go of what I’d become so that I could step more fully into who I actually am. I went down to this secret garden at the base of the mountain and just sat.

Listened to the sounds of nature.

Felt into my womb space.

As I looked around the landscape, off in the distance I saw a flower.

Mesmerized by her beauty, she called me in.

Three white petals.

Three green leaves.

This flower was Trillium Ovatum.

I had seen her in pictures and come across her in my studies, but had never met her in person. She was the most magical flower I have ever met, and she is the first plant being that I have formed a true connection with. If you have ever come across Trillium in the wild, you may know how it feels to be standing in the presence of something truly holy.

Her essence is pure.

Her energy, radiant.

She is the archetypal manifestation of the feminine force found within all things.

Maiden, Mother, Crone.

Life, Death, Rebirth.

She is the embodiment of fertility and sensuality.

She is an endangered species which metaphorically speaking makes total sense, as the feminine force is not revered as something sacred in our modern day society, although this is slowly shifting.

This flower is such a powerful teacher, especially for women, or those looking to cultivate deeper relationship with their feminine nature.

She teaches lessons in how to utilize your womb space, to tap into the creative well found deep in the darkness, and to harness this energy to manifest that which you most desire in life.

She brings you deep into the womb and gently beckons you to sit with the blood curdling rage and heart shattering pain that we so often store in this center, so that we may move beyond it into the realm of passion and pleasure.

She reminds us that there is power in our sensuality, peace in our pain, and the potential for true transformation when we allow the floodgates of sorrow to open up and baptize us with new Life.

I went back many times to sit with the spirit of Trillium. I gave her gifts of crystals, Reiki, and raw vulnerability.

She gave me Truth.

About a week later I found her flowers growing right on the land where I lived!

She communicated that a wonderful way for me to work with and share her medicine was through making a flower essence. She also shared that with Easter fast approaching, this would be a very powerful day to create this medicine. So on Easter I went and collected some spring water down the road from my home and brought it back to her. She infused her medicine into this water on this holiest of holy days.

((I do want to share that I used a NO PICK method to create this essence as it takes almost 10 years for this flower to bloom, and it is of the utmost importance that we find ways to consciously work with this plant while preserving the continuation of her presence here on Earth.))

I began to work with this essence day and night. A few days after our first encounter, I took a morning hike out at Bloom Lake Trail. Right before I got out of my car, I took the essence. I asked Trillium to allow me to experience her medicine in a deeper way as I went on this hike. As I journeyed down the trail I discovered that there were 100s of Trillium in bloom! WOW! I have hiked this trail so many times in years past...was she blooming in front of me this entire time, I just hadn’t yet developed the eyes to see?

On the Aries New Moon, I started a plant journey into the Desert with an Ocotillo elixir from La Abeja Herbs (created by Sophia Rose who is truly such a powerful herbalist and human being) The combination of my work with Trillium and Ocotillo had led to a rather rough two weeks. Necessary, but rough.

These two plants were bringing me to some of the most broken, tender parts of myself. They were taking me into the depths, where I was being offered up the opportunity to look beyond the veil of the surface level, symptomatic effects of my trauma; to see further in, to the roots of where it all began.

So far, this phase of the journey has felt soft and tender, but also like it was gently preparing me for some harsher weather up ahead.

Yesterday morning, after sitting with Ocotillo medicine, I wrote this prompt:

"The endless Spiral. Where you meet demons you thought you had conquered, only to discover they have the ability to shapeshift into different form. Through practice, one gets better at recognizing the beast before it destroys the entire village. With patience, one gets better at remembering that underneath it all, the beast too, is just asking for love."

This, is full moon in Scorpio.

Later in the morning, I decided to take my pups on a hike to Soap Stone Lake. I have only been down this trail once, but I remember it being super magical. As I journeyed down the trail, I was in a space of deep reflection. Thinking about Trillium and all the lessons she has brought me over the last couple moon cycles. Thinking about Ocotillo and the archetypal journey she was taking me on through the Desert, and how reflective it was of the barren lands of my own childhood, and all the wounds left unhealed. As I continued walking down the path, I saw Trillium. Only this time her blooms had withered. Her time of fullness had passed.

Immediately I was downloaded with the realization that for 40 days and 40 nights I had sat with Trillium’s medicine. The new moon in Taurus waxed and waned into the new moon in Aries, which waxed to the now full moon in Scorpio. While our relationship is far from over, she let me know that she was only my guide for the first part of my journey through the desert.

Literally, right as I had the thought “That’s interesting… I wonder what plant I will be meeting next,” I encountered a being so powerful it stopped me dead in my tracks.

Devil’s Club.

King of the Forest.

My whole body became hot.

Energy swirling.

I felt like a deer in headlights. Unable to move. Unable to look away.

I've never experienced anything like it.

I felt seen, completely seen... Which for someone trying to hide a bunch of bullshit that their too scared to deal with, it can be VERY intimidating.

Devil’s Club is a no bullshit kind of plant.

He doesn’t play games.

He has no patience for things that waste his time.

He means business.

He asked me...Are you REALLY ready to go deeper?

Are you REALLY ready to do the work?

Are you really ready to set down all the excuses...all the reasons you believe you need to remain small?

This work isn’t for everyone.

It’s not for the faint of heart.

It will break you. Open.

It will disassemble and rearrange.

It will take you on a Hero’s journey and bring you face to face with the beast inside.

Do you have the capacity to accept her fully? To love her entirely? To forgive her completely?

This is the work of Devil’s Club, and for me, the next phase of the journey has just begun.