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Ep.64 Mugwort Dreamer with Rachel Corby
75 Plays3 months ago
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Rachel Corby, plant-inspired author and rewilding coach, about her plant reawakening with Mugwort. We delved into Rachel's personal journey of developing an intimate bond with the green beings around us—learning to listen and hear their subtle voices. It was a enlightening to hear the profound impact truly listening to plants has had for her and the transformative experience her relationships with kin.
Join us on this journey of growth and discovery, as we embrace the transformative potential of connecting with our leafy companions.
Rachel Corby is an advocate for regenerating and reviving interest in the indigenous plant medicine of her homeland, the UK. Rachel hosts online and in-person events, including indigenous plant ceremonies, workshops encouraging the direct communication with our more-than-human kin and personal rewilding apprenticeships. www.wildgaiansoul.com
Topics Covered about mugwort
➡️ Plant ReAwakening with Brugmansia
➡️ Mugwort, the Boss
➡️ Integrating Training into Self-Awareness
➡️ Transformative Relationships
➡️ Rewilding, Community, Connection
Resources Mentioned
- Find Rachel on Facebook and Instagram @mugwortdreamer
- Rachel's book Rewilding & The Art Of Plant Whispering
- What's Your Spirit Wild Plant?
- Work with me and Plants:
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// Opening and Closing music by Steve Sciulli and Poinsettia from The Singing Life of Plants
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. It's me, Tigria Gardenia, and this is episode 64. Can you believe it's 64? I know, I say that every single time, but it's always shocking to me because this, you know, it just keeps Growing and evolving and I'm having so much fun and this episode in particular was so fun to record um So this is episode 54 Mugwort dreamer with Rachel Corby and Rachel Corby Well, there's just so much to tell about Rachel and Rachel's work and how she is you're gonna find it all in the show notes at the end and But Rachel is basically an author and a personal rewilding coach, and she's just done so many things, but more than anything, she recognizes herself as a plant whisperer. So without any further ado, here is episode 54, Mugwort Dreamer with Rachel Cordy. Enjoy.
00:01:01
Speaker
Welcome to reconnect with plant wisdom. I'm your host Tigri La Gardenia, nature inspired mentor and leadership coach. In this podcast, I share ancient and modern knowledge from biology to spirituality about the wondrous ways in which plants can help you lead a naturally conscious life.
00:01:23
Speaker
Here we are, here we are. Rachel, this is so exciting. This was definitely an unexpected conversation that we had, and I'm really looking forward to having everybody kind of learn who is Rachel, what is it that Rachel does, and what is Rachel's connection to plants. Please tell us. Hi, lovely to be here. um Thank you for inviting me. so So yeah, I mean, I call myself a plant whisperer for want of a better but of word really. um And yeah, my life really has become about working with plants. It started out as a gardener. I was ah kind of a keen permaculture organic gardener. um And then
00:02:10
Speaker
actually I'll just go straight to to my beginning story because I remember one day just saying I wish I was I was little Mrs Clark she was in her 90s in her 90s and I was weeding between her wall flowers and I was just saying to the wall flowers I just wish I could hear the plants talk to me and they did and And the rest is history. But I mean, to be fair, before that, um I was doing my geography degree. And I mean, I wasn't really a plant and person. I probably had what people call plant blindness. You know, it was just green stuff.
00:02:43
Speaker
um But my dissertation from my degree, um I did physical geography and I was like looking at the micro vegetation on a slope and I had these metre square kind of quadrats they're called and I had to count what I chose this as ah as a decision but like to count how many different species there were um in every square metre to see if there was a variation. It was all about landforms and stuff but anyway I just got blown away by mosses, by the intricacy and the beauty of moss. um um Actually, we were chatting earlier about um Robin Wall Kimmerer and her book um about moss business like oh my god this ga moss. Such a great book, such a great book. Really, absolutely. So, so, yeah, ever since then, which was in the early 90s, I've just been, yeah, I've just been falling down the rabbit hole of
00:03:38
Speaker
plants and um or the plant hole the plant roof exactly like well i'm curious what what did those wall fallers say to you that first time do you know they actually repeated the name of a plant over and over again. They just said to me, and it was a plant I'd never heard at that time. They just said, Brugmansia, Brugmansia, Brugmansia. And they just replied it, and repeated it, repeated it. And I'm like, wow, okay. So I run home, looked up Brugmansia, which is, it's a bit like Datura. It's another plant of that family. I brought one from the garden center, grew it in my garden, flowered once and then died. And then
00:04:23
Speaker
that was that. So I didn't go very far with this plant Brugmansia, but it was the fact that a word just started repeating over and over in my head. And I was just like, that wasn't from me. I've never heard of that plant name before. And I didn't know what to do with the Brugmansia, of course. You know, I didn't know how to access. I knew something was going on. I knew there had been a communication, but I didn't, I didn't know how to take it further. um at that point, so so yeah. Yeah, i find um I find it really interesting when we have that first plant experience. Oftentimes it's a case like this in the sense that for some people sure you know immediately why the plant is talking to you, but for so many of us we we actually don't. And what I've been able to gather now after all these years of both my own journey as well as listening and speaking with so many people that are on the journey is that
00:05:18
Speaker
It's almost as if that plants that speaks to you or that points you towards somebody else, you know, some other plant to work with is, I don't know, I feel it like there's, it's the subtle parts coming in. It's, it's the, the unspoken part of the connection that needs to be reestablished. And so just the fact that you listened, That you went out that you ah brought this plant into your proximity was actually the purpose. It wasn't about how long the plant lives or necessarily about the, the you know, the discussion you were going to have with that plant but it was about
00:06:01
Speaker
kind of bringing you into a state of awareness through a completely different plant that you don't know, that you don't have any kind of conditioning around that is not a plant that's within your realm normally. And therefore, Key has access to you in a completely different way because now you're caring and you're like, something about you is important. And even the death process is an important lesson to learn, but that it's completely different from the norm of if they you know if if that plant would have told you, I don't know, a pine tree or, you know, something else that you would have had a different kind of relationship. Do you find that that it's something similar or?
00:06:42
Speaker
I actually love what you've just said, because it makes me so feel so much better about the past and the end of my programancia. I hadn't ever quite thought of it like that, but you're you're absolutely right. it was It was acting in response to hearing, to to feeling. It wasn't even a feeling, it was actually hearing, hearing a name of something. I actually went out, I did it, I went out and got that plant and yeah um yeah just just very interested in what you just said because I had never thought of it in that way actually but um I think that is you know go going back to sort of I guess the practice of plant whispering that is the most important thing you you put out you kind of have your intention to the world I
00:07:29
Speaker
I'd love to hear what the plant has to say. You know, I've heard this is possible, plant consciousness, I've heard it's real, come on. give me something and then and then what are you going to do with that? And if you don't do something with that, then it's a dishonoring of of you know of A, your request, but B, the fact that the plant gave you something. So it's yeah it's it's very important part of it all, isn't it? It absolutely is. And like you said, it was it's about the listening. So here you are, you have your brook manse, what happens next? Where do we go from here on this plant reawakening journey?
00:08:04
Speaker
so So for me, i ended up um um I ended up doing lots of fasting and cleansing. This wasn't part of really intentionally plant part of the plant journey, but what happened was I started to be a lot more clear and I started to hear, just become more aware. I guess this time it wasn't so much actually voices, but I hope it had a deeper awareness of energies I suppose and of a kind of a plant going, attracting me. It was just subtleties. So it was this kind of, oh you're so attractive I must come and sit with you, look at you, admire you. um And that was still really
00:08:48
Speaker
one way because it was me kind of, no it wasn't, it was two-way because they were calling me and I was responding but I still couldn't take it any further than that so then I started reading around it and I read books by Elliot Cohen and Stephen Haribuna which was kind of all there seemed to be, all I had found anyway back in, but where were we back then in probably the early 2000s. So, um and then I went and studied with both of them. So I went and studied with Elliot Cohen first and did his plant spirit medicine practitioner training. And then I did a year with Steven Haribuna apprenticing with him. so
00:09:25
Speaker
Oh, wow. Well, you do know that Elliott Cohen, I have two so a few episodes back, I had um Patrick Hennalt on the show and he is he is the person who is teaching Elliott Cohen's work now going forward. So look at the connections, how they are. And Steven Buhner is I have ah I have to say the first time I tried to read his books, I was not ready for it. I was just not ready. I found them so difficult and dense to try to get through and wordy and everything. Now it's slightly different, you know, especially now that he's passed. But even in the last you know a few years, I was like, oh, OK, now I'm starting to see it. I really love him for quotes. I feel like there's these I feel like for me personally, his writing um is is just it's is a little too much. I can't almost take it in. It's like, whoa,
00:10:14
Speaker
But there are these points that he hits that really make you think and really stop you and you. At least for me, they really stopped me in my tracks and were like, oh, yes. Oh my goodness. you know And that's that's the way I took him. I can't imagine what it was like working with him. So that's a big jump to go like from from where you were to kind of working directly with these people. um where Where do you find, who did it lead you to? I say a who, there's a who. A who, which plant? Exactly. Yes. Well, well, this was, um, okay. So in, so it was during Elliot's training. So I went and started with him and I think the training was 18 months long and part of his training, um, we learned his style, his version of how to connect
00:11:08
Speaker
with a plant, how to have a communication, a two-way communication, which was what I'd been looking for. This is why I went in and also why I then went to Stephen later and learnt his way, which was a different way. So, you know, I just wanted all the ways I could get so that I could get in there. But with Elliot, one of the plants that is fundamental to his healing system is Magua. And Yeah, I mean, what happened with mug work was to change everything really for me. So it kind of.
00:11:42
Speaker
mugwort i don't know how else to c say mugwort became my boss i understand that perfectly as i'm staring at spy at spider plant who is like trying to say i'm not your boss anymore i'm passing everything off to noelle the christmas cactus but for the longest time i totally understand what you mean right great i'm glad you do because because yeah i mean Mugwort really, really has been fundamental, has guided me and has, um yeah, just kind of kept me in line. It's like a kind of a bossy older sister who's like, so don't get carried away, you know, on your kind of human journey. Come on, come back and do it and do it like this, not like that. And it's been very clear. Yeah, very clear story with Mugwort.
00:12:34
Speaker
but Well, I've seen also that you, in working with Mugwort, what were some of the first pieces? Actually, I have a different question that's completely separate but connected. So I am right now, as as we're recording this, we're getting ready for the summer solstice here in Damenhar, and I am part of a team that translates the rituals. um It takes a long time for all of us, for for a small group of us who are combination native English speakers and non-native English speakers, but very good English speakers to try to translate the essence of the the really deep rituals that Damanhur has.
00:13:10
Speaker
and one And in the summer solstice in particular, there's an entire connection to Artemisia, to mugwort. And so we were translating this, and we have these big long discussions sometimes. Because for example, in the case of this ritual, we've chosen to keep the word Artemisia instead of using mugwort. And it was a long discussion of what is the essence? What's the essence of the plants? Where is the plant coming into this? What is the relationship with the plant? Hence, Artemisia, which is closer to the Latin name, um is the reason we chose it. and um But I'm so curious for you of how did you start working with mugwort? Do you feel like there's a different frequency between mugwort as opposed to Artemisia? Is it the same? like i I don't know. I might be just asking a question that just has to do with me because I'm stuck in this translation mode and therefore so deep into. and Because I have that with a lot of the plants. like
00:14:07
Speaker
names that the plant gives me that my plant friends give me, like Noel, the Christmas cactus, who says, call me Noel, but Christmas cactus versus the scientific name. like We have these discussions around here. I'm looking around at all the plants that are surrounding me. And we some of us have really deep conversations of this, like Spider Plant, who says, my name is Spider Plant. That is my name, capital S, lowercase p, you know all these different things. Do you find that the name changes your relationship?
00:14:37
Speaker
I think yes, I mean like though I haven't had so much of a journey with the names as clearly you have because that's really interesting but um I've done quite a bit of work with mushrooms as well and one of the one of the mushrooms is as some people would call fly agaric but aminita which is the latin name aminita muscaria or i don't know how to pronounce it really but aminita is for yeah yeah so aminita it's aminita and aminita does not like to be called fly agaric at all
00:15:13
Speaker
to me you know when when we've had that conversation I am not flying Eric that's a horrible name and it's not who I am but with mugwort artemisia as you say is such a beautiful word it just is beautiful and poetic but I've never had that conversation actually with mugwort mugwort has never said to me so I just I just call key mugwort all the time Which makes sense. I mean, each one of us enters into a relationship differently, you know, and I think that that's the beauty of it. So tell me about your relationship with Magmort.
00:15:46
Speaker
Yeah so I mean well it was all related to this first instance I'd never ever even heard actually and that's that kind of might seem incredible to people now because everybody has probably heard of my work by now but back then when we were in 2006 and I was on this week's training with Elia one part of that long training and um we went to a lay by a side of a road and it was raining and there was like 30 of us all transported to the side of this road because that's the only place where you know Elia and his helpers had found the mugwort so we went in there
00:16:25
Speaker
and we kind of sat there and drew it with our pencil crayons in the rain with drops falling on us and all of this and but we sat there for an hour or we stood there for an hour just having this initial conversation with my work and then we went back and did a shamanic journey and part of that we were kind of unlike the other work we were doing it was Mugwort was going to be instrumental to this healing system we were learning and Mugwort turned around to me during the shamanic journey and said
00:16:57
Speaker
you're not going to work healing people in this kind of the way that it's been presented in this training, and which is quite disappointing, you know, several thousand pounds into a training module, you know what I mean? And this isn't your path. You will be very much more effective if you teach other people or you bring other people on the journey to meet us directly. And that's the so basically a mug word said to me you will drum for other people likes to play the shamanic drum for people while they go on a journey to meet with the plants, and that is going to be your role. And I was actually given that as a role by my work so from then on.
00:17:39
Speaker
it was kind of like okay so that's why mugwort is my boss because mugwort told me you know this you're not you're not going to be sat in a clinic with people lying on your lovely treatment couch and telling you about their indigestion no you are going to be helping people because that is the cure that we need you know and that was what Mugwa told me that's the cure that we need and so actually I mean I've written a few books and and in my most recent one it was going to be literally a pamphlet of how
00:18:11
Speaker
you know 50 pages how to how to meet with a plant how i just thought you know everyone needs to know this how to meet with a plant and then halfway through writing it mugwort goes what are you even thinking you and mugwort turned it into 150 page book i had to work with mugwort every single day that i wrote because mugwort was like no you've got to get the really deep respect in place because otherwise people will miss misuse the information and use it for their own gain so you have to have that really deep respect for the living plant energies that you won't get if you just leave it as a kind of step one, sit outside. Right. Well, and and that actually opens to a question that I was asking, I was thinking as you were saying that, when you say I worked with mugwort every day, you know, every one of us has our our own way for you. what what What did working with mugwort on this look like? By the way, I'm i'm not surprised that mugwort did this.
00:19:05
Speaker
like knowing knowing everything I know about Maguard and the work that we do here and but with Maguard during the Solstice, not surprised at all. Well for me working with mugwort every day was was literally tuning in. I work a lot with tinctures so I make tinctures and I mean I've got like half a dozen sat on my desk now and each one is a different plant that I'm working with for different reasons and I don't work with them all every day but um at that time when I was writing that last book working with mugwort every day was taking
00:19:42
Speaker
i can't remember something like three drops of this tincture and just tuning in for 20 minutes and just just asking mugwerk to be with me and that they to help me remain clear to get me the human Rachel out of the way so that mugwerk could get the words down yeah yeah and that and that's that's the beauty of it it's simplicity i feel like ah ah When we talk about plant communication and plant whispering and you know people are looking for information and courses and sometimes I'm like it's as easy you have to start with just being present right just giving yourself that permission and each one of us tunes in in slightly different ways some people are going to go want to sit with that plant
00:20:29
Speaker
in you know a way sometimes you're going to just want to stare in in my spirit wild plant quiz for example some of the exercises I give are done with a photograph right because you can't always get to where the plant is but not only that it's not always necessary sometimes some things you want to do you can do in your your own home or in that space but it's about setting that intention and opening that channel of communication and I love the idea of the tinctures I for a long time have worked with um Essential oils even way before I got directly into plants. I had always chosen my essential oils based on a kabbalistic associations with plants, but very much tuning into the plants.
00:21:09
Speaker
and looking at those oils similar to what you do with the tinctures, you know, looking at the oils every morning and being like, who am I supposed to work with today? And for example, right now, I'm i'm i'm kind of primarily working with three different essences and my whole, you know, just just every morning, like who is the person, you know, who is the person, the plant person that's gonna work with me today through that way? And it's like inviting them in to your work, inviting them into your essence. Absolutely. and And it's such a beautiful and simple thing. We we don't have to over complicate it. What have you found that has changed? I mean, for you, from what I understand, for you, this was like a ah a proper initiation with mugwort in the end. What has changed in your life, thanks to this relationship with mugwort? Well, I mean, it's become everything I do, to be honest. So so working,
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah, from that moment of mugwort initiation onwards, um
00:22:15
Speaker
it's it's my focus, my focus, and it's, I mean, it's constant. It was becoming more constant. It was growing just more. Well, you know, the more you kind of understand the plants as people and as living beings, the more it's a constant communication, right, all the time. um But I think this was still very early on in my journey. So it was it was like it was like the door opening at that moment. And from from that moment on, because I think before then it was still, even though I knew there was a lot of magic underneath it, um and that's why I was interested in it. um
00:22:58
Speaker
the the kind of the kind of penny hadn't dropped, you know, the the kind of crystallising moment where it all is like, ah, this is what it all is. hadn't happened and it did with that mugwork moment and and so it was like walking into wonderland and so the changes that have happened is just like is is that that i'm now living in wonderland and that all the plants are there and they're talking and communicating and i feel like i i work for them because for the mugwork and there's um there is a mushroom i work for as well and it's and it's you know i've kind of got sacred contracts with a couple of them where i'm kind of i'm i'm living a promise you know it's almost like i'm a i'm a nun except obviously i'm not a nun but you know ah i'm living a sacred promise to to help bring their truth to to the world and to to people whose ears you know like the
00:23:53
Speaker
but the the mainstream, you know, we are opening up to the the difference now compared to the early 2000s when I started, you know, when this happened for me, mid 2000s, when 2006, when this moment with Mugwet happened, it's incredible how much more it's been spoken of podcasts like Your Own or, you know, the Plant Consciousness Conference that happened in the UK a few years ago, where I first saw you actually. um all of these kind of things, books being written. There is so much more interest in opening because I think as soon as you have that inkling, it's like something true comes ah awake in your heart, doesn't it? And it's like, this is what I've been missing. And so it's like, okay, more and more people are having that moment. So how do you then help? You know, I feel like it's my part of my role is to help people go from
00:24:52
Speaker
that um initial moment of inkling to going, oh, yes, this is so natural for me. I can do it. and um'm I'm here now. But sometimes you need that little bit help over the threshold. And and I feel like that that's what the plants have guided me to do. So that that's kind of what I do. I love the way you put it in the the the way that you say it. it's I, I, anybody who listens to the podcast knows that I struggle with words sometimes when we're having these discussions. And that's a positive thing in my mind, because that's exactly what's changing. What's changing is our paradigm of vocabulary, the way we experience the world, the relationships, all these different pieces. And I love the way that you're speaking about it, that it's not about Mugwort's characteristics, you know, although that is a part of it, right? We take a tincture maybe because
00:25:39
Speaker
it connects us to this aspect or this particular thing, or it's going to make this, you know, like you said, your stomach aches can make better and stuff, but that's, that's one part. But what we're talking about here is so much more. It's almost like a light bulb that goes off and you realize that there's this been this part of you that has been dark, this part of, of, of your personal inner stage or what I call your inner plantiness that hasn't been It's not activated. It's not accessible to you. There's all these different ways of thinking and of being and of living in that magical wonder that we get when we are, that we feel so deeply when we're connected to nature. And it's almost as if this this happens, this on this slow um lights slowly coming on from the inside out.
00:26:28
Speaker
that you realize is this part of you that has been missing and that it's not so much about okay what's changed is that you know i can now do mathematics in a lot in a much easier way but it's more like i can't almost explain it it just Life just seems more complete. It seems more in flow. I feel like I have support. I mean, a big piece of that that I feel and I hear from my clients and from the people is I'm not alone. um there's a there's this There's this other piece of me that has been missing and that not just me, but me as in me in that interspecies sort of me, because I can hear those whispers now. I can hear those connections.
00:27:13
Speaker
and And I feel like this is such an important aspect of what changes. That's why you know the podcast is called Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. it's It's about this reconnection to a part of ourselves that comes from that plantness within us. Oh yeah absolutely and as you were saying that i I was getting this image of you know kind of modern human it's almost like we're born into a kind of a solitary, cup this is how it feels for me, we're born into ah a solitary confinement cell. Because all of these connections that we should, we should, we could have been born with had we been born in the jungle or you know in the great meadows or you know living in a yurt or something in the in the middle of the wilderness, we weren't.
00:28:00
Speaker
and so all of those connections that we would otherwise have had naturally from day one were never there so um suddenly it's like you're sitting in this solitary confinement cell all these years and then suddenly you realize that there actually aren't any walls around it at all and that you you are sitting in the field and that that everybody is talking to you but you know it takes a little while to unlearn that those walls are there because it's like we are born in these like square houses and and you know don't get your fingers muddy don't go and play in the dirt you know don't touch that flower it could be poisonous
00:28:42
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. And that's that's interest that's it. That's exactly it. It's like you you're built in you're you're in this solitary container that has been made, it's and it's completely artificial. it's It's these things that separate us from what our true nature is, both inside as well as outside of it. and And like you said, our cities are built wrong, our cities are built with this separation in mind as opposed to I was looking, I was watching ah something, I don't know, i was like Star Wars or something the other day, um and I was looking at the city that they were depicting, you know, and I was and I thought to myself, if that's the city of the future, I don't want it.
00:29:23
Speaker
Absolutely. Do not want. Do not want. I mean, they're all like wastelands. I was like, nope, nope, nope. I'm going with the Ewoks. Just send me off into the jungle with Ewoks. And there's no reason why our cities can't be built in this way and why we can't. and i And I do think that that's what happens, right? As we start to reconnect, we start to see that nature in all different areas and all different locations and all these different aspects. I was curious as to we talked about that with Mugwort for you that really felt like an initiation and from what I understand that's kind of the way that now you pass it on right because that's how it how it came to you and I want to hear more about that and yet you do other things so what is kind of for you the the range that you feel now um thanks to Mugwort's sort of bossiness the range of of things that you offer how you help people. Yeah I mean the
00:30:21
Speaker
my my My intention is always just to help open the door a little bit wider for people so that they can be empowered and walk through the other side and go home. So if they come to a weekend workshop or something that they've just got a few beginning skills they can go and sit with the plant and and learn how to ask and learn how to listen. and I mean one of the ways I really love to work is with diets, I might call them dieters or whatever, but over I tend to do like a 28 days moon to moon. That's usually with people who've already got some kind of basic plant skills because it's
00:31:01
Speaker
can be as simple as like I worked with the mugwork when I was writing the book just 20 minutes a day either sat with like you sometimes do you said with an image or sitting outside in the garden or working with some drops or some tea or something like that I mean I did I did a diet recently and one of my people she was in Germany and she um spent three hours a day working with the plant and I was like go girl because that's amazing but yeah and I find working in groups is so powerful because you're each getting your own thing and you're thinking oh I've got this resistance it's me I don't know what's wrong with me I love this plant I can't understand why and then you all come together at the end of the week and everyone's going oh it's awful I've had a bit of a visit
00:31:49
Speaker
you've had it you've had it you've had it and then it kind of helps you understand that's part of what the plant's response to you like what does this mean how do we work through it is it a message in some way so you can kind of um unpack it together which is really nice rather than just kind of feeling alone and feeling that you know and that's it's not just things like resistance it's all the other things as well but all the other gifts and and wisdom that you're given it's so nice to receive it as a group even though you're setting different intentions and going in there separately you're all you're all kind of meeting the character you know in a all coming there separate routes but all finding the same person at the other side of it
00:32:35
Speaker
Yeah, groups are super important. I mean, for you know, I live in community and all of my work is in community, right? I founded the naturally conscious community exactly for what you're saying, is that as we're going through this, because we're opening up to new experiences, we're reconnecting with parts of ourself, we didn't even know we had where we're redefining words and paradigms and understandings and shutting these conditionings and evolving past things. So it's understandable that it's going to be scary. It's going to be strange. It's going to be ah misunderstood. It's going to be so many different aspects that having that group, whether it's the container of a specific
00:33:15
Speaker
course or event or experience or whether it's a larger community kind of like we have in the naturally conscious community gives you that sense of oh I I can let myself get lost a little bit and yet not feel lost right which I think is super important for this because in order for us to evolve into this interspecies type being an in trust species type being that we're exploring for ourselves and It's so important for us to be able to feel safe and comfortable enough and and secure to ah kind of let go of the definitions that I currently have and not feel silly about it, not feel mistaken or stupid or any of those types of things, which we know happens. right so
00:34:03
Speaker
I'm in this moment where I'm trying to think of something and and and I don't know how to pronounce this word or I don't know how to put into words. I think um a few episodes back with Fontaine Burnett when we were having a conversation about this getting the fuck out of the way, we were talking about this and we were saying how the words get lost. And so if you're not in a community, in a grouping of safe space where you're trying to explain using Anything that might come to mind pictures and images and gestures and all these pieces if you were just doing that by yourself You would probably close that all down because you'd say oh something is wrong with me or that doesn't make any sense But it's supposed to not make sense for a while
00:34:45
Speaker
So you need that community to hold you in the not making sense. It's not even, I think most people think that the community is to be able to always share experiences and that's always great. But oftentimes the community is there to just hold that space for you and to allow you to express and that it bounces off the person and through their expressions, through their feelings. through the way that they deal with it, then you sort of better understand it as you're going through it. So I totally understand why the community and why the grouping is so important.
00:35:20
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. The way you describe that is absolutely perfect because so there are no words for this territory. This this territory is is a natural territory, but with, you know, having been in that confinement cell for so long, you know, we we we don't know what the language is, you know, we don't even, you know, using using key for plant, you know, like as in, as in lay, um you know, that came from Robin Wall Kimmerer, didn't it? And I'm so grateful for that because you know I remember a few years ago before I'd heard of the word key talking with one of my students at the time and we were just going our language is so inept it's not it's not ready for what we're doing it's almost like kind of opening up to the plants to our to our relatives the plants and and all all other beings
00:36:13
Speaker
is is something that is so natural and should always have been there. And yet we have, as a culture and as a language, have closed down so much that the room isn't there to describe it. It's like somebody who goes and does their first acid trip, they come back, how was it? Well, a cut that there's no words. It's the same. You know, i've I've gone out and I spoke to the plants all weekend on this workshop. How was it? There are no words. It's the same. I completely agree and we talk about this all the time vocabulary limits us so much it it constrains our thoughts it constrains you know the way that we try to express it and even the way we feel it and that's why it's so great to have a grouping of people and also a safe space like we said whether it's you know ah one of your courses you know you're like your your events or whether we're talking about the naturally conscious community to have that safe space to also explore other forms of
00:37:12
Speaker
interpretation and understanding, right? we We need all of that, the art and the dance and the, you know, and the creation. I found the other day I was cooking and I really love to cook. I tend not to cook for others that much because I experiment a lot when I cook. So it can be horrible and it can be wonderful. When it's wonderful, it's wonderful. And the other day I put something together that was so delicious. And I realized as I was doing this that It was also coming from that safe space to explore other parts of myself, which is a big piece of all of this work that i you know that I'm doing with the plants and that I do, is how do we create that safe space? And so since I was in the kitchen, I had this completely safe space. And I was like, you know what? i'm gonna just I literally, for the first time in a long time, pulled all the spices out of my cabinet. And I put them all on the the table.
00:38:08
Speaker
And I was looking at him and I was saying I need to refresh everything I have with these new eyes and I remember I pulled out ginger and I was almost kind of ginger was the. Ginger ended up being this sort of the the what's the word i'm looking for kind of i don't want to say the leader of the pack but ginger ended up being kind of the the cornerstone right of what I was creating, that flavor. And I remember pulling out, and it was my last piece of fresh ginger, which had been honestly in the fridge for a while, but I was like, pulled out and I was like this is my freshness like this is the being that is going to guide this I know it sounds kind of corny but that was just what happened and I put it down and I started to and I and I ah was like okay guide me like help me find these connections and the connections with flavor is almost as in the connections with
00:39:01
Speaker
the different plants through me and that aspect. And of course I would have you know and i would have never gotten there. Sure, we're all I'm a very intuitive cook and when I do, and which is again why I don't even know how to repeat any of the recipes that I make. and and so But it was that it was that feeling of like lightness and a feeling of connection as I was doing this. That was just so incredibly powerful to me. So it makes sense to me that one of your books is called Rewilding and the Art of Plant ah plant Whispering because this really is a rewilding, right? it's a re It's not just a reconnection. It's a reallowing myself to be a little bit more feral, a little bit more wild. What is rewilding for you?
00:39:46
Speaker
yeah rewilding for me is is about just dropping some of this kind of conditioning and I mean domestication the kind of wearing of shoes you know I was talking to someone on the local radio actually on the on the weekend they phoned me up because I've done these kind of barefoot walks it's not really to do with plant work but it's to do with the rewilding and it's and it's like walking barefoot thus rewilding it's like walking on the earth having skin to skin contact with with our living brothers and sisters with the millions the billions of bacteria and fungi in the soil you know they're all living beings they've all got messages and we but our skin we're we're kind of taking we're just vibrations we're not really you know these kind of
00:40:38
Speaker
waterproof little units. We're kind of taking it all in and you know absorbing and exchanging and if and if we're not doing that with our wild brothers and sisters, we're doing it with a plastic chair. I'm sat on a plastic chair in ah in a concrete room. It's like, that's what I'm otherwise doing it with. So the whole rewarding bit is is about, come on, let's get ourselves into a better condition. Let's get ourselves realigning with the natural way of being. And part of that realignment is realizing that there's an ongoing conversation
00:41:13
Speaker
happening everywhere all the time between all species and we are one of those species and we're just not tuning in so as soon as you start tuning in it's like oh bloody hell I didn't know I didn't know and so then the the art bit in the title of that book the art of you know, when you talked about your cookery, that was the art. The art is an experiment and it's it's a like, there isn't a right or wrong. It's a like, okay, as long as I've got an open heart and I'm trusting and I and i believe there's something going on here, let's see what happens.
00:41:52
Speaker
you know, and I mean, I'm very much into that. So I love that you're kind of like, hi, Ginger, come on, then show me, let's see what you've got. you know let's Let's play together and see where we get, you know, and I love that. And this is a great, a great point for me to just pause for a second. I want to share with our audience, one of our eco-conscious business partners, because these are the types of companies and organizations and groups that are really doing exactly what we're talking about. They're bringing all of this type of learning and experiences and connection in into another realm. So let's share one of them with you now.
00:42:31
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:44:03
Speaker
So Rachel, as as we're kind of like getting into the closing up of our conversation because there's just so many other questions that I want to ask, I want to kind of go back to Mugwort. I'd love to hear about right now what you feel are kind of like, what is the work that you and Mugwort are doing in this moment? Is it something specific or do you feel like it's more open-ended? What's your relationship like today?
00:44:30
Speaker
I think very much, I mean, but the So I've been working, as I said, with Mugwort since 2006. Since that very first day I ever met Mugwort, it was a changing point. And in all that time, I've never been led to kind of offer that as an experience to other people. But actually, this summer I am, this summer I am offering a so-called Mugwort initiation. and i
00:45:02
Speaker
And I think, see, I don't always understand why things are happening. I'm just sometimes guided to do things. And, but I ah also behind the scenes, I'm, I'm actually trialing with some of my old students, a sort of, it's almost like a ah teacher or a leadership training. And I think the mugwort initiation is, is, um, one part of that while I'm trialing this other, this other training schedule behind, the scenes, it's like taking it to the nu to another level. I think I'm being being guided by mugwort because so many people have had that initial opening now and it is required that we get more and more and more people aware of the natural living world and the true nature of reality.
00:45:56
Speaker
that okay so people are stepping up a little bit more they want to be teaching themselves they want to be doing this and that and and i believe that mugwort is saying okay so create a safe container create a place where and you can encourage people that they've got what they need to take it forward and so that's where i think mugwort is now asking me asking me to do that asking me to step up Is it open-ended? I don't know. maybe maybe Maybe next year it would say, you need to retire now, sweetheart. Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? So that's the Mugwort initiation you have coming up in this summer, right, in July. yeah Great. I'll make sure that we put that in the show notes. We'll put that in the show notes. We'll also put the link to your book, Rewilding and the Art of Plant Whispering. Is there anything else? There's so many other things I know we could cover, but is there anything that you feel like is really important that you want to share with everyone?
00:46:53
Speaker
Oh, oh, I don't know. I mean, the only thing that I would like to say is just, you know, give it time, never judge yourself, you know, never judge yourself about doing the plant work and and don't give yourself a hard time about having to go and sit with a plant and then I've never got time or I'm failing, I'm not doing it, I'm writing just find five minutes that's all it takes isn't it and I don't mean all I really want to say to people it's not about promoting my work one thing it's about just getting out there and making just five minutes just give yourself the intention even five minutes a week long even if that's all you've got just five minutes on a Saturday morning and just make the time stand outside barefoot if you have a place where you can do that and then sit
00:47:42
Speaker
look at who's calling your attention and just pay attention and just you know just just make space for this because as soon as a tiny little a tiny little crack opens in your in your kind of in your in your way with plants it will get bigger and it will get bigger and you know it's fine reading reading books and and doing all these things but you need to be there and you need to make that connection with plant you can do it for a cup of tea you know you can do it with ah plant in your car if you if you live in an apartment in the middle of the city you can't do anything else get fresh plants talk to your fresh plants you've got your spider plants in your room you know it's it's
00:48:23
Speaker
We're there, we're surrounded by communication, just open your heart to it. And that's that's what I'd like to say to people. I love that. i'd love it I love that you said it's also, it is just five minutes a day. it's it's You said something really beautiful in there that I think is so important that we don't recognize. It's giving attention to what you hear calling, kind of like you originally did when you were asking you know the wall flowers. to speak to you and then when they did you listened you heard that word you could have ignored that word like oh I don't know what that word is I don't know if that's really a plant or not but you didn't you went and you followed up on it and I think sometimes we throughout the course of our day we feel that call
00:49:01
Speaker
That call could be, like you said, you know starting with your cup of tea and you know my my tea, which is a combination of, because it's a genmacha, so it's like rice and green tea. And you feel like, OK, if I connect to this plant right through the drinking of this, who else will then activate and want to talk to me? And it could just be a few minutes. It could even be your own clothing. Lately, as I've as i've changed a lot of my clothing over to more natural fi fibers and really looking for quality, you know how the the clothing was made with real intention and where the plants were sourced from, who who were the plants that gave up their lives. I feel so much more connected and I can listen for a second and then let that guide me wherever I might go. So I think it is so important for us to not fear, for for us to not worry about how long.
00:49:50
Speaker
It doesn't matter, even if it's only 30 seconds, that 30 seconds of presence, that 30 seconds of listening, that 30 seconds of acceptance of myself and of another that is trying to communicate with me, even that is so powerful and it'll it'll move from there. It'll grow, it'll change, it'll morph, but that giving yourself, it's like an internal permission that says, rather than even forcing myself, because sometimes we try to use discipline, And we try to say, oh, I'm going to give myself five minutes or 20 minutes every single day, because if it's not, it's not worth it. Yes, that could be useful for some people. It would never work for me, by the way. But what's more powerful, I find, is giving myself permission when I wake up in the day and saying,
00:50:34
Speaker
I'm going to follow that voice. So if that voice calls to me, I'm going to follow and I'm going to listen and giving myself that permission. I find that to be incredibly powerful because throughout the course of the day, somebody's going to talk to you. Somebody is going to say something. And those five minutes at that point are going to go by like. like that and you're going to turn around and the after it's all happened and like you're at the end of the day you're like hey i spent you know 20 10 minutes standing in front of you know such and such houseplant i wonder what that was all about but you allowed yourself to do that and then over time that relationship will then unfold absolutely absolutely perfect
00:51:18
Speaker
I love it. I love it. It has been such a wonderful conversation. I will, like I said, definitely put in all your links in the show notes and so that we have it. um And I'm really excited to see you know where Mugwort takes you, but it's sounds it feels like somebody else is going to come in soon. It feels like Mugwort's going to hand you off to somebody else. Well, let's see. Let's see. It's sort of the great unfolding. Who knows? Who knows? Thank you so much, Rachel. Thank you for this conversation. and And I look forward to hearing about all the wonderful things that you're doing.
00:51:53
Speaker
Likewise, thank you so much. like All right, everyone, that is another episode of reconnect with plant wisdom this time, our mugwort dreaming with Rachel Corden. And I am just so excited to continue these types of conversations. Please, like I said, give yourself those those five minutes, give yourself permission to experience what is happening, what is unfolding around you. And we're here in the Naturally Conscious community, in all the other channels waiting to hear all about your stories. So we'll talk again very soon. And remember, resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance. This is Tigraya Gaudenia, I'm out.
00:52:33
Speaker
Thanks for listening to this episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom, intro and outro music by Steve Schulie and Poinsettia from the singing life of plants. So join me, Tigri La Gardenia, and my plant collaborators next time on Reconnect with Plant Wisdom.