The medicine of the folk
Our relationship with the land, with plants, herbs and flowers is innate.
It is not something new we need to learn, something alien or outside of us.
It is woven deep within our bones and blood, in our fingerprints.
Their wisdom is flowing through our veins.
It is a part of who we are. In body and in spirit.
Most of us might have forgotten about it, as it has been silenced and hidden.
But it is never lost. We only need to remember.
We only need to allow a plant to touch us in our heart, the portal to remembering.
Humans healing eachother with plants dates back to the dawn of humanity.
It has been interconnected ever since.
Plants have been our guides, healers and teachers since the beginning of time.
Our homes were filled with herbs drying and being preserved for either medicine making, food or for during the colder months.
Not for the ‘‘aesthetics’’, but because it was part of life.
Because it was necessary for survival.
Because we lived with the rhythm of the Land.
The plants were connected with the change of seasons and rites of passage of the people.
There was no internet and no overpriced courses making our connection with plants something elite or difficult to reach.
I am not saying these aren’t good sources to learn about plants.
I am just saying that in human history, we’ve always managed without them, making them not necessary at all for our connection with plants.
You don’t get to know a plant reading about them, looking at an illustration of them or following a course.
You get to know a plant by sitting with them. For hours, days, months, years.
This is how you receive their wisdom.
Herbal medicine and our relationship with plants was and still is, the medicine of the folk. Of the people of the land. Of the farmers, the peasants.
It has been cherished for thousands of years.
It has been taught by mothers to their daughters.
By women near the fire, who took care of their family and village.
It is not the ‘‘alternative medicine’’. It was, is and always will be the original medicine. The true medicine.
We had our intuition, learning directly from eachother and most importantly:
learning from the plants themselves and creating a relationship with them.
This is all what we needed. This is enough.
Our connection with them has been deep inside us and has been since the beginning of time and is still there.
Don’t hold yourself back if you don’t know the latin names, biology or all the details of a plant. The plants don’t care about this. They care about your curiosity, your sensibility, your heart and you sitting with them and wanting to create a connection with them.
And the beauty about this relationship is in the reciprocity.
You take care of the plants, and the plants take care of you.
Not as a condition, but because the plants want to take care of you, because this is the natural state of this relationship.
Humans and plants need each other.
I must admit I don’t feel a connection with every plant. And that is very normal and okay.
Like we can’t feel a connection with every person, we can’t feel a connection with every plant or tree or flower.
I feel the most close with plants of traditional Europe.
The plants and herbs growing in the soil where I walk on.
The plants from my ancestry. From my origin. The plants woven in my bones.
Becoming more rooted with every generation before me.
These plants know my body, and my body knows them.
These are the plants that have fed and healed my ancestors, have grown in their gardens.
These are the plants that were drying near the hearth, or preserved in the home apothecary.
These were the plants, touched by my great great grandmother’s hand, turned into medicine.
It is also known our body heals more deeply and easily with local, native plants.
Because our body knows the plants.
Our body knows the land where they’ve grown.
Our body knows the waters, the soil, the air.
There is a remembrance.
It can be very soft
and burried deep.
But it surely is there.
Deeply rooted in our bones.
Waiting to be remembered.
Thank you for reading my words,
Love,
Elise