Orientation:
Please allow your animated instructor to introduce you to today’s class.
Then join Bridgid and Laurie at the Enchanted Atrium and Gardens–
• From the main stairwell, head to the highest accessible level of the ship.
• Proceed forward, passing the Navigation Deck.
• The Enchanted Atrium and Gardens span the front half of this deck, encased in glass to allow sunlight and the stars to illuminate the flora and fauna.
Find a seat among the flowers.
Today’s class is in the realm of imagination. It is not science-based. So, allow your intuitive self to emerge.
Firstly, listen to the video on Bridgid. She is the Queen of Fairies and knows a lot about Plant Devas.
Then, read an excerpt from Laurie’s fictional book. You will explore ideas from Stephen Aizenstat, who developed the idea of a Dream Council, Dorothy MacLean, a founding member of Findhorn, and Maechelle Small Wright, who gardens with plant energy.
Today is about connecting to plants in an intuitive way.
Bridgid on the Deva and Fairy Realm Video
Introduction to the Plant Council
Calling in the Plant Council is a spirit-based practice. Shamans and healers traditionally consult the plants themselves to determine how a particular plant may work with an individual. Healers in various cultures have attuned to plants, dreams, and visions as ways to help others.
Waterlily, A member of the Plant Council, will Narrate this Video
Here is an excerpt from the light-hearted novel The Path of the Devas.
The hero, Dr. Bo Tanic, connects to the Council of Plants to determine how to help heal people and the planet. The chapter gives a glimpse at what a deva is and how you might imagine engaging with the Plants as a Council.
Chapter Nine – The Plant Council:
Bo spent his last night alone in the house. It would have been satisfying to have his daughter home, but tonight, he would savour the aloneness, indulging in Bridgit’s memory without interruption. He was exhausted and fell asleep quickly.
In his dream, the rain was drizzling. He squinted to identify some landmarks. He was in a lush forest. Bo found a dry place under an oak tree. He felt cradled, protected by its broad limbs. Oaks were rare in these parts. The tree was ancient and craggy. It had lichen jutting out of it, like a green beard, making it appear uncannily human.
He felt the forest plants infiltrate his thoughts. “You are a plant healer. To learn, you must evoke the power of the plant council and listen closely to our message.”
He was instructed, through thought, to create a stone circle under the oak tree. Within that protected space, he was to ask the flowers, trees, grasses, herbs, and mushrooms for insight.
After constructing the stone circle, Bo called out. “Members of the plant council, become visible. Advise me how to help heal this Echinacea sickness before the devastation spreads.” (Rock by Carol Craig Belanger)
Flowers, including Waterlily, Vine, Buttercup, Sunflower, Indian Paintbrush, and a majestic purple Iris, materialized in a circle. Other plants, such as Echinacea, Foxtail, and Cactus, assembled around the Oak.
Although not technically plants, as they lacked chlorophyll, the kingdom of mushrooms was represented by a white-speckled, red amanita, a sturdy boletus, and a puffball. The puffball huffed out a screech of wind like a small trumpet.
“We are the council of plants. We represent our brethren around the planet. We hold answers to how life started on the planet and how to live in harmony. We have been here before humans and will be here long after their reign on the earth ends.”
“We have elected you, Dr. Bo Tanic, to be a link to humans and teach them more about us. Each plant archetype has special attributes, and you will get to know us over time.”
“Individually, we are known as the spirit, fairy or Deva of a plant. We represent the blueprint of that plant, its DNA structure, and consciousness. You are meeting a whole council of plant Devas. Tonight, we have a singular and urgent issue to address.”
Bo’s eyes were drawn to Iris. Her purple-blue flower head swayed majestically. With a brush and palette, she seemed to be painting an impressionist portrait of the gathering.
“My palette is nature,” Iris explained in a sweet, high voice. “I draw from people’s experience and potential. You, Dr. Bo Tanic, are a complex man.”
“You carry much pain. The energy lines running through you are jagged,” she explained as she painted sharp red lines on her canvas. “You still gravitate toward helping others in pain because this is a familiar feeling. You can do much good. But your real job will be to show the beauty of nature, not just the cruelty. Come back to me when you are ready to release this anger,” Iris suggested.
Bo nodded and bowed to her. She had expressed a truth about his emotional nature. He longed to know more but knew this was not the time.
Beside her sat the Buttercup, shiny, yellow, and tiny. She exuded an aura of calm and love, and waves of acceptance radiated from her. Bo felt instantly peaceful and whole. She smiled at him, serene and silent. He nodded toward her to acknowledge her contribution.
A craggy Saguaro cactus crowded in beside her. He cradled the tiniest owl Bo had ever seen in his almost human-like limbs. The elf owl’s yellow eyes glowed brightly in the dark. “Ouch,” screamed the cactus as he accidentally punctured himself with his sharp needles. “I’ve got to stop doing that,” he muttered.
A smiling sunflower moved its radiant yellow head toward each speaker, looking interested and confident. As he nodded his spiralling yellow head at Bo, he dropped delectable seeds on Bo’s lap. Bo laughed in appreciation and pocketed the bounty.
Bo’s eyes then turned to the serene, purple Water Lily, sitting contemplatively in a small pool of water slightly outside the circle. A three-dimensional aura reflected from her heart-shaped leaves, projecting a throbbing heart of light into the circle.
Water Lily’s star-shaped flower reached up to the sky as if channelling down inspiration. He broke his gaze with her sooner than he wished. He knew she held many secrets and would try to connect with her again. Right now, he needed to focus back on the group.
The resonance around the circle was stronger than Bo had ever experienced. His body was pulsating, his mind riveted. His hair, surging with electricity, stood up at attention. Although they were all individuals with distinct looks and characteristics, the group melded into one singular thought wave, of which Bo became a part. The effect was immediately altering.
He felt transported back into time, maybe a billion years. The planet was rocky and sterile. Then, after what seemed like millions of years of cold, dark emptiness, he felt the ground beneath him shake.
A staggering impact caused by icy asteroids colliding with Earth’s rocky embrace jarred the planet. The glacial ice dented the earth as it landed, creating its container. Water, the giver of life, had arrived. Cells were created in this ancient alchemical cauldron. Algae was the first plant to emerge.
A form emerged, and along with it came a universal intelligence. Form and intelligence attracted each other, as male and female. Consciousness yearned to meld with form. At first, it was a challenging coupling. Yet, the draw between the two was irresistible.
Consciousness was experimental. It cradled the seed of divine discontent, the endless drive for change humans would inherit.
The form came and went; like the death, birth, and rebirth cycle, it followed. Often paying the price for its partner’s risk-taking. However, form also benefited from making shifts and mutations, leading to successful evolution.
DNA has always been challenging to understand. One strand of DNA was created from form, and the other was manifested from consciousness; the two fibres were interwoven and spiralling.
The inky waters of the planet had created the seeds of diverse life. Some would stay in their original womb; others would venture onto the earth.
Plants occupied both realms. Algae, seaweed, hyacinths and water lilies stayed close to their source. Ferns, moss, mushrooms, grass, and eventually complex shrubs, trees and flowers found a home on land.
Bo was awed by the beauty, struggle, and adaptability of life.
This view of life from the plant’s cellular memory was honest in a way he could feel through his body.
A loud, deep sound brought Bo back to the present time, out of his deep trance. Oak’s voice was resonant but creaky. He spoke with an effort. He did not need to express his thoughts verbally for over a century. But he wanted Bo to get the message. There could be no room for confusion. When humans were new to tuning into plant consciousness, their minds became too expanded, and they did not know how to bring what was pertinent to focus.
“My son,” the oak stated, bringing one of his gnarled limbs to touch Bo’s shoulder. “Our friend Echinacea needs help. We need you to listen to his story and bring aid to his brethren.”
Bo nodded in agreement.
Echinacea started to speak.
“Nice to have you on the council, Bo,” he said with a southern twang. “I’m known as a healer myself. I have an Echinacea form, but I represent all medicinal plants on the council. We have a strong loyalty to humans. We try to help their survival by providing medicine for thousands of diseases. Each herb has its healing gifts. Echinacea specifically strengthens a human’s body.”
“The way a plant looks gives clues to humans about its properties. Humans have referred to these clues as “the doctrine of signatures.” The Echinacea flower is magenta, which brings form to spirit.”
“We need your help, Bo. The virus that you have witnessed is more virulent than you know. It is on the verge of mutating. If this happens, it will become airborne and virtually unstoppable.”
Echinacea then became partially transparent. He gave Bo a view of him as if he were looking through an MRI. He could see Echinacea’s entire structure. He then spun his DNA profile into the air. He showed Bo the chromosome to which the virus was attached.
But Echinacea’s nature could only stay serious for a short time. He shape-shifted again. This time, he looked like a doctor from the Old West. He wore a cowboy hat and played the guitar, constructed from plant fibres. Echinacea, the medical maestro, drawled a tune.
“You can fix us, Bo,
Help to heal our woe
All you have to know
Is use the antidote
Broadcast radionics by rote
Then, the crop we revere
Will have a cure.”
Bo shook his head in amusement. It was corny, but the message stuck. He now knew what chromosome the virus attacked and that the serum would work if amplified with radionics.
The circle concluded with a swirl of air. Bo woke from his dream and wrote the whole sequence down so that he would remember the cure tomorrow morning.
Now that you’ve met the Council of Plants know you can revisit them in a deliberate meditation, journey or attunement. It is one of the many ways you can attune to plants and their essential oils as you develop skills as an aromatherapist.
Remember to take a small break when you need it before continuing your adventure with the plant devas.
Another intuitive way to work with plants is through our nightly portal-dream state.
Dreams-
I learned to communicate with a dream council from Dr. Stephen Aizenstat at Pacifica University in California. Dreams are unique portals into intuitive messages. If a plant visits me during the dream state, I write down the information and the dream itself. Dreams are an important way our inner healer gives us messages about our health, what heals and harms.
Each dreamer has a library of symbols. Learning their meaning is what takes time. Each person, animal, object, action, and event has a personal meaning in the dream.
I have asked Emily, a meditation instructor at the ship’s Enchanted Atrium and Garden, to narrate the video below.
Dreams and the Plant Council- Video, Narrated by Emily
Now, get comfortable sitting at the Enchanted Atrium and Garden. Then, read and continue to hear more about creating a plant council and working with plant intelligence while engaging with your studies below.
Creating A Plant Council
I have adapted Dr. Aizenstat’s idea of creating a dream council into a Plant Council to make it more relevant for aromatherapists.
One of the main features of any “imaginary” Council is that you can call them in any circumstance; they are never too busy to respond. If you allow the plant beings to form in your mind and engage with them, they will bring a specific intelligence. Use your senses when you contact them in your imagination. What do they look like, sound like, smell like? How can you recognize them?
Dr. Aizenstat calls this “high play.” I have found messages from the Council, whether made of dream characters or plants, beneficial. North Americans often feel silly and childish calling in imaginary friends. You may have a specific internal resistance to doing this or be embarrassed about the encounter, as what is subjective is dismissed as rubbish by our culture. Yet, a criticism of modern medicine is a lack of personal connection to the and their intuition, along with nature’s wisdom.
If you cultivate the ability to create a plant council, you will have your otherworldly committee whenever you like. It can be helpful when you need support and require a non-linear perspective. As we explored above, you can also work through your dreams to connect with plants; this is a very Shamanic technique.
But, like Dr. Bo Tanic in the novel The Path of the Devas, you can bring the Council of Plants into waking life. The Council is an imaginary but potent group you assemble and get to know over time.
Joanna Macy and Johnny Appleseed have done phenomenal service for the planet by bringing ceremony and ritual to plants and all planetary beings and conditions. Their book, Thinking Like A Mountain, is indeed an inspiration. We tap into this idea for our culmination ceremony in Earth Spirit Medicine. Giving voice and power to plants, elements, and all beings brings greater connection and meaning into our lives.
Use the botanical families represented, such as Lamiaceae, Burseraceae, Myrtaceae, etc., to create a plant council suitable for this course.
You can find the plant family or individual oils in families you are most drawn to or would like to get to know more deeply. Some plant beings will strengthen you, while others may evoke your curiosity. Some plants and their oils might only be called up situationally when an issue arises. Let’s say you are aiming to cure a sinus infection. You have learned that tea tree, manuka, inula, and eucalyptus might be helpful. Invite each plant to the council and ask them what they might do. Talk to each of them to find out more. Listen deeply with all senses.
You might still choose to make your oil selection entirely intellectually. Still, now you can integrate the advice each of the oils provides while in council into your decision.
Please use safe and sound advice, but implement what the Council says to deepen your relationship with the individual plants and the council. We become less enthused about providing our time and expertise if a friend asks us for advice and never follows it. Plants, like people, need to know they are valued and their wisdom is used.
Assemble the Council of Plants-
When you work with the Council of Plants from your dreams or imagination, the first step is to find objects representing each council member. I find using a bottle of oil for each deva, be it basil or peppermint or a picture of them in whole plant form, to be respectful. Could you place this symbol of each plant deva in a circle and call the council? Let them introduce themselves. Present them with an issue or get their opinions.
Could you give them time to reveal themselves and allow each member to become infused with life? Each being on the council has its unique personality, mannerisms, and gifts.
You may call these beings anytime for advice or to come with you when you need their particular qualities or support. Remember to thank them and possibly give them little, natural gifts. It is a relationship. The way you treat them will influence the quality of advice you get. After the assembly, write down what they have told you. Implement some of the advice. Keep track of the results.
Some of the results from non-linear work may be synchronicities, intuitive flashes, dreams, or big Aha’s.
Calling the Council of Plants With Laurie
You can go to your course journal to try an exercise in creating a Plant Council of your own. But be sure to come back to the Enchanted Atrium and Garden to continue working with plants in an energetic and spiritual way.
The Attunement Technique – Dorothy MacLean
Another technique I learned from one of the three people who established Findhorn, a magical community in Scotland, is called Attunement.
Dorothy Maclean has written a book on this topic called Choices of Love. I was fortunate enough to have studied with her in the late 1990s.
Dorothy, originally from Ontario, Canada, can “attune” to plants to determine their needs. Using this same technique, she talks to rats and insects and suggests that they eat from other areas rather than her garden.
As illogical as this process sounds, her labour’s fruits (or actually vegetables) attracted media attention. Findhorn grew inexplicably large, healthy vegetables on barren land. Insects and rats uncannily side-stepped her organic garden.
What is a Deva, according to Dorothy MacLean?
The concept of “Deva” from the works of Dorothy MacLean and other authors in similar fields is fascinating and carries a rich tapestry of meanings. A Deva refers to a spiritual being or consciousness that oversees the natural world. Think of them as guardians or caretakers of nature’s processes, from the growth and well-being of plants and animals to the elements themselves, like water, air, and earth.
Dorothy MacLean, one founder of the Findhorn Community in Scotland, brought much attention to Devas through her experiences and writings. She described Devas as the intelligence behind nature, a spiritual blueprint guiding the development and harmony of all living things. According to MacLean, humans can communicate with these beings; by doing so, we can work together to create more harmony and health in the natural world.
Imagine a garden where not only are you tending to the plants with your physical actions—watering, pruning, and so forth—but you’re also in a kind of conversation with the essence or spirit of the garden itself. This spirit or essence is what MacLean would refer to as the Deva of the garden. It’s a partnership where human care and spiritual guidance from the Deva work together to nurture the garden.
The idea extends beyond just gardens and individual plants to encompass all aspects of nature, suggesting an interconnectedness and intelligence to the natural world that, when engaged with respect and openness, can lead to profound experiences of growth, healing, and understanding.
This view encourages a more holistic and co-creative relationship with nature, where humans are not just caretakers of the physical aspects of the world but also participants in a larger, spiritual ecosystem. It reminds us of the deep connections between all living things and the unseen forces that nurture and sustain the natural world.
Choices of Love Meditation
Dorothy used this technique in many aspects of her life. To enter the state of attunement, she encouraged people to relax and get into a meditative mode. She then called to the angel or deva of whatever she wished to connect to, e.g., the deva of basil. She presented her concerns or listened to their story and suggestions. She thanked them, returned to an awake state of consciousness, and journaled the encounter. She put what the plants suggested into practice whenever she was able.
I have also enjoyed working with plant medicine (herbology, aromatherapy and flower essences) and plant energies or devas.
Choices of Love Video
Your accompanying Journal, which you can find by scrolling below under downloads, will have more information and ideas on this subject. Attuning to love, devas, dream work and calling a plant council are all practices that get deeper and more familiar with repetition.
After downloading and completing the Practical Potions Journal exercises, you may enjoy some independent reading on Maechelle Small Wright. Her website is here: Environment Gardening for Beginners.
Here is a summary of some of Maechelle Small Wright’s ideas.
Machaelle Small Wright introduced a revolutionary concept in gardening that goes beyond traditional horticulture, inviting an intimate partnership with the unseen forces of nature. According to Wright, every plant, garden, and element of the natural world is alive physically and guided and nurtured by spiritual entities or forces known as Devas.
In her approach, gardening becomes a collaborative effort between humans and these spiritual forces. Devas are the architects and energetic counterparts to every form of life in nature. They hold the blueprint for the optimal growth and development of plants and ecosystems. By communicating and co-creating with these Devas, gardeners can work harmoniously with the natural world, leading to more vibrant, healthy, and energetically balanced gardens.
Here’s how Wright’s approach changes the gardening game:
Intuitive Communication: Wright emphasizes the importance of developing intuitive communication skills with Devas. This involves quieting the mind, opening the heart, and reaching out genuinely to connect and collaborate with the spiritual essence of plants and nature.
Co-Creative Partnership: This approach is based on mutual respect and partnership. Gardeners ask the Devas for guidance about everything from planting to problem-solving, recognizing that the Devas have a broader understanding of the ecosystem’s needs.
Energetic Gardening: Beyond physical tasks, gardening with Devas involves working with the land’s energy, plants, and surrounding environment. This can include energetically clearing spaces, aligning with natural rhythms, and addressing the garden’s emotional and spiritual well-being.
Wholistic Wellness: Wright’s method extends to the wellness of the gardener and the community. The garden is a living system supporting physical nourishment and emotional, mental, and spiritual health.
Environmental Stewardship: Gardening with Devas is inherently ecological. It promotes practices that enhance biodiversity, soil health, and environmental balance, reflecting a deep respect for Mother Earth.
By adopting Machaelle Small Wright’s approach, gardening transforms into a deeply spiritual practice, where humans are not dominating nature but are humble participants in the dance of creation. It’s an invitation to experience gardening not just as the cultivation of plants but as a journey of connection, growth, and discovery with the living Earth itself.
In her eyes, gardening is a meaningful path to personal and planetary healing. It’s a profound reminder that we are part of a much larger community of life, interconnected with and supported by the unseen world.
Here is the excerpt from the first chapter of her book–
If this topic interests you, create an aromatic flower garden plan using her shared co-creation techniques. Share online with other students on the Practical Potions Forum.