DOT Reads

Happy New Year everyone!

This is the first DOT Reads for 2023 focusing on some of the standout books I read towards the end of 2022. Enjoy.

 

BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022

Mirrors in the Earth: Reflections on self-healing from the living world by Asia Suler

Every now and then a book enters your life that feels like home, one you can deeply relate to, one that makes you feel wonder, clarity, and most importantly hope.

With so much negativity, pain and eco-anxiety filtering into our lives these days it is refreshing to read a book written for empaths and highly sensitive people, which addresses the current disconnection from ourselves and the natural world and the hopelessness felt about efforts to support Mother Earths healing and regeneration.

Beautifully written, Mirrors in the Earth, teaches us that by looking inward and reconnecting with ourselves through the natural world and our innate intuitive capacity we can nurture and cultivate a simpler way of living and being for both ourselves and the Earth. A way that is rooted in self-acceptance, compassion and empowerment, opening the floodgates to a world of personal creativity, enabling a deep connection to our lives, those around us and the Earth itself.

“Some people believe humans have wreaked havoc on the Earth because we have some central defect to our being - but the damage we’ve caused is not due to an unsolved problem with our brains, but the belief that there is something innately wrong with us in the first place. We harm the world, no because we are innately harmful but because of how deeply we’ve been wounded by a culture steeped in the toxicity of self-hatred. The suffering that is caused by the belief that something is intrinsically wrong, or sinful, about you is immense. The resulting damage of believing that we are unforgivable has been powerful enough to touch the whole world” – Asia Suler (Suler, 2022 p. 197).

Mirrors in the Earth is a must read for highly sensitive individuals and those who possess a spiritual connection to the natural world. This is 2022’s book of the year for me.

  

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Braiding Sweetgrass is written by Robin Wall Kimmerer - scientist, professor and a Native American Citizen of Potawatomi Nation. Written with a deep reverence and love for Mother Earth, this book is a rich tapestry of indigenous traditions with threads of science, botany and  animism– a belief in spirit in all living things; woven into a web of life experiences, reflections, connection, and self-responsibility.    

It speaks to something deep within many of us. That feeling that we have lost touch with the magic within natural world, that something important from the past has been lost. Robin highlights our obsession with science at the expense of our innate intuitive and spiritual capacities.

“I dream of a world guided by a lens of stories rooted in the revelations of science and framed with an indigenous worldview – stories in which matter and spirit are both given voice.”

- Robin Wall Kimmerer (Wall Kimmerer, 2013 p. 346).

If I could choose one chapter that every person should read, it would be the chapter titled Honourable Harvest. With so many people re-wilding and returning to foraging for wild foods and medicines these days it is important to understand how to do so sustainably and with respect and reciprocity for our plant allies. This chapter also shows how disconnected we have become from the source of the products we consume and how our overconsumption is negatively impacting and disrespecting our planet.

This is a powerful read that will have you questioning your own relationship with nature and will make you re-evaluate your place as a co-inhabitant of this Earth.

  

Journeys with Plant Spirits: Plant Consciousness Healing & Natural Magic Practices by Emma Farrell

In late 2022 I completed a 7-week course with Emma Farrell on plant spirit communication and healing. In this space we worked Shamanically with plants and herbs in co-creation with the plant spirits. We worked with plant correspondences, sacred symbology and the elemental expression of plants. We then reviewed the elements within ourselves to identify our personal elemental imbalances and applied sympathetic correspondences. For example, if you have an earth imbalance, either too much or too little, you can work with an earth tree or plant to correct this imbalance. We created plant medicine wheels, aligned to the direction of elemental forces and opened sacred space and set our intentions for the plant dieta (diet). Throughout the plant dieta we kept dream journals, drank tea, made elixirs, held shamanic drum journey’s and other meditations and tuned into our intuitive faculties and the imaginal realm to co-create with our selected plant. I welcomed Nettle (Urtica dioica) as my first herbal ally with a plant dieta focused on dampening the fire element within - an incredible, deeply emotional and profound experience, one I am still processing and reflecting on. There is nothing more humbling than to be in direct communication with Nature. When you realise that you have been seen by Nature nothing is ever really the same again.

Journeys with Plant Spirts is a summary of some of the teachings from this course. The forward is written by Pam Montgomery – Earth elder, teacher and author of Plant Spirit Healing: A Guide to Working with Plant Consciousness. I have admired Pam Montgomery’s teachings for some time now. However, there was something that was missing in her delivery  for me. Emma, a student of Pam Montgomery’s for more than 5 years, has built upon Pam’s teachings by re-aligning them with the Celtic traditions and magical practices of the British Isles of her ancestry - the missing piece to my Pam Montgomery puzzle. With a rich Irish ancestry on my paternal side I instantly connected with content and felt a part of me had come home.

“The true meaning of a plant ally is an active member of your spirit team, with whom you are in direct communication, whose magic and healing abilities you know on all levels and can bring through you at any given moment. This depth of relationship means together you can also heal on all levels of existence, physical, emotional, and spiritual, yet accomplishment evolves over time. The plant spirits live with us and within us. As we do our inner work, cleanse our energy field, and become more aligned with our intuition, we become a clear channel for the plant spirits to bring the impulse of their medicine through us from the spirit to the human realm. Knowing a spirit ally energetically is to know it magically.” – Emma Farrell (p. 73).

This book may be a little too esoteric for some who have a limited understanding of the spiritual/unseen side of the natural world. However, for those Earth loving Naturalists, pantheists, empaths and highly sensitive individuals this book will become a path to pure co-creation with the natural world with profound insights into self and the unseen world.

“It is the mystery within things that makes them beautiful. It is the liminal space between the trees that gives the forest its magic. Mystery is what lies at the depth of the human soul. Without mystery we would not be driven to uncover the truths that lie beneath the layers of dust in the attic of our mind.” – Emma Farrell (p. 90).

If you are interested in the plant spirit healing path Carol Guyett is another elder who has revived these teachings that you may be interested in. Her book Sacred Plant Initiations: Communicating with Plants for Healing and Higher Consciousness is a great start.

 

Eat Weeds: A field guide to foraging: how to identify, harvest, eat and use wild plants by Diego Bonetto

Throughout my studies I had heard about an Italian forager by the name of Diego Bonetto who was holding weed walks and forage tours in Sydney. However, it wasn’t until my association, NHAA, held a Vic Herbs meeting in 2020, where he presented a talk about how to conduct wild food foraging workshops that his work really resonated with me.

Following the completion of my degree, which was heavily science based, I felt disconnected from the herbs that I was studying and prescribing. Although I was confident with their mechanism of action, indications, constituents etc. and had researched and studied these plants for years now I felt as a Naturopath I was missing the hands on, field knowledge and foraging skills that have connected herbalists to the plants and Mother Earth for centuries. Spending more time with the living herb, growing them and observing them throughout their growth cycles, interacting with them in their natural wild habitat, learning directly from the plants themselves became very important to me. As Sajah Popham from Evolutionary Herbalism says, “As herbalists we are first, foremost and forever students of Nature”. Foraging and weed walks became a way for me to learn directly from the plants themselves while deepening my connection to nature. Foraging allowed me to see the plants in their real habitat, their growth cycles through the seasons, the other herbs and plants they grew near. These observations have deepened my understanding about how to use these plants for food and medicine. 

The foreword to Eat Weeds is written by Costa Georgiadis from Gardening Australia and begins with Diego’s foraging path which began on a dairy farm in northern Italy. The book is broken down into 5 parts based on common foraging locations - Backyard, Urban streets & parklands, Sea, River and Forest, which I really like and is something new in the foraging book space, bringing different habitats into the forefront. Part 5 – Forest is an introduction to mushroom foraging with a detailed picture clearly outlining the important identification features one must be confident with to forage mushrooms safely.

Each plant monograph introduces the plant, outlines key identification points of plant parts, how it is used as food and some as medicine, cautions, as well as an illustration and colour photo. Some also contain recipes.

Diego respectfully discusses ethical foraging and the importance of doing so sustainably by avoiding overharvesting to ensure species survival, which is much appreciated in this space.

Great reference for those interested in foraging or plant identification.

 

Hildegard Von Bingen’s Physica Translated from the Latin by Priscilla Throop

Hildegard Von Bingen, a German Benedictine nun, mother superior and polymath of the 12th century or Middle Ages. Her breadth of work is mind-blowingly extensive. She was a writer, poet, musical composer, artist, herbalist, theologian, philosopher and visionary.  

I had heard about this book since I began studying Naturopathy. Once I began to read it, it bewitched me. I was transported back to the Middle Ages, a time of upheaval and religious differences, deep female inequality, where mysticism abounded and Nature provided the main answers to ill health.

The text is broken up into nine sections – Plants, Elements, Trees, Stones, Fish, Birds, Animals, Reptiles and Metals and outlines their medicinal uses and healing abilities. 

While the information contained is largely outdated when compared to our current scientific understanding it is a classic for every herbalist’s bookshelf as a source of reference to our herbal origins and a nod to the elders who came before us, who laid the ground work for all that was to follow.  

 

The Wild Dyer by Abigail Booth

I became interested in natural plant dying many years ago as I became more aware about the devastating impact of the fashion industry and especially fast fashion on our environment. As I was working on the DOT Shop - Herbal Treasures, I revisited such possibilities and am slowly beginning my own experiments as I daydream about slow days out in Nature making and plant dying my own clothes, stirring cauldrons of material surrounded by plants and the elements.

In The Wild Dyer, Abigail outlines how to dye natural fibres using kitchen waste such as avocado skins and stones to onion skins, plants, herbs and berries. The tools required are clearly detailed as well as fabric preparation and selection. The foraging sections are separated into the plants that can be found for the seasons of summer and autumn. Instructions for sewing coasters, patchwork placemats, harvest bags, gardener’s smock/apron, patchwork cushions and a blanket are also provided with easy to follow guides and pictures to help you turn your naturally dyed material into something practical. There is a comprehensive list of possible dye plants to consider using and a fantastic glossary at the back to look up all the technical terms used in both plant dying and for sewing.

One point to note though is Abigail uses Alum Acetate, a metallic salt mordant to set the colour to the fabric. However, after some research it was clear that the risk of toxicity when using this fine powder is not worth the risk, despite the staying power it provides to the dye. Whereas, Rebecca Desnos - a natural dyer in the UK and the main source of my plant dying inspiration, pretreats her material with a soybean protein or soya milk which increases the bond between the dye and the fibre used. She also discusses other methods of mordanting such as using an aluminum pot and avoiding toxic powders such as Alum. Although aluminum pot mordanting does require slow dyeing for much longer periods. Rebecca also talks about using Iron and copper pots to create different effects. Iron pots darken dye colours and copper brightens yellows. Another option Rebecca and Abigail both suggests is using tannin rich dyes. Tannins being naturally occurring compounds in plant parts such as seeds, leaves, fruit and bark which are able act as a mordant or dye fixer to fabric.

The Wild Dyer is a beautifully presented book that is sure to inspire creativity and reconnection with nature. Hopefully it may also show us an alternative way to our current habits of over consumption and fast fashion, which both come at a cost to our planet.

 

Nature & Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I came across a quote of Ralph Waldo Emerson some time ago that resonated deeply with me.

“Adopt the pace of Nature: her secret is patience” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I have always been captivated by the literature from the Romantics of the late 18th century characterized by the magnification of the individuals experience and the spiritual honouring and love of nature. The main authors of the Romanticism movement included William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, William Blake and John Keats to name a few. Ralph Waldo Emerson came along a little later towards the early 19th century. In 1832 Emerson travelled from America to Europe and met Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth who inspired him greatly. Several years later in 1836 Emerson returned to America and with others began the transcendental movement.

“The transcendentalists believed in the innate divinity of every person and faith in his or her capability to understand immortality, the soul, and God through intuition rather than reason. They believed the truth was universal and could not be the dominion of one church, or one religion.” – Lisa Pernicaro (Editor of Nature & Other Essays, 2009 p. iii).

The essay titled ‘Nature’ is an absolute pleasure to read. The dreaminess of the prose lulls you into an almost dream state full of breathtaking imagery and beauty, awakening the soul to natures magical and spiritual capacity. At times as you read you feel your whole body relax into the words, as though they are holding you, suspended, floating in the air. It speaks to something primitive, buried deep within the human psyche, a distant memory of something forgotten or left behind.

“Nature satisfies the soul purely by its loveliness, and without any mixture of corporeal benefit. I see the spectacle of morning from the hill-top over against my house, from day-break to sun-rise, with emotions which an angel might share. The long slender bars of cloud float like fishes in the sea of crimson light. From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations; the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire in the morning wind.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature)

“The inhabitants of cities suppose that the country landscape is pleasant only half the year. I please myself with the graces of the winter scenery, and believe that we are as much touched by the genial influences of summer. To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and reflect their glory or gloom on the plains beneath. The state of the crop in the surrounding farms alters the expression of the earth from week to week. The succession of native plants in the pastures and roadsides, which makes the silent clock by which time tells the summer hours, will make even the divisions of the day sensible to the keen observer. The tribes of birds and insects, like the plants punctual to their time, follow each other, and the year has room for all.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature)

Highly recommended read that will activate your parasympathetic nervous system, allowing you to float away on a magical ocean of delicious prose.

Happy reading

Jess xox