PARTNERING WITH PLANT MEDICINE WEEK 2
I started the second week of this course with a challenge I didn’t know I would have. I caught a cold out of no where. My nose got all clogged up. Mix that with a cough and it is a recipe for shitty nights of sleep. I had just started getting into a sleep routine. Working at a restaurant you touch a lot of nasty shit. At least at my restaurant you do. Sometimes you’re grabbing peoples used cloth napkins, silverware, glasswear and trash they leave behind. I don’t know where these dirty ass mouths have been so I’m assuming I got if from there. For the record , yes I wash my hands as much as possible. It still got my ass though. Despite starting off the week with this man cold, I had my first big experience over the weekend as soon as it went away.
Our second zoom meeting was a rough one for me. The cold made it hard to focus and it was hard to connect during the shamanic journey part. The lesson for the week was all about connecting to the plant world and maintaining it. Before I get to my first big experience there is something else I need to touch on. Throughout each week there seem to be little things that pop up. They seem random as hell but some of these just are too perfect for the timing. I wake up Wednesday morning and start to read a chapter out of the book I am reading called Why We Sleep. I still haven’t deleted all my social media yet at this point. I was deleting apps one by one. I actually don’t even like social media that much. I hate scrolling on my phone yet I am so addicted to it that even being aware of what it does to me, it is still so hard to stop. After I read a chapter I pick my phone up and get on instagram. It was the only app I had left to delete. I have a message. It was from a friend of mine who currently lives in Spain. Her name is Marylu and I haven’t even talked to her in two years or so.
Marylu sent me a video to check out that she thought I would be interested in. The topic of the video was actually something that mixes with this course. It was an interesting video. She had no clue I am even doing this course right now. For her to reach out and send it to me was strange. She mentioned she had been going through her own spiritual journey and wanted to know what is new with me. I told her how I was about to delete instagram and to message me on whats app. We have been sending voice recordings back and forth talking about everything going on in both our lives. Just like that someone pops into my life who I can share the experiences of this course with and get some feedback . I had only one person that I can do that with and now another one popped up unexpectedly. It is like the beginning of a herpes outbreak except this is the type of outbreak you want. The more support the better.
Fast forward to Saturday morning. Finally after 4 days of mucinex and enough nasal spray that would make even Demi Lovato tap out, I can finally breathe on my own. I had a Saturday off and that never happens. Again another “random” thing happening here. The main focus of this week was to have our own ceremony. What this means is we are supposed to sit at our altar and meditate for at least 60 minutes. You heard that right. A whole fucking hour! Sounds crazy right? Sitting still for an hour not scrolling on your phone, or watching a bullshit Netflix show that ends up sucking you in for 6 hours straight. Just you, yourself, your altar and the plant/flower you’re working with.
I meal prepped for the week and then I decided to prep for the ceremony. All I really did was sage my room. This was my first time using sage ever. I honestly didn’t even know if I was doing it right. Sage is supposed to clean out your space of bad energy. I covered my room in sage and then sat it on my altar to finish burning out. The longest I have ever meditated was 20 minutes. Normally I always do 10 minutes and once in a while I bump it to 15. A whole hour was a big ass jump for me. I figured I would work my way up to 60 minutes and start at 30. I lit the two candles on my altar, and found a 30 minute meditation song on the calm app that I had been using for the sleep meditations. I sit Indian style in front of my altar and begin the ceremony.
The ceremony is underway. I’m experimenting as I’m going. I picked up one of the roses I had bought a few days earlier that I put on my altar. I would hold it in my hands and close my eyes. Occasionally I would smell it. I would either ask it questions or tell it to show me what I need to learn. This process is the same for me when I had my ayahuasca ceremony. I asked similar things. I figured maybe the results would be similar. After some time my legs started going numb so I decided to lay down. I noticed the music changed but I thought it was part of the same track. At one point I thought, “man this is a long 30 minutes.” I had lost track of time though. I thought I was awake the whole time but I wasn’t. I was in it. I visualized a lot of things but it is hard to recall them or put them into words. I can tell you it felt like pure joy and happiness though. The music finally stops and I feel this insane rush of energy and creativity that I have never felt in my life. I look at the time and it is 12:00am. The last time I had looked at a clock it was around 10:30pm. I had meditated well over an hour.
So much for easing into an hour meditation. I blew past that on the first attempt. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to let this creative energy go to waste so I came up with an idea. I would start writing this blog series! The idea for this whole thing came from my first ceremony. I started hand writing the intro and my week one experience. Limiting screen time is obviously a focus in this course so I hand write rough copies before I start typing. This course also is about tapping into creativity. Writing is something I have dabbled in over the last couple years. Despite getting good feedback from my writing style, I haven’t been that consistent. What a perfect time to create some consistency. I will have 7 weeks of fresh blogs from this course at the very least. That’s more than I have wrote in probably two years. I finished writing the first two blogs and then wrote in my three journals for my end of the day practice.
I would say week two was successful despite starting it with a rough cold. On top of having a good ceremony I was able to get some grounding in on two different days. Grounding is basically where you get in nature and if you can, walk around barefoot and just connect. The grass here in Arizona is pretty… well…it’s not even real grass. It is pretty rough and itchy but I still get my feet all up in it. I’ll also lay in the grass for a bit and just listen to all the birds and life around me. It is pretty calming. All my social media is off my phone. I am isolated as I can be when I am not at work or at the gym. Everything is prepped for week three. This is where I will start consuming rose tea. As of right now I will say this. With the changes made in my daily routine and the realizations I have had so far in two weeks already makes this course worth it. Everything else that awaits ahead of me is just icing on the cake.
To be continued…
