PARTNERING WITH PLANT MEDICINE WEEK 5
How the fuck is it week five? I can not wrap my head around how fast this course is going. Each week seems to be going by faster and faster. The focus this week is about the first harvest. We reflect over the last few weeks and see what we have learned about our plant. What challenges or surprises did we encounter? Then we access our crops. We ask ourselves things like this. Is there anything deeper to discover? How do you want to spend these remaining days with your plant? What seeds have been planted by your plant for the coming seasons? Lastly, from creativity to craft. How can you keep on feeding your creativity?
From my understanding it is the last week of having ceremonies. Next week we are ending our diets. I do not know what that means yet entirely. If this really is my last week to work with rose then I’m going to try and journey as much as possible this week. I think this is three weeks in a row where I was given Friday and Saturday off. I may have mentioned this already but one thing Ben has told us in lecture was to look out for things that seem “random” or are a coincidence. This is one of those things. It is the busiest time of the year still and our bar staff is small. We don’t just hire bartenders off the street so most of us have been working a lot. I figured I would keep the same routine going and do a ceremony on Friday and Saturday.
It is Friday and I start my day with a little oatmeal before I head to the gym. After a good workout, I went to Kiwanis Park again to get my weekly grounding in. I went to the same area where I discovered all those roses. I walked around in the grass barefoot and visited all four separate areas of roses in the area. A feeling sets in of what ones I should pick and take back to put on my altar. The first one I picked was all white with some pink in it. The second one that called to me was purple. These were both colors I haven’t had yet. After I picked them I went to my spot on the hill nearby and laid down for a bit. This was starting to become one of my favorite things to do each week. It is definitely one of the things I want to keep doing after this course is over. After some time, I decided to take my freshly picked roses and go home to get ready for my ceremony.
Last post I mentioned I do my ceremonies at night. On this day I decided to try and do it way earlier. I am not sure why. It was probably just me trying to experiment with something a little new even though there was nothing wrong with what I have been doing. I made rose tea, grabbed my two freshly picked roses and put them on my altar. I lit the candles and put on a meditation song. My first ceremony of week five is underway. This is the part where I would love to say rose gave me this huge new vision but my experience was similar to last week. I just felt really good after. By the time I put on the shamanic drumming it was tough to get back into a meditative state. When this deep meditation runs its course I have too much energy to get back to that state. I figured I had another day to do it again and it wasn’t a big deal that I didn’t have this big experience. On to the next day!
Saturday comes and I decided to pick up a shift at work. As bad as I wanted to do another ceremony I also wanted to make some money. It ended up being a good decision because I made about $300. I wasn’t able to journey that day and I was going to just let it go. Monday comes and when I got home from work I was planning to end my day. Something in me just thought that I should try to journey one more time. I made some tea and sat at my altar. I did a shorter meditation this time and when I was ready I put on the shamanic drumming. It wasn't until the end where I had a small vision. I saw multiple holes opening up. If you have ever seen the movie Dr. Strange, you know when they open a portal there is like a circular golden spark present. Well that is basically what I was seeing except the sparks were purple. I couldn't go through the portal though. I could only see into them. The drumming stops and I wrap up the ceremony.
I wasn’t sure what those portals meant. I brought it up in the zoom meeting. Ben said with colors you want to pay attention to chakras. Purple is the color of the crown chakra. It also takes on a white color I believe which makes sense from my experience last week. Based on some things I looked up if your crown chakra is in balance you feel spiritual, blessed, open minded, peaceful, and connected to the universe. I mean it explains how I was explaining how I felt in my experiences last week and this week. I just didn’t know there was this detailed explanation for it. I thought it was pretty interesting.
I shared another thing with the group. I have been dreaming a lot. I had this one that stuck out to me. I was in this room and this kid is in front of me laying on like a big ottoman. I say kid but whoever it was kinda seemed not human at the same time. I don’t know who this is but I’m talking to him like I have known him forever. He is sick and knows he is going to die. I also know he is dying. He starts shaking uncontrolably. I try to calm him down. There is someone on a couch next to me sleeping who I try to wake up but they won’t wake up. I get the kid to stop shaking. He says “they are here.” Then he looks at me and says “ we will meet again in another life.” I said “Ok.” As he left his body I get a rush of all these emotions and energy. He was gone. Even though I felt those emotions hit me I was so calm with all the chaos. It felt like I was there to help the kid (or alien?) cross over.
I think the visions I was seeking through this weeks journeying showed up in my dreams instead. Dreams like these are fun to interpret. One person in the group said it sounded like maybe the kid dying was a part of me I didn’t need anymore. On my altar are some tarrot cards I flipped in week 2. They were so spot on that I left them on my altar. Well the present card is death. This is actually a good thing. It means the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new one. It indicates transformation of the individual to a new state of being. I would say it is another successful week in this course. I definitely feel the transformation and I am excited to see where it goes from here!
To be continued…
