(Spirituality) Aggression and nature/plants/gardening

“What is usually forgotten is the real nature of aggressiveness, which in its truest sense simply means forceful action. This does not necessarily imply physical force, but instead the power of energy directed into a material action” – Seth

I’m an eclectic spiritualist in the sense that I take from different practices what resonates most strongly with me. I’ve pursued a shamanic path in its barest form; I’ve tried the ‘new age’ stuff like Rainbow Healing and all that jazz. But it wasn’t until i was introduced to channelled material by Seth through Jane Roberts in the 1970s that many things sat so well with me my belief system has turned greatly to you create your own reality (YCYOR).

How does this relate to plants and gardening? It definitely has connection to the quote I’ve included above.

A seed is probably the most basic form of propagation any gardener knows in gardening. Of course, there are various other ways – both vegetative and not so – of propagation, but I’m going to use seeds for simplicity’s sake.

A seed is usually a hard case, containing potential life within it. For the life within that hard case to sprout takes a form of aggressive thrust, to break open the safety barrier from which it is encased within. To do this, the ‘conditions’ must be right, in the sense where the energy inside surges forth to produce the seedling, to surge through boundaries and take root.

I’ve used intent and visualization to help me sprout some supposedly notorious and hard to sprout seeds, namely the comfrey and Indian blanket flower. I imagine directing the flow of energy within each seed into one single direction and encouraging them to become a plant. I seem to have a decent amount of success in it, judging by the number of comfrey plants I have now, and the number of blanket flower seedlings as well.

It’s the same idea with the unfurling and thrusting forth of flowers from their petals, in encouraging roots to grow from any cuttings, and in so many other aspects of life and gardening.

I’ve come to respect this natural aggression and to appreciate it in its various manifestations through my plants. After all, without this natural aggression, we wouldn’t have plants at all – nothing would sprout, nothing would bloom, nothing would root or fruit or whatever else.

Plants and spirituality – white sage and sweetgrass

I don’t talk about my spirituality much outside of my shamanic blog, but I thought this would make for a nice change of subject.

Since I was about 20, I made the choice to become a pagan. At first, this entailed nothing more than the fluffy woo-woo things one might see on TV: joining the meditation group for Rainbow Healing/Language of Light; reading up on Wicca (unfortunately, think the TV series Charmed); meeting and talking with people who claimed to channel angels and higher-vibrational entities and what-nots. Perhaps I haven’t met the right (read: sane and logical) people locally, even until now, but all those things above just didn’t sit well with me. There were a lot of things too…out-there about those people.

It wasn’t until I came upon the (umbrella) term shamanism that my attention was caught. This post isn’t about my argument of traditional versus neo-shamans, so I shall do a very simple summary and say that the ideas of self-healing (and helping others), of the dichotamies of nature, and the tread between the physical and spiritual world caught me. It was the most balanced path I’d chose to take at that time.

With the lack of readily available resources on shamanism in various countries other than in the States, I turned, at that time, to the generic Native American form of shamanism. I adopted a lot of their traditions and culture: I bought a skin drum, and then two skin drums for trance drumming; I bought various types of dried plants tied together as smudge sticks; I did this, I did that.

However, one of the most important things I enjoyed in the start of any ritual to drumming, is the act of smudging. Because the white sage was considered an important plant in space cleansing, and was considered sacred by the Natives, I bought (and was given) a lot of white sage smudges; I tried out a desert sage bundled with cedar smudge, and loved the clean and sweet fragrance as I burnt it and wafted the smudge around; I tried a sweetgrass braid which was subtly vanilla-scented and very earthy.

Although I have lessened my practices on my eclectic shamanic path (I wasn’t chosen by the spirits and wouldn’t call myself a shaman at all), I still greatly enjoy the feel and sense and pure spirit of these plants, so much so that I have started growing two of them, in order to feel closer to their basic sense. I have received great joy from the natural resilience and easy joy brought in by very quick self-propagation of the sweetgrass, and though the dried braids are hard to burn, I will ask the plants I have for permission to harvest and dry and use them when I can, to place them on an aromatherapy burner to release their scent; the white sage is slow growing, and loses the old leaves which it doesn’t need anymore. In their places, new and smaller leaves grow, teaching me the path of ridding myself of unwanted things and self-inflicted cages, and to form and create new things.

I learn something from all the plants I grow, and treat them with respect as much as I can. Each of them teach me things I seem to need to learn at various points of my life. In turn, I take care of them. Best of all, it’s very nice to simply say ‘hi!’ to them each morning when I wake up, and when I return home from a long day out.

I don’t think that I can harvest and use them anytime soon. But in their own paces of growth, my two favorite plants have already taught me a lot to aid in the growth in my life.