A powerful and intriguing tribute to Earth Poet, Animist and Herbalist Stephen Harrod Buhner, featuring the magnificent Skye Cielita Flor. In this episode, Stephanie and Skye discuss the potency of SHB’s works, their impact on their own lives and teaching styles, and break some of the key points he covers in his book ‘Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realms’.
"Stephanie Hazel interviews Folk Herbalist, Deep Ecologist and traditionally trained Shipibo Curandera Skye Cielita Flor. In this episode, we explore questions such as: What does it mean to take a plant out of context? What do we leave behind when we extract a single active chemical from a medicinal plant? What do we lose when we take a single aspect of Shipibo culture, like ayahuasca ceremonies, but leave all of the cultural nest of animistic relationships with plants and land behind?
"Because they did not know God, therefore, in their error, they worshipped every creature as divine, namely the Sun, the Moon and stars, thunder, birds, even four-legged animals, even the toad. They also had forests, fields and bodies of water, which they held so sacred that they neither chopped wood nor dared to cultivate fields or fish in them." ~ Peter of Dusburg, Chronicon Terrae Prussiae, iii, 5, 53.
Check out this podcast conversation we recorded with the lovely Leilani Navar of the Turning Season's Podcast.
THE EMBODIMENT CONFERENCE We are delighted to be part of The Embodiment Conference. It will be a rich opportunity to come home to your body, in our chaotic world. Many of the planet’s best teachers will be there, and it costs nothing to be a part of. It’s free to all, online, and boasts keynote speakers such as Charles Eisenstein, Philip Shepherd, Judith Blackstone, David Abram, Bayo Akamolofe and many more.
Slowly emerging from the cacoon of dieta...
Tender and slow...
The stillness reverberating, and me, rocked gently in its arms...
Unpealing my wild mind...
finding shapes hidden inside...
shapes other-than-human to occupy and old tongues flapping... Long out of use, finding their voice.
In me.
Again.
“The crucible of making human beings is death. Every culture worth a damn knows that. It’s not success, it’s not growth, it’s not happiness. It’s death. That’s the cradle of your love of life; the fact that it ends.” — Stephen Jenkinson
In this weeks podcast episode we have Skye and Miraz joining us. We go deep into a number of themes exploring the culture of separation that plagues the collective sphere we all find ourselves in, the re-orientation of our perception to animistic worldviews, their many years in the amazon jungle studying amazonian shamanism, the frameworks that the indigneous shipibo people passed onto them to assist in the relating with a living breathing jungle, and extrapolating from that, a living breathing planet, and how this path interrelates into the work that they’re currently doing, known as deep ecology, aka, the work that reconnects.
I can still remember the exact moment I spotted Lilikoi's tendriled, amethyst body in a sea of lush green forest... her celestial scent mingled with the heady humus of the jungle floor...
I've noticed a lot of cicadas around at the moment and I came across a number of dead and dying ones on a recent walk through the forest. A lifelong lover of these wild, chorusing beings... I gently and reverently cupped one in the palm of my hand as it beat it's wings for the last time and then curled it's tiny legs inward, passing quietly from this form. Savoring the sweet intimacy of the moment, I laid it gently back on the ground and sat near it's resting place in the dappled green light of the leaf-filtered sun... humus scented air and the not-too-distant call of a lyrebird...
Toolkit for Empowerment, Connection & Conscious Action
Land Based Herbal Apothecary & Learning Center
The healing power of nature
Glimpses of a Creative Universe, by Christopher Chase...
Tom's archives, current events & Tracker info in keeping with the Lineage of Stalking Wolf
Spiritual journeys in tending the living earth, permaculture, and nature-inspired arts
Deep Earth Dreaming 