Welcome to the Plant Wisdom Circle. This is a
space to share the wisdom of the plants, letting
their voices ripple outward into ever -widening
circles. Together, we honor the plants as medicine
guides and living beings of healing consciousness.
I'm your host, Amy Tarepka. Welcome back, folks.
I am Amy, your plant guide. The plants have been
working with me for nearly two decades now in
this very energetic and psycho -spiritual capacity,
and they have been my biggest guides along the
way, along my healing path, my journey of awakening
to the magic of the earth. and they come in to
support everything that I offer from my one -on
-one bodywork and energy work sessions and my
practice groundwater healing to most of what
I teach inside of my school, the Golden Stone
Wisdom School. Everything I share in my work
is supported by these incredible beings, the
plants, to help you remember the magic of being
a body on the earth. So if you want to learn
more about how to work with me, you can take
a look at the show notes where I have links to
my free online community inside the Golden Stone
Wisdom School, as well as a master class on communicating
with plant consciousness. And today... I'm going
to be sharing about the medicine of elder or
elderberry known to the ancient Celtic people
as the elder mother. This medicine is deep and
wide and rich and I'm so excited to share her
with you today. She has been quite tricky for
me to sum up. She's just such a force and I have
so much information on her from people's experiences
over the years. Elder was the plant that came
to me in 2018 with a plant spirit medicine course
proposal that became Call Into Darkness, a course
of plant alchemy and spiritual healing that I
offer. through the darkest six weeks of the year.
So we're inside that right now. And inside the
course, we work with elder during the first week.
So I have experiences of folks from the last
seven years of spending time with her. So I have
a wide range of experiences to share with you
and let alone my own experiences throughout the
year. So this will be a lot of plant story and
connection with the spirit of the elder mother.
And I do want to share that most often when people
work with me, with the spirits of plants, in
this case elder, they're taking a couple drops
of a tincture, which is the plant material, either
the berry or the flower, and often a mix of both,
extracted in alcohol and water. Most often I'm
mixing the flower and the berry together as I
feel like it offers more of a range of her medicine
and I like to feel both the qualities of the
flowers and the berries, but both the berry and
the flower separately are beautiful medicines
and you know, hold certain qualities in and of
themselves so you could play around with how
each of those feel. And in this case, I harvest
the blue elderberry, the Sambucas cerulea, but
here in the U .S. there's also the American elderberry,
which is Sambucas canadensis, and much of Europe,
North Africa, and Western Asia you'll find the
black elderberry, the Sambucas nigra, all of
which can be used as medicine interchangeably.
We also have the red elder here, which I am not
talking about. Only a drop or two of the tincture
is all you need to experience her magic in your
body. You don't actually need any tincture at
all or any essence at all. You can call in her
spirit or sit with her physical body in the wild.
But this is how we sit in the plant wisdom circles
with the tincture. So I just wanted to share
that with you. I'll share a little bit about
her physical medicine and structure because it
informs her spiritual and energetic qualities
and then I'll go into some general themes of
elder, some folklore, other people's experiences
from both Call into Darkness and the Plant Wisdom
Circle and finish with my own journey with her
from this last Plant Wisdom Circle. So elder
can be either a tree or a shrub and is kind of
a shapeshifter because sometimes she has one
single trunk that branches off then into many
branches. But oftentimes she looks like a shrub
and has many smaller trunks, maybe even just
a inch or two or a couple inches wide growing
up from the same place in the ground. and her
stems are hollow and this is often a signature
in the plant world of plants that are supportive
to journeying, to helping us open ourselves,
to hollow ourselves out so we can receive spiritual
messages more easily so we can journey beyond
this physical reality. Her flowers are these
delicate dainty white flowers that smell so divine.
The smell is intoxicating and it really does
feel like they bring you into a different world.
And the seeds and the berries contain some toxicity
when eaten raw. So it's not enough to kill you,
but will potentially make you nauseous, vomit,
have digestive upset. So there is a level of
caution or respect when approaching this medicine.
If you want to know more about identification
or the physical properties, there are so many
amazing resources out there. We can find all
that, but this podcast is not about that. We're
going to talk about the energetic and the psycho
spiritual medicine. So I do feel like it's important
to touch on the folklore of Elder because ancestrally
she is just such an important medicine and played
such an important role in the lives of folks
across ancient Europe, North Africa, Western
Asia, and here in North America. She is a tree
that has some of the most folklore surrounding
her of all trees. And most of the information
I've looked into is from Northern Europe, the
Celtic lands where my ancestry is from. And in
these areas, she, again, is known as the elder
mother and was so interwoven into their lives.
In Celtic lore, she stands as a gateway to the
fairy realm or the other world. She has long
been referred to as a tree of the fairies, her
hollow stems used to create wooden flute said
to be music that the fairies loved best. And
if you stood under an elder tree at midsummer,
it was rumored that you were able to glimpse
the fairy king or the fairy queen. To me this
medicine often comes through more with her flower,
but not necessarily. She holds a very etheric
and ephemeral quality that opens us up to the
spiritual overlay of life. And for the Celts,
the elder mother was supremely protective. She
was the one who helped protect the home from
evil spirits and just protect their lives. And
it was considered bad luck if you ever cut down
an elder tree or took from her without ritual
permission. So again, she is demanding some respect
here as this elder. She was brought into the
home for a lot of kitchen witchery, the medicine
for so many ailments from cold and flu support
to skin conditions and rashes, sinus relief and
asthma relief and reducing inflammation. Her
berries and flowers were made into cordials.
Her berries were used to dye textiles. Her wood
was used in cribs for babies for musical instruments
and she was just overall revered as a symbol
of the divine feminine and the generosity of
the medicine of earth and because of this it
is no wonder it makes sense that witches were
often associated with her during the burning
times in europe and often witches were burned
using the wood of the elder tree and this topic
of the witch wound that so many of us still carry
is one that's so dear to me and to my heart,
but it's a topic for another time. We could have
a whole podcast on that. But what I want to impart
here is that elder is truly a witches herb, a
folk herbalist herb and brings us into that deep
sense of connection and relationship to the magic
of life and the mother. the divine feminine and
just how woven that was back before patriarchy
and the empire of colonialism swooped in. So
this is a good segue into the spiritual themes
surrounding her and that I find emerge circle
after circle. We often find themes of, again,
this elder crone, like having an elder spirit
presence, the grandmother, the dark mother, the
divine feminine, and this experience of a deep
respect that she just innately exudes or demands,
not in a demanding way, but she commands this
air about her. And folks feel that experience
of being in the presence of an elder where they
have that innate sense of respect, where they
know not to mess with her or that she's really
powerful, but there's also so much love there
too. So just remembering back to that folklore
that talks about her wanting specific ritual
permission to harvest. but with this permission
she's really happy to provide. I think it's interesting
because pretty much every time I've harvested
elder I end up cutting myself on a bramble or
at some point blood is offered and she often
grows in these wide open fields where brambles
and blackberries and those vines with thorns
often live as well, but it doesn't feel like
a wicked or negative, but just like an offering,
a sacrifice, this idea of what are you sacrificing
or offering to me that's meaningful? And she
understands that there's always a cost. to a
choice, right? There's something you're needing
to say no to in order to honor a yes in something
else. And because she honors death and the death
process and how we need this in order to honor
life, she wants us to be really intentional about
this offering, about what we are giving in order
to receive. And, you know, I found this more
superficial and kind of harmful idea in some
new age circles that we can have it all in our
lives and we don't need to sacrifice anything
and can always be easy and smooth and beautiful
and that we can have this shiny gem without the
deep and often challenging processes that lead
us there and you know there's also truth to this
because we can have whatever we want we are creators
in this life and she steps in and wakes us up
to the reality that life can be hard and it's
not always easy and that pain and grief and death
of the old are also medicine they're just as
necessary to life as the other more quote -unquote
beautiful parts of life and she wants us to welcome
all experiences of life and not push anything
away to honor life, yes, but also honor what
we're giving up, what we're letting go of in
order to have this beautiful life and recognize
this as the offering, this as the sacrifice in
service to our greater becoming. So what do we
need to sacrifice that's keeping us small, that's
keeping us back from our power? These are things
that she asks of us. So these offerings, are
something that she takes seriously. She's not
into surface level, she's not into trite, she's
much more interested in meaningful, deep, or
intentional offerings. So alongside this, she's
very much associated with the liminal times in
the Wheel of the Year, where the Otherworld is
near. Beltane when her flowers are blooming and
the fairy realms are near and Samhain when the
ancestors are near and both of these seasons
being ones where either life is coming in through
the veil from the other world or life is dying
back from this world to the other world. They're
transitional times. She's an amazing guide for
us when we're at thresholds in our lives where
one thing has to die for the next to be reborn
and being with us through that place of liminality.
And not only this, but anytime. when we're clenching
too tightly to life and not allowing change to
happen, not allowing life to move itself through
us. And I most often associate her with the season
of the witch, the time where life is dying back,
the time of this liminality. And it feels like
she lives here to me. It feels like she's the
most comfortable here. She's definitely a Scorpio
and really asks us to allow what needs to die
to die to make friends with death to honor and
acknowledge the power and importance of death
in the cycle of life and again invites us to
make that intentional through our relationship
with offerings and not only that she invites
us to be with this space of dreaming this time
after death and before birth that is sometimes
uncomfortable because it asks us to be with the
unknown. She's often associated with the dream
world and dreaming which is an extension of this
other world, this world of spirit and soul and
she is the one that stands here at this threshold
between our world and the other world and very
much the one to help us usher death across the
veil as well as usher the new what's being born
across the veil. So again, being in this space
of That cosmic cauldron soup and I feel her as
this dark mother this dark mother that lives
here between worlds at the seat of all possibility
Where all is consumed and all is born where all
dies back into and all is created It's this place
that she lives and she really embodies this dark
mother archetype, which is so beautiful and so
powerful. And it's really interesting to me.
At some point in October, the spirit of elder
will arrive in my life. I'll just all of a sudden
feel her in my client sessions or just in my
life. I'll just feel that spirit of her that
I've come to know so well over the years. and
her arrival to meet ushers me into the Samhain
season ushers in the season of the witch ushers
in this time when the veils are thin and when
she arrives again her presence just represents
that to me. It's also common to find her supporting
us in claiming our power or accessing a deeper
power within ourselves And again, this is a pretty
scorpionic theme of power that's born from the
dark and power that comes when we're willing
to face our shadow and integrate that into more
wholeness. So she's really helpful for all of
that. And we also find themes of opening, of
surrendering and being held. There's a way that
she aligns us with the truth of things so we
don't have to try to grip and control so hard,
especially aligning us with the wholeness that
includes the dying and includes the death that
in modern culture we turn away from. And she
lands us in this place of acceptance, acceptance
of all of it. and how death is always in service
to life. And often folks find this feeling of
grounded truth and acceptance with her and that
they're so held and so protected through this
aspect of the Wheel of the Year and this aspect
of the life cycle that can feel hard for a lot
of people. But with this acceptance, we have
access to a more complete wholeness of our power.
She has this very ethereal presence, yet brings
in a sense of steadiness within that very ethereal
nature of reality. So folks feel held the fleeting
nature of life because she's there and held in
this acceptance of impermanence because she's
there. And again I know I'm talking a lot about
death here and impermanence here but her medicine
is so much wider than this as it opens us up
to the more expansive nature of reality. She
is not limited. She includes all. She's a very
spiritual presence and helps us really know and
really trust that there's more to life than this
physical form, than this physical realm. She
lives so connected to what's beyond this material
world and because of this we feel held knowing
that there's more, there's so much more to life
and she opens us up because of this knowing that
this isn't everything, that there's life beyond
death, that there's a spiritual layer to our
physicality, that our soul is so wide and wise
and she's so connected to that magic, to the
way that we are always in communion with the
unseen world. We're always in communion with
the forces of nature and the forces of life that
are informing our lives every single day. And
because of this drops us into that very magical
place, you know, true magic, just being your
own consciousness pairing and working with the
consciousness of the unseen world, the consciousness
of the forces of life and allowing that relationship
to affect change in your life and the material
world. So she is very magical because she brings
us into relationship with the unseen. And not
only that, you know, again, there's this level
of being held here. the level of knowing that
it is all okay and that we can, you know, lighten
up a little bit about our lives because there's
more beyond the veil. So it's time now to share
some specific words from folks who sat with her
medicine and you'll notice threads of all of
these themes weaving themselves in. and then
I'll share my experience from the last Plant
Wisdom Circle. There are many, many examples
of folks who've experienced connecting with their
own grandmothers with elder, and many more feeling
elder as a grandmother figure. I'm just going
to share a couple of them. Someone in Call into
Darkness in 2023 said, I'm totally new to this.
So I was really surprised that I was visited
by my granny who transitioned in 2015. She told
me that everything was going to be okay and that
I was going to be okay. She also asked for some
cornbread on my altar. I drew a tarot card after
the meditation and pulled the six of cups. My
deck has a picture of a grandparent with grandchildren
on it. And someone from this year said she didn't
want to let Elder go. She felt a gentle discipline
with her. Being able to trust herself to move
and behave and be in ways that help her be truest
to herself and what she wants to cultivate and
offer in this world, which for her requires this
gentle discipline. And she also felt this gentle
knowing smile from Elder every time she sat with
her and felt very seen in this way where without
saying anything, Elder was able to just call
her on her shit. And this person is a terrorist
and over the week spent with Elder drew the six
of cups three different times. This is the same
tarot card that the person two years ago also
pulled with Elder and this person this year was
sharing a little bit about what the six of cups
means to her talking about cups as the element
of water and the human emotion and in her deck,
it's two children, not a grandparent and a grandchild,
but one child is older and bigger. And there's
always this idea of someone who's older giving
a gift to the younger one, this idea of the past
giving a gift to the future. in her instance,
connecting her to her matriarchal lineage and
showing her the ways in which it served her and
not served her. And she also talked about nostalgia
often being associated with this card, as well
as an eldership, a learning and a gift that is
all encompassed in the meaning of this card.
And then a third person had the same experience
with the Six of Cups. Well, not the same, but
she went to receive an intuitive reading from
a person after her week with Elder before transitioning
to the next plant. And the tarot reader pulled
the Six of Cups. And I found that so fascinating.
I don't know a lot about tarot. And I looked
up the Six of Cups myself and found some information
on it that also felt interesting about reconciling
the past and how the past holds keys to what
makes us happiest, the past feeding the present,
and perhaps completing an old cycle that's kept
you stuck. or getting ready to start a new one,
which is so interesting because again, that's
where the place where I feel elder lives at this
completing the old, getting ready to start the
new, but maybe not quite being there yet. And
this idea of reminding yourself who you really
are, remembering yourself and bringing your disparate
parts back into alignment. The nostalgia of the
past in this card reminds me of the fleeting
nature of reality that Elder helps us lean into,
accept, to learn from. As we learn from the past,
we allow it to shape our present moment, but
we're not clinging to it, we're bringing it in
as a gift. you know, all of this kind of swirls
around in elders' medicine, which is just so
fascinating to me. Someone in this year's Plant
Wisdom Circle connected with a great, great,
great, great, great grandmother from the 1600s
in England, and she was brought Into this grandmother's
cottage and there was a hearth and she was cooking
elder She was cooking elderberry and she the
grandmother was showing her how she prepared
it at different times of year and how To use
different types of water and different preparations
in order to get different medicine for different
types of ailments or purposes and It was very
clear how integrated elder was into their lives
back then into her ancestors' lives and just
the very integrated nature of knowing the land
and knowing the medicine of the land so well
and that working with the elements and the plant
medicines was just a way of life and it wasn't
anything extraordinary. And this intense comfort
of just being there on a warm floor in front
of a fire in an ancestor's home. And this is
something that arises time after time, this experience
of elder showing us the old ways, the old medicine
ways, the old folk ways, the ways that were deemed
demonic and harmful and witchcraft in the burning
times. You know, most people who were burned
at the stake were women over 40 who didn't have
husbands, who owned their own land, who worked
with herbs, who were healers or midwives or...
anyone who, yeah, used plants as medicine, an
elder really feels like she wants us to remember
that relationship and realign ourselves with
that magic that is just innately human and that
lives in all of us still. This year in Call into
Darkness, someone else had the experience of,
first of all, feeling very held. She was sick
during the week of working with Elder and just
felt so held, branches wrapping around her, helping
her feel held and safe and a holding space for
her to relax into and open up a little bit. And
Elder took her into her Scandinavian... heritage,
her Scandinavian ancestry, the Scandinavian landscape,
and wanted her to listen to Scandinavian music.
And as she was going into her ancestry, reading
about what a big part of Scandinavian tradition
and myth Elder was. So again, this idea of Elder.
connecting us back to those more intact lineages
with myth and tradition and wisdom ways that
involved her a lot. In 2022 in Call into Darkness,
someone else had this very vivid visualization
where her grandmother came in and said to live
your life as if you are taken care of. and felt
this call to again, research where that grandmother
hailed from in Italy and researching how the
elderberries are also used there as traditional
folk medicine. And yeah, again, this way of life
that elder was a part of. Someone in 2023, Colin
to darkness said, Elder feels quiet, ancient,
and deep for me. I would feel like she would
guide me to the dark and liminal spaces as if
she roots between realms. I would sense fairies
in her leaves and they would accompany us sometimes
on our journey. I would feel Elder's encouragement
to let go. That letting go opens to something
more, to trust that I don't need to know. what
something more is. There is a beginning and an
ending. It was interesting to me that the offering
I felt Elder wanted was the citrine crystal,
which seems more like the sun and bright energy,
where Elder seems to hold more of the night mysteries
for me, but a cool balance and polarity between
the two. And this is especially interesting because
this year, the same person who was brought to
her ancestors' kitchen in the 1600s in England,
felt Elder wanting her to offer her citrine necklace
that she wears every day, as well as the citrine
that her daughter gave her. So there is something
about Elder and citrine being an offering that
she's asking for. And I don't have... any reasoning
for this, but what is interesting to me is that
the same person who was asked to offer her citrine
necklace has been continuing to work with elders
since the Plant Wisdom Circle to dismantle the
energy of the imbalanced masculine in her solar
plexus that asks her to exhaust herself and overwork
and bring in a more feminine embodied power that
actually fills her inner well and can be sustainable.
Elder has been inviting her to sacrifice this
old way of being and this identity that goes
alongside that of the over -functioning and being
able to get all the things done and all the accolades
that come with that etc. you know to me I could
interpret the citrine as a representation of
that sacrifice that she's asking her to offer
the sacrifice of that imbalance of the more masculine
way of being and or the citrine as a more balanced
way to be with the masculine power so There's
a lot of ways to interpret these things, but
I just found that synchronicity so cool. There's
been so many synchronicities over the years here.
And back to a few experiences from folks in 2020.
One person said, when I introduced myself to
Alder at the beginning of the journey, I felt
a cold sensation in my solar plexus and saw a
gray color. It felt like powerful and empowered
sensation. It felt old. Gray continued to be
a theme. Elder appeared to me as a crone with
long flowing gray hair. Beyond the door, I stepped
into what felt like the essence of everything.
And it was gray swirling wind. She seemed to
impart to me that this is everything we are and
have been. She showed me we are the soul of the
earth. and the earth is our soul. And if we could
only see beyond the door, we would know that
we are all a part of this essence. Life and death
are only one droplet of the vast wisdom of the
cosmos. And another experience from 2020. Elder
took on a very fairy -like form, a tall queenly
figure with a deep liquid indigo color hair and
cape. She led me to a vibrant dwelling covered
with bright green moss at the base of a great
tree. Inside all I can see is shimmering sparkling
light flowing over all surfaces. I noticed that
on the side nearest to the tree is a small waterfall
spilling into a sparkling pool. There is a door
here through which an ancestor would visit. A
mostly formless, feminine spirit came through.
She was an air spirit, an elemental ancestor.
She showed me a time when I was the wind, moving
across vast ocean waters. She took me to memories
of gentle breezes caressing my cheek and how
the simple momentary bliss of those sensations
is her medicine, her communication. She breathed
through me and refreshed my body and spirit.
She asked me to play my flute, a wind instrument,
as both a gift to her and a way to commune with
her. Now back in 2025 at the Plant Wisdom Circle
this month, the medicine of elder went right
into this person's heart and she started crying.
She was shown a box here. An elder took out her
newborn self and put her in the trunk of her
tree and started nursing her with the juice of
the berries. It was like this alternate timeline
if she had the nourishment she needed at a young
age and what that would do for her. There was
a big restructuring of her neuro pathways and
she received the message to be in your life.
in all of it instead of thinking there's limitations.
She doesn't have to choose between things she
loves or limit herself. She gets to have all
of her life and be in all of her life that she
chooses. With this person, Elder was helping
heal her lack of self -worth and not being good
enough and just being shown all the not enough
paradigms and programming running through her.
And she said, as I am healing, not being good
enough and replacing it with I am enough and
more than enough, I am complete. My creativity
is flowing more seamlessly and ideas and projects
are coming to me with ease. Someone from this
era also mentioned this empowerment. connected
to her power saying big stuff is happening in
her life and her process right now and Elder
is helping her stand in this sense of grounded
power being called into a more embodied sense
of leadership and She is returning to that grounded
power over and over again with elders support
In the Plant Wisdom Circle this year, someone
had the experience of recalling the first time
that she sat with Elder as a kid when she was
seven or eight years old. And she'd read about
the Fay Folk and their connection with Elder.
And so she laid down with Elder outside to see
if she would encounter any fairy spirits. And
she doesn't know if she fell asleep or not. But
when she kind of woke up out of the reality,
she was brought into under the tree. She was
wondering if she woke up in a different timeline
and was looking around to see if anything was
different. And it was her first recollection
of being in an altered state of consciousness.
Another person at the Plant Wisdom Circle said,
openness and acceptance were the words for her
that guided the experience. Elder invited her
to open her hands out wide, her chest opening,
hands opening up wide and feeling so much love
for the people in her life and how much love
she has for them. It was very heart opening and
had feelings of deep acceptance and also had
a memory of a dream that she'd had a little while
ago come to mind and a message to remember, to
dream. Another person said, the themes of surrender
and pleasure came up in my meditation, particularly
that pleasure is a key to deepening my intuition.
I often experience a lifting sensation. Elder
lifts my spirit and body upwards. And two other
folks in this year's Call into Darkness had images
of a slide downwards and a ladder downwards,
one inviting surrender and letting go and one
inviting connection to this darker, more quiet,
liminal underworld. And in all cases, in this
like lifting sensation, the sliding sensation,
the ladder, to me it's this invitation for movement,
for shifting levels of consciousness, an invitation
to expand beyond the normal reaches of the material
world. A few folks had experience of grief and
being held in grief. and one of them felt Elder
wanting some of her tears as a gift or an offering
and felt surges of energy moving through her
body, every cell becoming alive and buzzing.
She felt a groundedness and also like Elder was
holding her and had a strong connection to feeling
the beautiful things in life and grieving some
because of this. seeing the beauty in things
and knowing that it's fleeting and she felt really
held through all her tears and was just feeling
very grateful for everything around her and the
support system and the earth resonating with
her and just felt very connected to the wider
experience of life. She also works in end -of
-life care and is in call into darkness. So during
her week with Elder, she reported Elder coming
in really strongly to support her and her work
with the folks close to death. And one day when
she was offering a bodywork session to one of
her clients, she felt Elder come in really powerfully
during that session and after. Her client reported
this really mystical experience of being surrounded
by his ancestors and relatives and that it was
such a beautiful, healing and peaceful medicine
for him during this time in his life. And someone
else in the circle had recently had someone in
her community die and she felt the grief of this
moving her body in a way she never had before.
Her heart was bursting open with sorrow in a
way she'd never felt before. And she was just
able to feel in awe of this aspect of the human
experience when a loved one dies that's so powerful
to be with these feelings. And she was just very
aware of the healing quality of grief that was
moving through her system. It felt like a very
beautiful and precious and heartbreaking and
heart expanding experience. And last person who
I'll share before my share is she had the experience
of this like three act play. The first act was
very heavy and she was taken down and down and
down, spiraling and swirling into herself and
her body and was brought into her stomach and
it was brought to her attention, you know, this
pain that she's having and a health scare that
she's experiencing in that area. And it felt
like Eldar was playfully batting that area like
a kitten batting a ball, working to loosen up
the constriction there. And it felt to her like
she was playing with death, playing with something
potentially deadly and facing it really playfully
and lightly. And after the meditation, she said
that part of her body feels much more open and
light. And the second act of her experience,
her journey, her meditation, was a white light
with beautiful sheets and dancers dancing with
the sheets and just the beauty of this really
ephemeral type quality and watching the dancers
and dancing herself. And in the third part, she
was invited to put her hands on the ground. and
she felt like the earth was shaking and it was
so intense. It was too much. She kept having
to take her hands up off the earth, but then
Elder was inviting her to just start to shake
and move with it, matching the energy to get
in alignment with it, so matching the energy
of the earth. and then it didn't impact her as
much and towards the end she was playing with
not physically shaking but being able to receive
that energy, contain and hold it without being
so impacted by it. So I've shared a lot of my
general experience I have with Elder and this
is my particular journey that I experienced with
her in the Plant Wisdom Circle this year. I felt
like my body was dissolving and opening and expanding
and the word I kept hearing was open, open, open.
And I had an image come of a mother rocking a
baby. And I was brought into this experience
as the baby and what it feels like to be held
and to deeply surrender to this level. which
is really hard. It was hard for me to just fully
let go and trust in the mother that was holding
me and rocking me. And I really couldn't do anything.
You know, I was helpless in the way that a baby
is helpless, but also the experience of the freedom
in that. And then just after this image, I saw
the image of me being hung and just hanging.
And again, Elder is showing me this level of
surrender in a very different way. It was kind
of shocking to feel and see those images back
to back, but it also just made sense to me in
that moment and felt like she was inviting me
to surrender more in my life and also showing
me these moments of birth and death as these
experiences of the ultimate surrender. and so
much of the in -between moments when we just
try to cling on and control things, but really
all of life flows more easily when we can invite
in a level of surrender. And after that, I was
kind of somatically brought into this field of
energy that I often feel with her, which feels
like the field of consciousness or the energy
that moves and permeates all of earth and all
of life. And it's this same sort of feeling I
get when I'm giving cranial sacral work and tapping
into that deep rhythm of the cerebral spinal
fluid. It has this feeling of like a slow moving
cloud that's always changing but has no agenda
or urgency. and it feels so relaxing and inviting
to sink into and she was showing me this constant
change and movement of life that's always unfolding
and she said there's no sense in holding tight
because it's going to move and change and flow
and she's showing me the endlessness of time
and the shape shifting of energy and how soothing
that is to surrender into. And then I saw an
image of myself being stretched open from the
sides like an accordion and things just falling
out of myself like holding a purse upside down
and emptying it out. And, you know, her just
expanding the space, stretching me out, expanding
the space I feel in my body and clearing out
what's been compacted in there. And then she
brought my attention to this part of me in there,
very young, who has this trauma from noise from
when I was a baby and my older brother the scream
in my ear as loudly as he could and the shock
of that in my system and the complete inability
to feel safe in that moment. And it's something
I've revisited a lot in my life, this moment
of total unpredictability and feeling totally
unsafe and not being able to do anything about
it. It was interesting because there were some
noises from the group that she was showing me.
I was subtly bracing against, closing off to
the soundscape and showing me this frozen part
of me that she was helping to just gently shake
loose and open up so I could just be in resonance
with the world around me. receiving it, moving
with it, attuning to it, allowing the sound to
come in and through, which reminded me of the
last person share that I read. And, you know,
it's interesting because she is so amorphous
and flowing and wide, and yet I feel so protected.
Like, I don't feel like anything would come in
and through that would harm me in her presence.
So again, just like in folklore where the elder
mother is this deeply protective presence to
protect you from evil and her medicine of blocking
cold and flu viruses from entering the cell,
it's like she... opens us up and she does this
physically to opening our pores helping us sweat
out toxins or breaking a fever and opening us
up like clearing out but at the same time we're
so protected we're so protected in her arms she
also kept bringing up the phrase not enough time
and kept showing me the way that I say this and
how it was so faulty and such a constricting
way to see and perceive the world. And, you know,
she lives in such a timeless possibility. And
when we work with her, we can sink into that.
and open our lives up to more spaciousness and
more possibility and more timelines that are
wanting to be dreamed through us. So she just
kept the energy of those words, not enough time.
She kept showing me how that landed in my body
versus her expansiveness in regards to timelessness.
I had this incredibly powerful dream that night
of the Plant Wisdom Circle. It was one of the
most powerful dreams I've ever had and I'm not
going to share the details of it but I will say
that I was brought through this type of death
and rebirth process through a deep healing and
was presented with my power face to face and
had the opportunity to choose to learn from it
instead of battle against it and I woke up after
that dream feeling so changed and like Nothing
would be the same after that and I recorded the
dream. I like went downstairs recorded the dream
sat in the dark for a while and as I lay back
down was kind of brought back into that same
space that she was holding me in in the plant
circle and that slow morphing cloud timelessness
but also ever -changing type space and I just
began receiving all of these downloads from elder
about working with energy and consciousness and
the alchemy of numbers, and she was saying that
she gave me that dream at 3 .33 a .m. When I
woke up, it was 3 .40, because it was a nine,
and that nine is the climax of numbers. It's
the ultimate climax energy before there's...
resolution, there's a death, there's an ending
here at nine, and that then gets resolved in
the following zero. And I'm not, I've never been
really into numerology, but she was really showing
me her energy in numbers, which was really interesting.
And so in that zero, there's this state of all
possibility, but possibility that's available
only because of the learning and experience of
the previous nine. So this climax and death of
the nine into the zero, and she lives here, this
space in the void, in the all possibility, and
helps us have a smooth transition from the ending
of something into the void and then moving towards
that birth of the new into the one. So that was
a fascinating way to show that to me. And I could
really feel like she is that dark mother who
is again always destroying and creating and destroying
and creating and service to life. And it was
so powerful and beautiful and I received a follow
-up dream two nights later that was equally as
powerful and transformative and with themes of
death and snake skin shedding and you know just
very elder type dreams. So she's just been with
me in this liminal space and feeling into really
her power as the dark goddess and her teachings
that are available to us, especially in the dark
months of the year, especially in the shedding
and dying back, especially in these liminal times,
but always in any threshold and any transition
and any time or place you're moving through an
ending and into a transition of birthing something
new. And in that transition, there's often an
uncomfortable place of not knowing yet and she
is here in that place cackling and creating and
dreaming and inviting us to surrender and anchoring
us more deeply into our power and is just such
a beautiful guide for us during these transitional
moments of our lives. So as you can see, there
are lots of threads of elder being a wise teacher,
an elder figure in our lives, one who stands
at the threshold, helping us move through endings
and beginnings more smoothly, calling us into
presence and the truth of the very ephemeral
and magical nature of reality. And when we accept
this reality, we are able to loosen our grip
of control and access another layer of our power,
one that's comfortable with the range of life's
rhythms and seasons, you know, elder. opens us,
she asks us to lean into this ever -changing
morphing consciousness of life and invites us
to let that moving nature of life in, asks us
to trust in its unfolding and with her presence
really experience being held in this. When you
can really open up to the magic of life and the
messages from beyond, you know that you're always
held here in this very impermanent existence
and you're never alone. So that is elder. There
you have it. This cauldron of elder experiences
and teachings and wisdom. So just take a moment
to feel what it feels like to have just listened
to this, to have received these insights into
your body. Just hearing people's experiences
is medicine. It is her medicine. It is her story.
And through these words, it's like you are taking
her in. So take a moment to close your eyes and
invite her in. See if you can feel her with you
right now and open yourself to what she may want
to teach you. If you want to connect with the
plants in this way, all you have to do is go
outside Find a plant or a tree and open yourself
up to listen. It's really simple and it's in
your bones. All of our ancestors have done this
and it lives in you too. And if you want to learn
from me, I have a pre -recorded one hour masterclass
called How to Connect with Plant Consciousness
Without Psychedelics. And you can find that in
the show notes. And I trust that any way you
choose to move forward with your relationship
with the plants is going to be meaningful to
both you and them. So until next time, may you
open yourself up to the magic that's all around
you. May you remember your power and that it's
okay to let go into this field of flowing, changing
life because you are so deeply held. Thank you
for joining the plant wisdom circle. May the
teachings of the plants continue to ripple through
your life, guiding you and nourishing you in
the days to come. If you'd like to keep weaving
with the plants, you can subscribe to the show,
leave us a review, and share it with others who
would love to listen. This would mean so much
to me and to the plants. Make sure to check out
the show notes below to learn about any links,
events, or classes I shared with you today. You
can find the next Plant Wisdom Circle and other
classes and resources at groundwaterhealing .com.
Until next time, may you walk gently with the
earth with the plants by your side.