Easing Trauma with Plant Medicine

Plants are natural allies and healers and have extended this grace to human beings since the beginning of time. As we walk through all that life deals us, one of the most profound and accessible ways that plants bring practical healing is by calling us back into relationship with the living world. This is real. Trauma, whether ancestral, chronic or acute, shocks us into feeling alone, separate from, and lost. Coming back into relationship is medicine for both body and soul.

A community member who is coming into Medicine for the People this year wrote on her intake form that it would be great to learn how plant medicine can bring ease as she heals from a history of violent trauma. So here we are, exploring the topic of plant medicine and trauma because medicine is responsive and we exist in the context of community. Thank you, dear one, for bringing this smart question, as it bears relevance for all of us. Alongside the climate crisis and unrelenting systemic violence, our global community is walking through protracted trauma in the form of the pandemic and it is putting a strain on even our ability to connect with each other. Enter the beauty and power of plants as healers.

Plants stand proudly and say… Nervous system fried? We got you. Adrenals way past exhausted? No problem. Your spirit doubtful that we will ever flow freely through life on earth and human interaction again in a “post-Covid” era? Let’s talk about resonant medicines. Particularly, let’s talk about flower essences, as they can help to relieve the deepest sense of depletion and profoundly shift our outlook/vibe, which eases stress on our bodies. All of this with no contraindications! 

That’s a big one because plant medicine is real. Imbibing plant medicine can change your physiology, and earth-honoring plant medicine takes your whole being into account. We won’t go around throwing “prescriptions” at people without being in relationship and cultivating an understanding of who they are and the many ways that will shape what they need. This is not to say that sharing basic information on nourishing herbs that are genuinely safe for almost everyone is not sound. It absolutely can be, and we do share such information because we trust adults to do their due diligence and take responsibility for self-care. The thing about healing trauma though is that it’s often when we need help the most that it’s hardest to articulate or formulate what exactly that help might be. This is one of many reasons that flower essences are extraordinary. 

You don’t have to be an expert; you simply have to be willing to receive. So, here I want to talk about resonant medicines, and flower essences specifically, because of their practicality and accessibility when it comes to healing trauma. Whether it be the type of trauma that comes as a slow erosion of vibrancy and descending fog of long-term crisis (Covid stressors anyone?), or the searing shock of sudden loss/change, a big part of the beauty of flower essences is that they are safe for everyone and we can all benefit from them. Especially entering our third Covid winter.

For some folks “resonant medicines” sounds like woo, and I get that. So let me please start out by saying that I grew up a working poor street kid who would give straight-up side-eye to any mumbo jumbo that did not have practical value, and I’m grateful for that. Looking at things with a critical eye makes me a better teacher, healer, listener, and helper. I’m also deeply spiritual and intuitive by nature. In the world of flower essences, these things… intuition and pragmatism... can go hand in hand to bring about real healing. It’s beautiful. 

The way the story is told these days, it was a white dude of English ancestry, Dr. Edward Bach, who “invented” flower essences. And while I honestly don’t cast shade on his respect and love for nature, or the volumes of work he offered that helped to bridge this concept of plant healing to the modern world, I don’t buy it. Earth-honoring people have worked with plants as medicine for literally millennia, and continue to do so. As we know that earth-honoring cultures were not, and are not, plagued by the tendency to separate the physical from the “spiritual” or the material from the energetic, I know that people of the earth work/ed with plants and sunlight, water and song, to bring about healing, whether they call/ed these preparations flower essences or not.

Now, however, in the flower essence teachings, we have another useful and accessible system for honoring the inherent resonant medicine of a given flower, or combination of flowers, to help bring about balance in our psyches, our bodies, and our lives. 

I first learned about flower essences back in 1984, when I was pregnant with my first daughter. My midwife (who was one of my first herb mothers) was married to a flower essence practitioner and he offered support during my pregnancy. As a naturally curious student of plant medicine, I wanted to know how they worked. I pretty much didn’t understand, or believe, a word he said (it felt like mumbo jumbo at the time), but I could not deny that he hit my diagnosis on the head and that I was shifting in really helpful ways in response to the medicine. My pregnancy was easier and my health improved. So I stayed on the path of inquiry… for a long time. It was well over a decade later that I was reading Patricia Kaminsky’s work in The Flower Essence Repertory where she said, “Flower essences bring our soul back into harmony with the soul of nature.” Bingo. Even though this was maybe even more flowery and “out there” than some of the theory shared with me by my first practitioner, it was in that moment that I understood this to be a musical thing. Flower essences shift our resonance which, in street kid terms, means vibe. Everyone can catch the vibe of a song: angry, melancholy, spirited, sexy. Music communicates clearly, and so do plants. If we’re listening.

I love music. It has helped me to understand so many things, including this. So if this is new to you, or you are curious about this spin on flower essences and how they work, hang in there with me for a minute. 

Way, way out, in an alternate dimension… no, just kidding, but seriously, out in space, NASA has recorded what they call the Song of Earth and it is a stunningly beautiful composition that the earth herself is spinning. If we are paying attention, we hear the song of creation all around us all the time. This is a thing that even our white dude friend, Dr. Bach, could not help but love and center in his work with the essences. The song angle (I am loath to call it metaphor) makes sense to me. If we revisit the fact of interconnection as a foundational truth of life on earth (which in and of itself can heal trauma), it follows suit that we are all in a state of relationship. If we consider a musical relationship, we can recognize that we are all contributing to a collective weaving of the song of creation. 

In the hope of living life in harmony, I choose to think of flowers as potential friends. It makes sense to me that we’d be drawn to some friends more than others, or some at certain times in our life. Just as human friends, we’d recognize each of their distinct gifts or their vibe; a vibe that draws out or quiets down certain things in us, as is called for to help us feel in harmony at any given time. Harmony heals. It’s really not a stretch if you sit with it. Extending the concept of our circle of friends to include plants and each of their unique vibes is relational, alchemical, and, dare I say, completely natural. 

When it comes to making flower essences, we have a free handout that teaches you how to make your own because it couldn’t be any easier. Or you can check out our beautiful Flower Essence kit here in the apothecary, but in short, flower essences are made through a combination of sunlight, water, and the flowers themselves in a happy and vibrant state. These elements come together to draw the essence (not scent, but more like song) from the flowers and into the waters so that we can carry them around with us and lead better lives. Truly. 

So how does all of this relate directly back to plant medicine healing trauma? At their root, flower essences impact our emotional and mental state of being. If you think for even one hot second that this does not mean they impact our physical health, think again. Let’s consider the very interesting and riveting body of work on psychoneuroimmunology…  Um, psycho what? Seriously, in our Plants are Calling Bioregional Herbalism Apprenticeship, we have a catchphrase that drives home the seriousness of this: “Feeling crazy wrecks your shit.” And it does. It is a well-known fact that prolonged psychological and/or emotional stress (can we say trauma?) has a serious bearing on our physical well-being. If we are paying attention, this is more than obvious. So it follows suit that help with easing our emotional and/or psychological suffering gives our body room, and support, to heal.

When we go through an acute shock we often experience what psychology calls dissociation and shamanism calls soul loss. This is real. It feels difficult to hold ourselves in the present moment or to feel like we want to be where we are. This is an awful feeling and, while we respond to shock this way because we feel unsafe in what we are experiencing, the irony is… the safest place to be is in our body. I am not oversimplifying here. I have walked through healing processes with many, many people who have suffered untold violence and trauma, myself included. I know that systemic violence is very real and that sometimes there are things about the world that are genuinely not safe. I have learned through experience that the safest place for us to navigate life from is within our bodies; only a reclamation of our own sacred space can set the healing process in motion and keep it moving. Flower essences offer profound support in this process. They can help us when we simply feel irritable (which by the way is a trauma response), or when we feel like we just can’t live. (Though, if you genuinely feel like you don’t want to live, please seek a wide network of capable support to see you through, along with these potent essences.)

Reconnecting with our wide family of creation reminds us that we are each holy beings, here to do holy work, and lead holy lives. Flower essences help us take our place in the song of creation in ways that are practical, relieving, uplifting, and transformative… so here’s to starting this fake gregorian new year with the support that we need, so easily accessible.