The Basics of Plant Spirituality
Since humans shifted away from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one based on agriculture, we began to gradually take plants for granted. Over time, we lost our respect for them, even though everything we are is because of plants from the air we breathe to the food we eat.
The gods have not forgotten about the plants and have continued their relationship with the plant spirits. Many deities have strong relationships with plants; Oya loves the eggplant, Mary Magdalene has long been associated with roses and any child of Apollo had darn well better have a large supply of bay leaves available.
First and foremost, I want to address the concept of plant ownership. Many sources will say “So-and-son owns this plant.” Using the word “own” is just as offensive to plants as it is to humans. If my husband ever said he owned me I couldn’t string him up by his love apples fast enough. So why then is it okay to say plants are owned? The spirit of cinnamon gets really angry when you say “Oshun owns cinnamon”, say instead Oshun and cinnamon have a partnership (or relationship or an association).
A lot has been written about the spiritual and medicinal uses of plants. All of this material comes from somebody’s point of view and it is important to remember that what worked for someone else, may not work for you. Hyssop is a great personal example. Many sources say that the Orishas love hyssop and it’s this great sacred plant that blesses everything it touches. Well that’s all fine and good except that I’ve never felt a connection to hyssop and have never had the urge to use it in any form. Do I believe the sources or my own personal experience? Personal experience should win out every time.
Plants are complicated. Some magickal sources like to drill plants down to a single element or a few key words for uses. This is great for editing but the truth is that you generally can’t place plants easily into a couple of artificial categories. For example, chili peppers are strongly associated with fire but they also contain a lot of water in their flesh, which becomes more prominent when you remove the heat (aka a Bell Pepper). While I have included elemental information, consider it to be a starting point, not the end of the conversation. Take any information with a grain of salt and use your personal experience to give you clues to the deeper truth.
