Trusting Your Own Medicine
I’m harvesting some Henbane tonight and getting it ready for processing because this is what the plants led me to do.
It can be tricky being amongst so many practitioners who come from completely different traditions than my own. It ultimately makes me stronger in my own medicine but a lot of what makes that happen is accepting how different my own walk is and to not try to conform or question my ways because everyone else suddenly does things a different way and many sound pretty sure that that is the way something should be done.
But I have the greatest success and feel the strongest when I listen to the guidance that comes deep from within and is more harmonious with my background on the Red Road. I tried changing my gardening habits to follow astrological cycles and moon risings, and though it produces wonderful results for many of my friends and peers, for myself, the more I tried, the less plugged into my plants I became. And I later realized it was because I had started to doubt my own ways by thinking another way must be better. They have their own medicine and I have my own.
We need to be careful that we don’t just pick up a medicine and think it’s our own because it’s either attractive and cool (like Wolf medicine for example) or because everyone else seems to have it or do it a certain way. Someone else's medicine is their own personal medicine. No matter how exact we are in trying to duplicate someone else’s medicine, it will never work as well as for the original person and that’s a beautiful thing.
We are all unique and our medicine is all special and unique to each one of us. We need to trust our ancestors and guides and trust that really is them whispering in our ears even if they are leading us down a road that looks nothing like anyone else's. So tonight I heard the call and went to my henbanes. I had planned to let them go and get more seeds from them before harvesting but that’s not what they guided me to do tonight. Their leaves were incredibly sticky and fragrant, more so than usual. They were and are ready to give themselves to the truffles and who am I to question their guidance, so sticky henbane in hand, I cut the plants to small pieces and begin the process. ^_^
(Originally posted December 2021)
