Communicating with Plants

Foreword: The Legacy of Plant Spirits
by Pam Montgomery

Introduction: An Invitation into the Plant World
A Note on Capitalization, Ki, and Gender

1 Plant Communication
Embracing Our Birthright A Communication—Communion—Common Union
All True Communication Begins in the Heart
Moving into Heart Coherence
Gratitude
Innocent Perception
Common Concerns
Exercise: Accessing Your Heart Space

2 Taste the Wild: Mulberry
Loving Nature
Multiple Perspectives
The Unique Gift of Trees
Exercise: The First Meeting

3 New Opportunity: Yarrow
Protection A Door Opener
Trust A Achilles’ Heel
Healing the Wounds of Patriarchy
Exercise: The First Voice

4 Dare to Dream: Mugwort
Plant Spirits
Anxiety
Energy Hygiene
Remembering Our Wild Self
Dreaming
Imagination
Moving Toward Wholeness
Exercise: Dreaming with Your Plant Ally

5 Becoming the Auhority: Plantain
Introducing Children to Plants
Plants as Rebellion
Becoming the Author(ity) of Your Life
Transmuting the Trauma of Colonialism
Clearing Toxic Emotions
Grounding
A Note
Exercise: Grounding with Your Plant Ally

6 Resiliency: Dandelion
Tenacity and Resilience
Authentic Experience
The Sacred Role of Anger
External and Internal Control
Seven Directions
Setting Sacred Space
Wild Food
Exercise: Plant Dieting

7 Sweetness of Life: Maple
Generosity and Abundance
Ask For What You Want
Reciprocity
Sweetness of Life
Nourishing Ourselves Exercise: Engaging in Reciprocity with Your Plant Ally 8 From Foe to Friend: Poison Ivy Boundaries
Power of Saying No
Nature Reclamation
Start Small and Be Humble
From Foe to Friend
Exercise: Drawing Your Plant Ally

9 Taking Action: Japanese Hops
No Such Thing as Invasive
Taking Action
Time
Importance of Play
Entering the Daydream of a Plant
Exercise: Daydreaming with Your Plant Ally

10 Changing Our Story: Black-Eyed Susan
It’s All About Perspective
Subconscious Patterns
Beliefs
Trauma
Changing Our Story
Embracing Perfectly Imperfect
Receiving the Gifts of Black-Eyed Susan
Judgment
Light
Color
Exercise: Engaging with Color with Your Plant Ally

11 Releasing Grief: Willow
Sacred Sex
Romancing the Plants
Grief
Depression
Exercise: Romancing Your Plant Ally

12 Power of Love: Rose
Embracing Grief A Power of Love A Love Defined A Choosing Love A Self-Love Exercise: Self-Love Ritual Slow Down, Come Closer A Healing with Love A Plant Limpias and Sacred Bathing Exercise: Sacred Bathing

13 Living to Die: Poison Hemlock
Overcoming Fear
Fear of Dying
Death as Failure
Fear of Aging
Buyer’s Remorse
Shamanic Journeying
Greenbreath Journey
Our Greatest Fear
Exercise: Shamanic Journeying with Your Plant Ally

14 Everything Changes: Eastern Hemlock
Quieting the Interference
Transformation of Death
Following Guidance
Change with Grace
Flower Essences
Exercise: Making an Essence with Your Plant Ally

15 The Great Mother: Corn
Co-evolution of People and Plants
Corn People
Prayer
Singing to Plants
Music of the Plants
Dancing with Plants
Making Apologies
Exercise: Engaging in Song and Dance with Your Plant Ally

16 Re-membering a New Way: Rosemary
Power of Forgiveness
Balancing Intelligences
Karma
Ancestors
Re-membering Our Wholeness
Exercise: Co-creating Your Plant Ally’s Story

17 Becoming Sacred Humans: Tulsi
Slower Than Slow
Soul Healing
Ceremony
Sacred Plant Initiations
Becoming Alchemists
Exercise: Having a Ceremony withYour Plant Ally

Conclusion: Creating a New Story

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Jen Frey is a healer and mentor with more than 20 years of experience with Plant Essences, energy work, and herbal practices. The founder of Brigid’s Way and co-steward of Heart Springs Sanctuary, she has dedicated her life to the spiritual path of Plant work. She lives in Pennsylvania.

“Beautifully written, heartful, honest, and compelling, Communicating with Plants guides us into the deepest kind of relationship with plants, with nature, and with one another. I literally couldn’t put this book down. Every page holds treasures, insights, and a depth of plant wisdom that literally rocked my soul. The author has fostered and tended a lifelong love affair with the plant world, and in the most simple and elegant manner, she passes that love on to others. This book will light up your heart and the heart of the world. It is the kind of ‘herbal medicine’ that is needed now.” Rosememarary Gladstar, author of Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner’s Guide and coeditor of Planting the Future

“Communicating with Plants is Jen’s love letter to both people and plants. She artfully and heartfully shares her experience and perspective as she answers one of the questions I am asked most frequently, ‘How do I listen to a plant?’ She demystifies the process and teaches the simplicity and naturalness of our innate ability to communicate and commune with these elders, teachers, and healers who love us and have so much to offer when we take the time to listen. As Jen shares with her readers, our relationships with the plants restore us to ourselves, and this benefits us, them, and all beings on our beautiful Earth. I am grateful that Jen Frey wrote this book; it also provides specific plant wisdom that can help readers on their journey of remembering themselves as part of Nature.” Robin Rose Bennett, herbalist and author of The Gift of Healing Herbs

“Jen Frey is a committed long-term ally of the plant world. Her sensitivity and direct knowledge of the plants inspire. Her account of interspecies communication vibrates with authenticity and love. As a sensitive being in a vital world, Jen leads us to a world of wonderment.” William Morris, Ph.D., DAOM, herbalist and author of Transformation: Treating Trauma with Acupuncture and Herbs

“In her generous new book Communicating with Plants, Jen Frey affirms that the world of plants can be not only food and medicine for humanity but also companions, guardians, and teachers as well. Taking plants as her muse, Jen proceeds to teach us not only about the healing properties of these more-thanhuman neighbors but also through the lens of the plant she touches on some of life’s most important lessons: to live with an open heart, to be aware of subtle energies, to honor and work with dreams, to befriend our own wildness, and much more. For anyone who loves the green Earth and wants to deepen into relationship with plants, Jen’s book will be a bountiful exploration.” Sharifa Oppenheimer, author of A Litany of Wild Graces: Meditations on Sacred Ecology

“A wonderful book has come our way. Jen Frey’s Communicating with Plants is an inspiration. When a book is written with as much intelligence and deep insight as this one, the result is a special treat. Congratulations, this is a book to take people into the Light. Oh, and incidentally . . . I also am very connected with Mulberry!” Michael J. Roads, author of Talking with Nature and Journey into Nature

“Jen has given us a tremendous gift being the plant’s pencil. This intimate and profound guide for entering into relationship with our kin—the plants—will help anyone move into a deeper relationship, wherever they are in their plant journey. Reading this book will change you. Reading this book may save you.” Tammi Sweet, author of The Wholistic Healing Guide to Cannabis

“Some writers have the gift of storytelling—their words are conversational, intimate, and captivating. I felt my fairy godmother had me in her lap, winding the path of wisdom transformed into sensations, opening my eyes, the windows of my soul, to the deeply felt world of plants. Within this book you will read passages potent with analogies of truth. At last, solutions and hope in harmony with our ancestors.” Margi Flint, author of The Practicing Herbalist

“Brilliantly written from the heart, this book gives readers a series of exercises that open us to understanding what the plants want us to know. The author takes a subject that is often dismissed and makes it accessible and solid. Jen Frey let the plants speak through her, and now we only need to pay attention.” Tina Sams, author of The Big Book of Herbal Medicine

“There are special people sensitive enough to hear the conversations happening all around us between our green kin. The plants choose these folk to speak for them—to translate their meanings and intentions into words. Jen Frey is one of these people. She straddles both worlds and generously shares her ways of making those connections. A heartwarming book.” Mary Reynolds, founder of the global movement We Are the ARK and author of The Garden Awakening

“Communicating with Plants is a delightful package of heart-centered plant wisdom. Drawing on her years of experience, Jen shares her own authentic journey with plants and gives clear guidance to help us remember our ways of connecting with Nature. She combines her skills as a storyteller with practical exercises, describing how plants have taught her throughout her life and how we can all learn from their wisdom. Packed full of insights, information and pure love, this book carries the message of the plants and is a true gift to the world.” Carole Guyett, author of Sacred Plant Initiations

“With grace and an open heart Jen brings a message of healing––a gift directly from the plants. Each chapter of Communicating with Plants invites the reader to embark on an inner journey of discovery and renewal, guided by the plants themselves. The final result is an outpouring of joy and gratitude as the reader closes the book and steps into the world of nature with a new perspective.” Charis Lindrooth, a doctor of chiropractic, herbalist, and founder of BotanicWise

“Jen has gifted us with a beautiful invitation to experience plant spirit medicines growing right outside our doors. Her clear and insightful exercises guide the reader to deepen their relationship with not only plants but the world around us. Through each plant chapter, Jen distills teachings from her years of dedication and expertise—she shares more than meets the eye: just like the spirit world she has devoted her life to.” Kat Maier, author of Energetic Herbalism

Fascinating, informative, insightful, inspiring, Communicating with Plants: Heart-Based Practices for Connecting with Plant Spirits is an original, distinctive, and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library New Age Metaphysical Studies collections. For anyone with an interest in the subject of plants, herbal remedies and spiritual/metaphysical oriented self-help/self-improvement, Communicating with Plants: Heart-Based Practices for Connecting with Plant Spirits is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $16.99). Midwest Book Review

Spirituality/Herbalism

“Beautifully written, heartful, honest, and compelling, Communicating with Plants guides us into the deepest kind of relationship with plants, with nature, and with one another. I literally couldn’t put this book down. Every page holds treasures, insights, and a depth of plant wisdom that literally rocked my soul. The author has fostered and tended a lifelong love affair with the plant world, and in the most simple and elegant manner, she passes that love on to others. This book will light up your heart and the heart of the world. It is the kind of ‘herbal medicine’ that is needed now.”
–Rosememarary Gladstar, author of Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs:A Beginner’s Guide and coeditor of Planting the Future

Everyone has the ability to consciously communicate with Plants. Jen Frey shows that if we are willing to listen, we can hear the Plants speak to our Hearts and teach us how to heal. With the support of our Plant allies, we can be our truest selves and remember our intrinsic wholeness.

In this step-by-step guide, Frey shows how to awaken your ability to directly receive the unique wisdom and healing gifts of Plants. She describes how communicating with Plants is more like a communion than an exchange of words. The primary language we share with Plants is through the Heart, and Plant communication brings an expansion of Heart intelligence and emotional growth. She explains how the Plants help us overcome anxiety, grief, fears, and limiting beliefs and teach us to trust, forgive, embrace self-Love, and enjoy the sweetness of life.

Sharing teachings she has received from a variety of Plants, such as Yarrow, Mugwort, Maple, Dandelion, Poison Ivy, and Japanese Hops, Frey follows each Plant ally’s wisdom with a step-by-step activity or practice. She includes both native and invasive Plants because all Plant Spirits have valuable lessons to share. She concludes with Tulsi, showing how this Plant is essential to helping us recover our Sacred nature, especially in a time of great Earth changes.

With the wisdom of Plant Spirits, we can have support and guidance whenever we need it and live in co-creative partnership with Nature.

Jen Frey is a healer and mentor with more than 20 years of experience with Plant Essences, energy work, and herbal practices. The founder of Brigid’s Way and co-steward of Heart Springs Sanctuary, she has dedicated her life to the spiritual path of Plant work. She lives in Pennsylvania.