Insight Herbalism
The core of my work as an Insight Herbalist is the knowing that each of us already holds the truth of our wholeness within ourselves. It is the recognition of nature as place of reflection and contemplation, something that we are not separate from; a continuum of life. When we are open to plants as living beings they can guide us into recognising this insight and intuition. It is a catalyst for transformation.
“Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.”
Lost - David Wagoner, Poet
What to expect:
A space to stop, slow down, be seen, heard and nurtured. To be met in the fullness of who you are, with what is taking place in your life, to find integration and wholeness.
I love my sessions with Emily. She has walked beside me through my journey with breast cancer treatment and recovery. Her work has revealed my self to myself and the deeper layers that underlie my illness and disease.
Emily works differently from other herbalists I have seen: she creates a space where she listens to me very deeply and, using her highly-tuned intuition, she brings just one plant into that space for me to meet and interact with. This meeting of me + plant + Emily always reveals some deeper truths about the situation I am currently in. Sometimes I choose to meet with the plant at home afterwards; sometimes not.
Emily also usually includes some bodywork in the session, which I experience as profoundly gentle, restful and relaxing, whilst also bringing deep insights.
I experience Emily as totally accepting of me as I am on the day, non-judgemental and genuinely interested in who I am becoming and my own healing journey.
Sessions will last between 60-90 minutes giving space for the deepening of what is taking place to unfold. We will nearly always begin with Rose, before introducing other plants.
The number of sessions we go on to have will vary from person to person, but I generally ask for a commitment of 3 sessions to begin with to allow a process to unfold.
I recommend a gap of between two weeks and a month between each session to allow for integration. I may also offer ways of working with the plant or connecting to nature between sessions, as well as offering recorded meditations for you to deepen with.
Insight Herbalism is not about diagnosing or treating medical conditions. It is about seeing the plants as access points into your own enquiry, which wholly includes any medical diagnosis you may be going through. Each plant has a different message and a different medicine to offer you. This may include working with the plants on symptomatic level. Ultimately it is about rediscovering or deepening your connection to nature, and thus rediscovering or deepening your connection to yourself.
There is subtly and potency of working with plants in this way. We discover them to be allies; once we befriend and get to know them they support us in a multitude of ways. In the fast paced modern world it is gift to have the opportunity to slow down, reconnect with nature and rediscover our path when we may begin to feel lost.
After a relationship with a plant has been established this experience is within us and can be drawn upon at anytime that we may need it.
Often our world view of conventional medicine and complementary models of healing work in polarisation with each other. One or the other (depending on what your world view is) deems itself to be more superior or more long lasting that the other. How I work as an Insight Herbalist does not work in this way. I know from clinical practice, and personal experience that herbalism and allopathic medicine can work hand in hand. Session with me can, and do work alongside more traditional models of medicine and healing.
