Cannabis & Spirituality: The Energetics of Healing with Plant Consciousness

CANNABIS & SPIRITUALITY: THE ENERGETICS OF HEALING WITH PLANT CONSCIOUSNESS

UNI | Gabriela Parada | June 21, 2023

DRAFT FOR REVIEW, NOT PUBLISHED

Automatically transcribed from the original audio, paragraph-formatted and compared in three audio segments. Not independently word-for-word verified. One uncertain phrase is marked in brackets. Original spoken views preserved; not medical guidance. References to a July workshop, discount code and 20-minute introductory call are historical, not current offers.

My intention with this episode today is to inspire a curiosity of intuitive communication with plants, particularly with cannabis, but also a intuitive curiosity about plant intelligence in general. And I think when we begin to talk about plant spirit as medicine, we start to tap into the intricate ways in which we are a part of the ecosystem and the ecosystem helps us and assists us when we are in recognition of the divinity within all organic creation.

I believe that we are all in some way, shape or form feeling the tug of the earth on our hearts and we are awakening to greater and greater connection and communication to the earth and her inhabitants, particularly plants, as I'll be discussing today, specifically cannabis spirit. And this intuitive connection to nature, connection to plants is something that we all have in common. And even if we might feel really far away from that or that that is not available to us, it's within us.

When I've communicated with benevolent cannabis flower, she has told me that she feels suffocated in the current way that we are seeing and using and abusing cannabis. And it's like her healing abilities have been trapped and usurped and instead of being able to flourish and provide spiritual insight, she's being almost like inverted and manipulated.

And the way I see that more in a more grounded way is you know, we've enslaved the plant through how much we've commodified it and we've put it into this capitalistic wheel and this GMO wheel too of like making stronger potencies and like crossbreeding it so much and just you know, we're doing it in a way that isn't even with the plant spirit. Like we're not even asking for permission or partnership. We're just doing it and making money with it and using cannabis to escape or for hedonism or gluttony, kind of just constantly using it in a selfish way.

And plant medicines are really, really, really meant to assist us in sinking further into the earth's flow. And so what I mean by that is that plant medicines, part of the relationship with the medicine is that we receive insight, we receive growth, we receive evolution and awareness and healing. And what the plant receives is a gratitude and a further connection, further embodied connection, further intuitive connection to the earth so that we feel what the trees feel, we feel what the soil feels, we recognize ourselves in the movements and the changes of the earth so that we can be better partners and better children of the earth.

And when we are taking a plant like cannabis with such a high spiritual potential and we are suppressing its ceremonial capabilities, we're suppressing its intelligence and instead are using it just for these more selfish reasons, more passive reasons, we are in a sense suffocating the plant spirit because she can't fully bloom, she can't be fully expressed.

If you can imagine like with another person in an abusive relationship, there's one person manipulating and usurping the other person's energy or like blocking or putting down the other person's authenticity. And in a way, that's kind of what we're doing with cannabis right now.

And so this conversation is meant to begin that remembrance of cannabis as spiritual medicine, of cannabis as a spiritual ally. So we're going to dive into that a little bit today. And I'll also talk about a workshop that I'm hosting. It's called Cannabis and Spirituality and it's taking place on a weekend in July. So it's a two-part workshop. Each part will be between 90 minutes and 2 hours. And we'll be going into the details of some of the topics that I'll be talking about today.

But before I get into that, I want to let you know where my perspective comes from. So I've been a shamanic student and shamanic practitioner for the last 4 years. So my perspective comes from a synthesis of what I've learned and of course my own experience with cannabis medicine and other plant medicines and mushroom medicines, as well as shamanic journeying, which is experiencing altered states of consciousness through the sound of a drum. It's something that we will also be exploring at the workshop.

So what I think is lacking in the public sphere right now in terms of cannabis is a reverence for cannabis. You know, I imagine like what if more people worked with cannabis in a in a ceremonial way, in a way that is heart-open, intuitive, in accordance with earth-based traditions, seeking spiritual medicine instead of the current way which we use cannabis, which you know, outside of the context of physical medicine, say for cancer patients, we're really just using it for escapism or the way we would use alcohol or for more selfish pleasure.

And not that there's anything wrong with having a casual experience with cannabis, when that becomes the only bar, that's like when that's like the only expectation, there's an abuse of power there. And then we are then just taking and taking and taking and we're not giving back.

The medicine of nature and plants is very synergistic. So it's about coming into partnership and coming into a conscious union with the plant. And this is something that I believe is underlooked when working with cannabis, particularly when there are people who are using it every day and they've built a really high tolerance so that they can use it and go to work or you know, function day-to-day, at least in terms of what society, you know, the superficial way that society views functioning, which is basically working.

And we don't realize that we are allowing a plant to possess us when we are not working ceremonially. And we are merging in ways that are not unmerged. So if you're using cannabis every day, you're not allowing enough time between you and the plant to soak in your own energy and your own authentic fingerprint, so to speak.

So what I'll be talking about at this workshop that I'm hosting in part is the energetics of working with plant spirits, particularly benevolent plant spirits. And that's the differentiation that comes from a shamanic point of view, an indigenous point of view where we acknowledge that plants are multidimensional. And when we are invoking and working with plants in ritual and ceremony or just unconsciously, we're invoking whether we like it or not. And so we want to invoke benevolence and goodness and high healing and wisdom. When we are not aware of that, we are opening ourselves up to energies, whether directly from the plant spirit or elsewhere, you know, sneaky energies that we may not want to work with. So that's a very important distinction to make.

But back to my point, so back to what I was saying in terms of not allowing enough time between cannabis use, so you know, if you're always using the plant, imbibing the plant, you are essentially allowing yourself to be possessed by the spirit of the plant. And the lines between who are you and who is the plant and the spirits around the plant is mushed. It's completely blurred.

So it's really hard and you could almost say impossible to get to know yourself and live as your authentic self when you are constantly ingesting a plant of that potency, the potency of cannabis, particularly when it's what I'm talking about the whole flower, so the THC, the CBD, etc. I'm not talking just about extracting CBD. When we are doing that, we are losing ourselves in the plant.

And so one of the first things that I would love for people to understand is that we need our own time away from the plant and that's a way that we respect the plant. So if you want to respect plants, we need to respect when it is appropriate to work with them or not. And that requires temperance and patience and discipline. It requires respect and also yeah, respect for yourself and respect for the plant.

And an easy, grounded way to understand this is to think of plants as people and the way that you interact and communicate with people. This allows us to personify the plant in a way that is relatable to us. And while we don't want to apply our humanness completely to the plant realm because the plant spirits have a different, you could say like a different set of ethics and consciousness, they have a different consciousness than human consciousness, so it's not something that completely applies. But from a high-level point of view, when it comes to beginning to learn how to communicate with plants, something that is helpful is seeing them as friends. So you might hear people using the term plant ally. So that's where that term comes from, is you know, a friend, a kinship, a relationship with a plant spirit.

So when we look at cannabis flower that way, so if you think she's a friend, you invite her to hang out, you're hanging out all day, you have a sleepover next day, you're hanging out all day, you have another sleepover, you do this, you do that over and over and over and over again. You have things to do, they go with you, this friend goes with you to run errands, you have to go to the grocery store, this friend is with you, you have to go to the bathroom, this friend is with you.

We would easily see that this would be a unhealthy relationship with a friend if you are constantly attached at the hip in a way that is never separated and allows for zero alone time. And you know, we need our alone time to varying degrees for contemplation, for silence, for being in our own energy field. When we look at a plant this way, we can start to see how we might be abusing the relationship and how we are not allowing ourselves enough alone time to integrate and to receive the insight that this medicine has to offer.

And from a plant spirit point of view, you know, consciousness, all consciousness wants to create and live and reproduce and go on and on. You know, life wants to continue. And so a plant spirit will continue to work with you as much as you allow. So you have to put up boundaries and you have to communicate your needs to the plant in a way, the most obvious physical way is by not imbibing, right?

And this becomes more subtle the more that we start to work with a plant spirit realm because we don't always need to imbibe in order to connect to plant spirit.

And this workshop actually is without imbibing, so we're not actually consuming the plant. And the reason for that is because I want us to resensitize to the plant spirit realm. I want us to resensitize to the medicine and the benevolent spirit of cannabis. I want us to resensitize to this information that we all have in our blood and our tissues and our bones from our lineage as people of the earth.

And we can't feel into that if we're constantly applying and consuming and grabbing onto things. And we need we need that space, you know, we need that sobriety. And you know, I'm using that word in a very general sense, in more ways than one. We need that clarity in order to have the discernment. And once we have that clear discernment, you know, once we light up those pathways, we're able to step into that journey with cannabis in a way that is much more mindful and conscious and aware, whereas you know, going straight into consuming cannabis and then learning about cannabis, you're already entering in a more gross way, using that term in terms of like density, so in a more dense way. And so if we can enter that path in a more subtle way, in an energetic and intuitive way, we can start to light up those pathways that light up our intuition and light up the way that we communicate with plants.

Another thing that I want to cover during the workshop is really helping you, assisting you connect to cannabis spirit in your intuitive way. And so I'm going to offer ways that have worked with me, ways from a shamanic point of view where that might assist you. But ultimately we want to talk about sovereignty and we want to talk about authenticity and intuition because you're going to have your own language with plants. You're going to have your own flavor and your own relationship.

And so a lot of times what's common in the herbalist realm, the plant realm in terms of workshops and teachers and you know, even traditions, you will hear people telling you what the qualities of the plant are. And that's important because it does assist us in leaning into listening to the plant and kind of noticing certain themes and patterns.

However, I think that there's a lack of conversation around your relationship with any given plant is going to be your relationship and that's going to be unique and special to you. And while benevolent cannabis spirit might present a certain way to me, a way that you know, might be seen in when we look at patterns across what other people experience, that doesn't mean that that's how it's going to show up for you. And so we want to encourage our own intuition and encourage our own remembrance of what the medicine what the medicine wants to say to us and how the medicine wants to work with us. And that applies to all plants.

Something else that's important to consider when we work in this energetic, spiritual way, we want to acknowledge that we are co-creating. And so while we might merge with the plant spirit when we are imbibing or when we are in ceremony, when there is an intention there, we want to know how to unmerge and we want to we want to remember that we are partnering with plants, that we are working with plants and that we're not worshiping the plants.

So when we get attached to anything that is outside of us, when there's an imbalance there, we open ourselves up to entities and energies, thoughts, behaviors, patterns, experiences that might not be in our best interest. So there's energetically something that opens when we are giving ourselves up to something outside of us.

And so we always want to make sure that we're pointing inward, that we're going within, that we're connecting with God within the heart, with oneness, with the creator, the wisdom, the universe, the truth inside of you. And so you want to go in and in and in and in.

We can do that and work with plant spirits and we honor the oneness, you know, we honor God, we honor the universe, source when we are honoring individual plants, when we are honoring individual animal spirits, when we are honoring each other. So working with a particular plant spirit should be a part of a you know, considerate part of an ecosystem, of a web. But we don't want to assume that the plant is the web itself, if that makes sense.

When we start to do that, we tend to open up ourselves to possessive energies and whether it be of the plant itself or of something else because there's an imbalance there, there's a disembodiment there. So our spirit, our energy starts to go outside of us, outside of our body and our energy field. And we create these vacancies, so to speak, where we're not there. And so if we're not there, if we're not paying attention there, if we're not living as ourselves, then we are empty in a way that is not the great Buddhist way, but empty in a way that is unconscious or soulless.

And I'll dive into that with a little more clarity and a little more precision when we talk about it at the workshop. But I just want to plant that seed so that you are aware of that and consider that.

So at the beginning of the episode, I talked a little bit about what I see in terms of people over-relying on the plant and consuming the plant in a very addictive way, in an abusive way.

The other thing that I see is I think that there are some people that would benefit [unclear: to/from the plant] if they were able to get past a past bad experience, so a bad trip or the assumption of paranoia.

The main thing that I think people are avoiding is the anxiety that can sometimes be experienced with cannabis and the reason that we experience that, one, we're using it without intention. So even the word use, right? We're not even working with the plant, we're using the plant. So there's no intention, there's no acknowledgement of medicine of the plant, it's just ingesting for having a good time or watching a movie or being at a festival. It's very selfish. There's no communion or yeah, there's no partnership, there's no acknowledgement of a intelligence that you're working with. So right off the bat, that's not going to you know, that's a crapshoot, right? You don't know if you're going to have a good trip or a bad trip because you're not setting an intention.

Plant medicines like this were intended to be used with some sort of ceremony, some sort of ritual, at least an intention. You know, there's a direction that we need to apply to these intelligences. This is a highly intelligent medicine. And we can't expect that we just consume the plant and it's going to be great.

There's a co-creation with the plant where we are driving the car and the plant is in the passenger seat. Versus what I see in these instances is the person has given away the car to cannabis spirit. They're not even invoking the benevolence of the plant. So they've just given over the car and they're along for the ride. And so that will just you know, like I said, it's a crapshoot.

And what we've forgotten is that we can co-create with the plant. And we can when we set an intention, it's an anchor and a path for the plant's intelligence to work with you.

Another part of this common paranoia, anxiety symptom is there's a lack of awareness around how somatic cannabis is. So one of cannabis's medicines is that she helps us see different perspectives and different timelines. And so if we are not aware of that, we are shooting our consciousness and our presence all over the place and we are living those timelines and are kind of at the mercy of those inner thoughts and inner experiences without coming back into the present and grounding.

So grounding techniques are crucial to working with cannabis and we'll talk about that at the workshop.

Another thing is if you don't have a mindfulness practice, working with plant medicines is not going to be the best thing for you because if you're already not present day-to-day and you're not aware of how to be present day-to-day, it's not going to be conducive to working with plant medicines. So I always suggest having a mindfulness practice in partnership with any plant medicines. So if you are going to be a psychonaut or an experimenter, consider a mindfulness practice as a daily practice.

And the last thing that I'll mention on this topic is one of benevolent cannabis spirit's medicines is her somatic healing. So she will help you feel in the body so that you can release it.

And so when you are working with the plant in a conscious way, we can breathe into those spots where we are feeling emotions, we can bring awareness and there's an alchemical healing that happens with the plant. And so she'll help us feel, she'll help us see things that we're not looking at. So she has a very high potential for transformation for us, for inner transformation.

And we often only think of ayahuasca or peyote or psilocybin, etc., etc. when it comes to ceremonial plant medicines. And we forget that cannabis is such a potent healer.

And so this conversation is meant to inspire that and also this workshop is meant to set us on that trajectory.

So if this sparks any interest or any resonance with you at all, I invite you to join me.

I also host one-on-one cannabis ceremonies. So in these ceremonies, unlike the workshop, we will actually be imbibing. So you will be consuming the plant in a way that makes sense for you. And I hold space for you to have a medicine journey with the plant.

And this work isn't for everyone, so that's why you can't book directly on my site. You have to book a 20-minute introductory call and it's just to see if there is resonance between you and me as a shamanic practitioner and to feel into whether or not a ceremony like that will be of assistance to you. So it's both intuitive for you and intuitive for myself as well.

In regards to the workshop, there's a discount code that goes out to our newsletter. So you can sign up for our email newsletter.

I will leave you with something gentle. Encourage the subtleties, encourage subtle ways to work with cannabis. What if you worked with benevolent cannabis spirit through only CBD? Or what if you lit cannabis flower as if it was sage and just enjoyed the scent and the fragrance and the smoke, the clearing smoke?

We are all highly intuitive and when we partner with plants in this way that is acknowledging their intelligence and their wisdom, we can really transform and evolve in a way that is healing for the heart, healing for each other and in accordance with the oneness that is this planet, this earth and organic nature.

Source: https://anchor.fm/s/f560da74/podcast/rss