The Healing Spirit of Plants [Hardcover]

As an herbalist, I have been using herbs as medicine for several years. Dancing through my garden with snippers, merrily collecting herbs for my concoctions I felt that I was "in tune" with the plants and their healing properties. I was wrong. What I failed to understand is the energy and spirit of the plants that I collected. I thought I could run to my endless library of herbal literature and learn everything about the plants but what I failed to see was the spirit of the plants. The Healing Spirit of Plants is a guide to understanding and appreicating plants for more than their chemical constituents.

The book begins with an explantation of plant spirit medicine, how to interpret the energies, and how the energies interact with our energies through chakras and meridians. It continues with tips on how to work with the energy systems to increase your sensitivity and connect with plants.

From the theoritical to the practical, the book continues with an exploration of various ways to work with plant spirit medicine. Directions on how to make sacred bundles, use scents, flower remedies, and homeopathic medicine are just a few ways the book gives you to enhance your life with plants.

Historically, the book covers plant medicine around the world including, but not limited to, North and South America and Indonesia. This historic lesson gives the reader the backround of plant spirit medicine use throughout time and a connection with traditional healers.

A plant encyclopedia covers 80 species of plants and their spirit medicine use. Each covers the flower remedies, homeopathy, traditional use and myth. It also includes the scientific name (which I found missing in many pop herbal books) and the plant family.

A glossary, bibliography, and suppliers list completes the contents of this book.

So why is it three stars when I can't say enough about it? I need to know if they even asked an editor to review the information. I found tons of typos and even places where text is missing forcing me to "fill in the blanks" where gaps occured. It is a very sexy book, lots of bright photos, and I think it could have dropped some of the sexiness and put more time and detail into the actual text. The editing mistakes makes me question the credibility of the research. To be fair, I haven't found any misinformation but I haven't lived with the book for very long so we'll see.

All in all the book made me look at plants differently, which is what I was looking for in the book. It forced me to collect and use the plants with more ceremony and respect. Not just like a cheap over the counter drug but as a spirit with the potential to heal the disease and not just mask the symptoms.

This book has a lot of subjects with good pictures in it except does not complete any of the subjects that it covers. I love books with pictures, things to see and imagine easily. This book does an OK job presenting its pictures... I found a lot of the pictures seemed to just take up space then add anything constructive though, and there was quite a few of the pictures that are the same pictures used over. I gave it four books because this book is VERY ENJOYABLE. If you are only a dabbler in the subject of working with healing plants, or you just like to have a book with a lot of easy reading and some good pictures to add to an already good start of a collection then this book will work for you. The limitations of this book would make it horrible for the casual reader looking for information on purchasing a book on plants and thier healing value. The book is divided, half of it talks about just a little (very little on each of the following subjects) about history, healing topics to include chackras-auras, General plant knowledge, a few ways to prepare plants, ect. The other half of the book is the 'encyclopedia' of plants that has about a page for each plant.
Limitations: -The book covers about only 45 plants that commonly are known for their healing properties, some common and some less common. -it covers very LITTLE practical ways to use healing plants -it covers many topics a little with out any depth and with little practical use or ways to fit it in the big picture.
Benifits: -it includes regions and short histories of plants -it has many wonderful and very accurate and useful color pictures on subjects that I never thought would be in this book -the book is not overwhelming with writing... a lot of illistration and nothing written without illistration.
I personally wouldn't buy this book at full price, but you should be able to get a good price for it used.
Again I have to say that this book isn't for someone who is looking for a serious book to start from, because there are much better books for that, but If you still think this book is for you and you understand its limitations then you won't be disappointed.

Wisdom of the Earth, by Barry Kapp, goes into similar ideas. Amazon doesn't have it in stock, though. There Are No Incurable Diseases: Dr. Schulze's 30-Day Cleansing & Detoxification Program, School of Natural HealingHerbal Home Health Care, Herbal Healing for Women, Complete Medicinal Herbal (Natural care) can round this out, on the herbal side. For the Shamanic side, The Physics of Miracles: Tapping in to the Field of Consciousness Potential The Future Is Yours: Do Something About It! There is a Sufi story about moths, and the only moth that really understands the candle is the one who gives himself totally to the light, and the light gives itself to him. This applies to shamanic work. Shamanic techniques work from the larger self, especially in service to others. Shamanism means working with the subconscious, and at times superconscious minds. It cannot be apprehended by the conscious mind, the ego. Without service, many things just don't work, or work only slightly. Whispers of the Ancients: Native Tales for Teaching and Healing in Our Time gives you some idea of how very different native storytelling is, and stories shape the Universe. Indigenous life, for which these techniques go hand in glove, can be approximated from Journey to the Ancestral Self: The Native Lifeway Guide to Living in Harmony With Earth Mother, Book 1 (Bk.1) These are very good basic books, to getting out of the box of Western culture, into the much more fascinating 7 worlds of the spiritual traveller. Wong Kiew Kit's books on Chi Kung show how ideas like this survive in Chinese culture, and Chinese Herbal medicine has aspects very similar to these. Joseph Murphy The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (Revised) can help in understanding this. Healing For The Millions, by King, would also help.