The Illustrated Herbiary
Page 7
What if your bones are ancient bedrock and your laugh the wild wind? What if you are not only an individual but the present incarnation in a long lineage?
Remember.
Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
How to Work with the Herbiary Cards
When you first download your cards (whol.st/illustrated-herbiary-cards), spend a few minutes getting acquainted. Allow your eyes and your mind to wander as you look at the pictures.
If you’re familiar with smudging (see Smudge), smudge with sage, palo santo, cedar, or sweetgrass as you set an intention for how you want to use your cards. You are beginning a relationship with your cards; open your heart and introduce yourself.
As you read through the Herbiary, you’ll notice that each plant holds a spectrum of energy. For instance, Apple speaks to us of knowledge. Knowledge in itself is neither good nor bad. Considering how knowledge is used begins to weave in moral implications. So Apple is both knowledge used for helping and knowledge used for harming. Always keep in mind the full range of each plant’s Medicine.
One-Card Draw
The simplest way to use your deck is to focus your mind on a particular topic or conundrum in your life and hold this thought as you shuffle the deck. When you feel ready, pick a card. While some people say to draw a card off the top of the deck, I think it’s just as useful to fan the cards and pull whichever one you’re drawn to.
You can also simply use a soft gaze to study the pictures, drawing the card that feels intuitively right for you to work with in this moment.
Drawing a card cracks open the door to the collective unconscious, the world of meanings and symbols, where you can gain a new way of approaching or thinking about aspects of your personality or circumstances of your life. I find it far more useful to think of the cards as illuminating (which acknowledges your free will and gives you room to pivot on your path) than prophesizing (which denies your ability to create many possible futures). Remember that these cards are merely a tool to help you tap in. Your own insights are as valuable as mine, so let your intuition sing!
Two Cards: The Crossing
A different way to approach the cards is to choose one card to represent you and then draw a card to see what’s crossing you.
The card that crosses you gives you insight into places where you might be stuck or perhaps to a situation that you’re not seeing clearly. It also might indicate where your thinking might be false or where the story you’re telling yourself needs to shift.
Four Cards: The Cycle
There are many other ways to work with your cards, and you can apply the principles used in tarot layouts to this deck, but the final method I’m going to talk about here is unique to Plant Medicine.
We’re going to lay the cards out in circle, like a compass or medicine wheel, with one card in each of the cardinal directions.
The Root card gives you insight into the beginnings of the situation you’re holding in your mind.
The Shoot card helps you understand what has grown from those beginnings.
The Flower card is the first bloom, the ephemeral beauty of the situation. Remember, flowers are lovely but passing, so this card could also indicate illusions you have about the situation.
The Fruit is your outcome — what will nourish you as you move forward and provide the seeds for the next beginning.
Each reading reflects what you need to know in the present moment. Change is constant; there is no one reading that lasts forever. Instead, use your cards to have an ongoing dialogue and deepening of your relationship with yourself and the world around you.
Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of earth’s greenings . . . . All nature is at the disposal of humankind. We are to work with it. For without nature we cannot survive.
Hildegard of Bingen
Download the printable Herbiary Cards at whol.st/illustrated-herbiary-cards
Thank-Yous
Immense gratitude to my many herbal teachers — even when I was knitting I was paying attention! Thanks also to all the plants who have filled my head and heart, especially Rose, who’s been a starting point and portal as I have bumbled about the green world.
Many thanks to Rosemary Gladstar, for paving the way for this creation, and to everyone at Storey Publishing: Deborah, for answering random messages and sharing really good chocolate; Carleen, for riding through a million iterations ’til we hit the right one; Jessica, for a gorgeous design; Alee and Sarah, for marketing consults; and all the Storey people I met in passing or not at all who worked hard to make this book a success.
Kate O’Hara: Your illustrations make this book. A thousand thank-yous.
Sending deep bows to Danielle LaPorte for a much-needed butt-kicking during a group coaching call and Professor Eric Rabkin at the University of Michigan for teaching me how to express a complete idea in one page or less. While neither of these folks knows me personally, this book wouldn’t be here without them.
The biggest love to:
All of my students — you’ve been my greatest mirror and my best teachers.
Jess, Shannon, and the Herbiary team for encouragement, sanity, and frivolity in equal measures.
Book Mama Linda Sivertsen and the entire Carmel gang, especially Suzanne Boothby and Taylor Dayne, for giving me the confidence to make this happen.
My gaggle of girlfriends who showed up in an ice storm on New Year’s Eve to get me through final edits — Rebecca, Katie, Paige, Emily, Mary Kay, Camille, and Olive.
Christine Kane, for the “come as you will be” party, which reminded me of my deep need to write and publish.
Brigit Esselmont and Nicole Cody, for years of crazy entrepreneurial friendship and getting me through the hard stuff of birthing this book.
Deb Geary, for delivering reality checks with a side of snark.
My parents, for believing and not believing (both helped me grow), my brother-in-law David, for making me live with the word “witch”; my sister Hillary, for trusting me to doctor her kids; and Talia, Ben, and Matan, for endless curiosity and willingness to try Aunt Maia’a potions.
All my heart and thanks always, Andrew, for creating space for me to succeed or fail and loving me the same either way.
Maia Toll is an herbalist, storyteller, folklorist, and women’s wisdom mentor. She opened her natural products shop, Herbiary (herbiary.com), after returning from a year-long apprenticeship with a traditional healer in Ireland. She is a registered herbalist with the American Herbalists Guild and teaches across the globe. You can find her latest writings, online classes, and information about her in-person retreats at maiatoll.com.
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