Plant medicine integration: What is being integrated with what? 🌱

By Lian Brook-Tyler

I sat with a man recently who had sat with ayahausca… We were in the work of integration.

You may know that after a ceremony with a teacher plant it’s considered wise to consciously integrate what occurred.

Psychedelics create entropy, they open things up and breaks things down, integration is the work of bringing them back together in a new and healthier way.

And even though he had my help to do that, I knew it was a drop in the ocean, a vital drop but still just a drop, of our unintegrated culture.

The meaning of integration is to bring together parts to form a whole, and the word itself comes from the Latin word for ‘whole’.

But I’m not sure we understand what wholeness for humans really means.

We believe we can be whole as separate individuals, when for most of our history, that notion would have been considered absolute nonsense.

Wholeness is the bringing together of humans, animals, plants, the land, the elements, spirits, the moon, the sun, the stars, the Divine.

Yes, we can move towards wholeness within ourselves, I couldn’t be a stronger proponent of that, it’s essential for healing, maturation, and individuation, and yet… If we dismiss the true wholeness that’s our human heritage, we won’t get very far.

So yes, sit with the medicine if that’s what’s aligned for you to do, and sit with your therapist or guide to integrate, but also…

Sit with the land

Make offerings

Honour your ancestors

Praise the plants

Serve your community

Care for the creatures

Grieve the felling of the tree

Sing for the spirits

Love the children

Observe the seasons

Ask for help

Bless the broken body of the road kill squirrel

Pray

And as you do, you might know the meaning of the wholeness that is your birthright.

♥️

Rattle made with reverence by Rhonda McCrimmon

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