Devil's Club: Fiercely Loving Protection
Have you met Devil’s Club (Oplopanax horridus) before?
This empowered, fiercely-loving, protective, deeply-rooted yet graceful being-of-light who is not afraid of the dark places?
He is a beacon of love, emanating peace, and yet operates from fierce love, commanding a certain presence within us. He helps us stand in an empowered place.
On Monday we sat with the spirit of Devil’s club in the Circle of Interbeing.
(The Circle of Interbeing is a private monthly circle for those who’ve participated in any of my longer offerings. A place for folks to be supported and practice the experience of interbeing with the plants and other earth-beings).
Devil’s club came in intense and powerful fashion (as to be expected) and brought some incredible excavation and illumination of old traumas and conditionings that were needing to shift and release.
What everyone felt most consistently and powerfully was a fierce and loving protection. The circle felt so held (his leaves like angel wings protecting her, one person felt). Held enough to face what needed to be released (a lot of ancestral conditioning and trauma).
What I so appreciate about working with plant spirt medicine is that the plants never force anything on us.
They reveal what needs to be revealed when we’re ready. And they hold us lovingly in a space to be able to see what needs to be seen.
Yes, it can be intense. And yes it can be life-changing.
And it always comes from a deep place of love, for the healing and whole-ing of ourselves in order to stand in alignment with our own divinity within. In order to be more earthling, as we remember our belonging within the earth-community.
Devil’s club has been a primary guide of mine for over 10 years now, a plant that has turned into a sort of business coach for me, for lack of a better word. He continues to help me orient my business, again and again and again, to the upswelling creative force of the earth. The slower pace, the lack of rush. Away from the conditioning of always needing to be “on,” and into a place of moving with my own cycles and the cycles of Earth. (Still a work in progress!)
The plants, Devil’s Club being a primary one, also helped guide me in the dreaming and creation of the Golden Stone Wisdom School. They helped me deliberately craft this weaving of embodied knowing, energy wisdom, earth medicine, and seasonal healing into one 6-month offering.
The plants want us to heal. They want us to remember our wholeness. They want us to remember our embodied empowerment. They need us, just as we need them. And they are here for our awakening.
Are you interested in being a part of this embodied earth awakening?
I'm so excited to announce that applications are now open for this round of Golden Stone Wisdom School!! (Fall Equinox '23 - Spring Equinox '24)
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