Using Herbs Instead of Crystals

Did you know you can work with herbs and plants in the same way as you work with crystals?

If you have grown the herbs you use, you have an even stronger connection to them and the land they’re from, especially when you connect with them and ask before you take them, make offerings, and leave something in return.

Here are some ways to work with herbs like crystals:

🌿 You can work with the spirit of the plant in journeying/meditation, call on the spirit and ask it to share its wisdom with you. There are many teachers that offer Plant Spirit Medicine training.

🌿 Use fresh herbs on chakra points, working with their energetic properties and correspondences. Dry and burn the herbs after using afterwards or return to the earth for composting.

🌿 Create grids with herbs for specific intentions such as healing and manifestations. Rosemary and sage used above on a drum with the intention of healing – cleansing, grounding, protecting.

🌿 Invoke the spirit of the herb for a Reiki session to work with the energy and properties. You can have pots of the growing plant or herb around you in your healing space for this purpose.

🌿Inhale fresh herbs* or add to the water in oil burners instead of essential oil or simmer them for their aroma

🌿Drink them if appropriate* (*always do your research, plants are powerful with many contraindications especially around pregnancy and other medications and allergies)

🌿Dry them to use as cleansing incense (see my previous post about using local, native alternatives to white sage)

🌿Create room/aura cleansing sprays with homegrown herbs. (Infuse dried herbs in alcohol or water and create a spray mix, usually half alcohol (to preserve) and half distilled water. Leave your infusions or bottles out out under full moonlight etc for extra correspondences and potency!

Rosemary is an amazing herb to work with. Its smoke is pure and sweet and cleanses, protects and purifies. It’s connected to the fire element and so the heart and solar plexus chakras.

It’s also famed for improving memory and clarity so works well with the third eye and can be used when you need to come back to yourself, your centre, and remember your interconnections and purpose.

One of the reasons I prefer to work with native herbs rather than crystals is that, although beautiful and potent, crystals are usually unceremoniously blasted from the Earth using questionable labour and methods that impact the environment and damage the natural beauty of the Earth. They then have a huge carbon footprint as they are flown round the world to meet demand.

Working with our beautiful, native herbs builds our reciprocal relationship with the natural world and strengthens our sense of interconnection, intuition and insight.

Have you ever working with herbs in this way?

I will often work with herbs in my Shamanic Reiki Drum sessions.