A Year Post Plant Medicine
3 min. reading time | This ritual in writing contains affiliate links, if you make a qualifying purchase using one of these links I may be paid a commission at no expense to you.
This week officially makes it one year since I took the oh, so adventurous step to experience plant medicine. I shared more about my plant medicine journey here, in case you want to read it.
One thing I can say looking back at the last year is the plant medicine has definitely supported me in my journey of clarifying how I want to show up in the world and what I wanted to bring forth, even if it came about in ways I was not prepared for. The biggest lesson I got from it was to let go of the things that were not serving my soul and trust what I know.
Last year, my family and I took the steps to move onto our ancestral land and begin cultivating it in large part because I was guided to do so during my plant medicine journey. Cultivating this land felt like one setback after another and all of the folks we considered family and a part of our village began to fall away. And not quietly. Some went away loudly, some went away after engaging in the legal court process, and then some we just never heard from again. Either way what was clear was who would stay and remain a part of our lives and who or what would not. We lost more than half of our original flock of chickens, we lost all of our rabbits, and majority if not all of our equipment we purchased over the year prior as we were preparing to homestead after selling our previous house. As these relationships crumbled or faded away and as we continued to experience loss of our livestock, the plant medicine invited me to continue to be in regular ritual and to be present with the grief I was holding.
Sheesh, I was holding so much grief. As I was exploring my grief and releasing, I was being held and supported by my ancestors and began to really engage even more with them and their presence in my life. I still ask myself the question the plant medicine has asked me when I feel uncertain about what it is I actually want. Kennae, “what does your soul say?” And I take action or not based on the answer to that question.
A year later, clarity has come to me regarding why I felt so deeply connected to the plant medicine as an ancestor. I received my Patriclan African Ancestry back and my paternal ancestry is native to Gabon, one of the few places where this plant medicine is found. I already knew my paternal side is Gullah Geechee but didn’t know they originated from Gabon. I set my intention to travel this year (2023) to the Motherland and go home to Gabon to be initiated in the plant medicine because it specifically will benefit the people here that are the focus and center of my healing work.
Would I recommend trying this plant medicine? Yes, if you are truly committed to your healing and continuing your healing journey forward or connecting with your ancestors. But I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone unwilling to face themselves or do their work on their healing journey because the wisdom of this ancestor will not reveal much if you don’t. If you are interested in supporting my journey to travel back to Gabon and become initiated, you can donate. If you are interested in experiencing your own journey with this plant medicine, you can check out the offerings by the facilitators I journeyed with Ashana and David O’Brian at Iboga Works.