Eliot Cowan Quotes
• There is only one active ingredient in plant medicine – friendship. A plant spirit heals a patient as a favor to its friend-in-dreaming, the doctor.
• Shamans make friends of the spirits of nature and call upon them for help with everyday affairs.
• Plants have spirit… spirit is the strongest medicine. Spirit can heal the deepest reaches of the heart and soul.
• Nearly every culture on earth, except our own, respects dream learning as true learning.
• The key to this method is to get into the dream state of consciousness, keeping in mind what it is that you wish to learn or accomplish. The way you get into the dream state is incidental.
• “Am I making this up?” This is the question, the monster, faced by every Westerner who ventures into the world of dreams. There is only one way to subdue this monster – put the dream to the test and see if it works. If the magic of the wind tree can heal people, does it really matter whether I am making it up?
• It seems that plant spirit medicine keeps practicing me. • “Of course I will help you. My brothers and sisters will help you also. We are very happy to do this. In fact, we have been waiting for two hundred years for someone to ask us for this kind of help. We can do nothing unless we are asked.”
• If for a moment we could forget the quest for comfort and ask plants to help us find joy, richness and significance in life, is there any reason to suppose they would not share those qualities with us just as they have shared everything else?
• All things enjoy ecstatic union with nature.
• The most remarkable thing in this story is that the patient entered a “different state of consciousness.” This new consciousness enabled him to find healing in his dreams. It enabled him to re-enter the magical connection with nature that he had had in his youth. Inside that magic, life was once again worth living, and his body responded by rallying to fight his disease.
• Healing is not about whether you die. Healing is about how fully you live.
• Plant spirit medicine does not diagnose or treat illness.
• The practitioner of plant spirit medicine, in assessing which plants to use with a given person, pays no attention whatsoever to any symptoms that person may have.
• I felt he was there to give me something I needed.
• Some people are sensitive to these experiences and communicate them well. Others are less sensitive, less articulate. Many people probably never tell me about them because they don’t want me to think they are crazy. Nevertheless, I have heard many of these stories, and I now believe that everyone who is touched by the plant spirits gets some taste of magic and union with nature.
• Plants wish us well in every way. They can provide not only for our physical needs, but also for our heart and soul. They are perfectly willing to bring us into the blessings of their union with nature. But, as the plantain spirit told me, they can do nothing unless they are asked. I would add that we have to know the right questions and the right way to ask them.
• “Local herbs are not ten times stronger, not a hundred times stronger. Local herbs are one thousand times stronger than exotic ones!” Professor Worsley
• The connection with nature is exhilarating and beautiful, but it is not a luxury. Connection with nature is health; health is life. Without it we shrivel and die. With it we prosper. This is because we are nature, we are made of dirt, rain, sunshine, minerals, and gasses. How we relate to the landscape within is how we relate to the landscape without.
• In addition to dreaming and psychotropic substances, there is a third way of learning how to heal the spirit – the way of pilgrimage. Some locations are the home of tutelary spirits, and under the right circumstances a visit to one of these sacred sites can bring about a spiritual transformation.
• There are many ways to perform spiritual pilgrimage.
• The idea is to put yourself in a difficult or dangerous situation with no recourse other than the spiritual power you are courting.
• I think it is quite ethical to use the abandoned power places of tribal people. In fact, the spirits of such places are often lonely for human attention, since they achieve their own greatness by conferring greatness upon their devotees. One can use the dreaming method to contact the spirits of these places and ask how they would like to be approached.
• Pilgrimage is unreliable. You can do everything right according to the book and nothing may happen. If something does happen, you never know what it might be. We approach the spirits with some request only to find they have something else in mind for us. On the other hand, pilgrimage has this advantage: if you ever receive the grace of a spirit on one of these outings, your life will never be the same again.
• For a healer, the purpose of both pilgrimage and dreaming is to acquire medicine for the spirit. Spirit medicine comes from spirit itself; we don’t control it or even understand it. Humility is the way.
• If spirit ever asks you to do something to help someone, do it. If you do, a miracle will happen. If you don’t, you will spend the rest of your life wondering, “Am I making this up?”
