Numen: The Healing Power of Plants

Let's face it, herbalists are lucky. We get to interact with plants and people in a very special way, one that emphasizes an age-old evolutionary connection between the two. This was recently brought home to me, yet again, sitting in circle with a group of herbalists, on a warm October day, after harvesting a bunch of excellent roots. We spent time giving thanks to the land, to the plants, and to the gatherers' hands. We spent time just participating in a moment of deep animal-vegetable relationship, one which humans must have experienced over and over again in the course of our long journey.