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Month: July 2019
Illuminations, Words For Hard Times July 17, 2019July 24, 2019

You Are Allowed To Cultivate Peace

Every day I hike up the shady ridge above my home. A welcome respite from the sun, halfway up the steep gravel, a small spring comes bubbling

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[wool-gath-er-ing] v.

daydreaming, the gathering of thoughts and dreams as one might collect fallen tufts of wool

[wild-craft-ing] v.

the harvesting of herb, root, flower or inspiration from the wilds



Asia Suler is a writer, teacher, medicine maker and seeker who lives in the blue folds of the southern Appalachian mountains. Woolgathering and Wildcrafting is her grass-stained journal from the hillsides of the living world. It’s full of recipes, musings, plant monographs and poetics. So grab a cup of tea and come on in for a spell. Open up to a page in this shared tome to find a hand-pressed flower, words of comfort, or a small glen of inspiration for your day. Visit Asia’s online classes for more.

Paths through the Wood

  • Illuminations
  • Plant Stories
  • Words for Hard Times
  • Nourishment
  • The Otherworld
  • Mineral Medicine
  • Sacred Entrepreneurship 
  • Travelogues
  • Seasonal Celebration
    • Winter
    • Spring
    • Summer
    • Fall


Further streams

When you claim what brings you alive, you remember When you claim what brings you alive, you remember your reason for being alive. In tough times we can sometimes lose sight of why we are here, or what we truly have to give. Seeking what enlivens your spirit is how you enter back into your sacred contract with the very life-force that animates this world. Joy is the feeling of a soul recommitting to its mission. When you tend to what makes you feel alive, you not only safeguard your hope for the future— you create a future that we all can look forward to seeing unfurl. Your passions, your interests, those sparks that re-ignite your interest in life serve a sacred purpose. Like a comet circling the atmosphere, they are here to point you in the direction of wonder and hope, the path of healing you were meant to walk in this life. So what is it that brings you alive? What makes your days worth living? 💫 What things do you look forward to that keep the spark within you alive?
If you want to see a well world where all of life If you want to see a well world where all of life is honored again, honor what brings you alive. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ If we want to see animism return to this planet— the belief that we live in a world of sentient beings, each filled with their own life-force and wisdom— we must first honor that which animates our own hearts and minds. Our bodies— their limits, their wonder, their joy— are an expression of the Earth’s divinely creative force. We are flowers blooming at dawn and mushrooms rising after rain. We *are* the Earth, and the ways in which we take care of ourselves, and the animacy within, is integral to learning how to tend to the life-force of the whole world again.
It’s been a hard year for us humans. In the mids It’s been a hard year for us humans. In the midst of such monumental times, it can feel like seeking joy, sourcing inner-peace, and connecting to what helps you feel alive is self-centered or unimportant. But if you listen closely to the sunsets and sunrises, the wood thrushes and the singing of the creek, you will hear a different story entirely. This Earth wants us to find and relish what it is that brings us alive, because it is only when we honor this spark within that we can become hearth-tenders for the miracle of life.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ In the mystic Jewish tradition of the Kabbalah it’s said that, in the beginning, the Divine fashioned vessels to hold the essence of life. During the creation of the universe, some of these vessels shattered, scattering droplets of the divine everywhere. As a result, each one of us holds within us a drop of the divine— on loan from Source itself. Like the wick of an oil lamp, our job is to take care of this essence while it is lit within us. Our bodies— their limits, their wonder, their joy— are an expression of the Earth’s divinely creative force. We are flowers blooming at dawn and mushrooms rising after rain. We are the Earth, and the ways in which we take care of ourselves, and the animacy within, is integral to learning how to tend to the life-force of the whole world again.
During the seeming urgency of transformational tim During the seeming urgency of transformational times it can feel like going slow, touching into pleasure, and prioritizing the needs of your spirit are at odds with all the million things that are being asked of you. The earthen wick of the divine within us, however, will remind us that the exact opposite is true. Not only are you allowed to cultivate the things that make you feel alive, it is necessary for all the healing the Earth is initiating now.
Last summer I took a few days off to go camping in Last summer I took a few days off to go camping in the backcountry at one of my holy places. After a day of trekking I got to the summit of my destination and was so weary I could barely lower myself to the ground, but for all the challenges of the hike, I couldn’t help but smile. The sun was going down, birdsong was meeting the crackling fire of the sky and I was alive. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Before I knew the term “animism”— the idea that we live in a world of sentient beings, each filled with their own life-force and wisdom— I just called this perspective “the way things are.” This world is alive, and when I touch that energy, I am enlivened. I didn’t have the words, I just knew that I was lit up by waterfalls, resurrected by mountain pinnacles, comforted by the brush tips of fir needles and rescued by dips in cold water. I didn’t have the terminology, but I understood that this way of seeing not only saved me, it had the potential to save the world. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ In a world where people recognize the inherent, sentient miracle of life, racism, capitalism, and oppression dissolve. In a worldview where rivers have rights and trees are your elders, there is no framework for things like human hierarchy, narcissism or exploitation, these ills simply compost and return to the soil. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Those of us who plant flowers and make tea, who talk to animals or advocate for the climate, ache to see this animist perspective take root in the collective psyche again— because we understand exactly what is at stake. But we sometimes get so tangled up in the challenges of this revolutionary time, that we forget the most basic tenant of animism— if you want to see a world where all of life is honored again, you must first honor what brings you alive.
House Plants are people too. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ House Plants are people too. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Sometimes I see this hierarchy in the realm of plant medicine, this idea that unless you are out in a pristine wilderness space your connection to plants simply won’t be that “spiritual.” And while it’s definitely important to harvest plants from clean areas when making medicine, the idea that we have to be in the national forest in order to have profoundly meaningful connections with plants is hogwash. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ One of the most important steps on my plant journey came when I was living in New York City. I worked as a “plant technician,” taking care of people’s office plants in midtown Manhattan. Even though Times square is literally one of the most energetically overwhelming places on earth, I found my solace, my peace, my self just by being with those office plants. Seriously. I would often hide in empty offices with the neglected plants (the ones they put in unused boardrooms because they didn’t look as “good”). Over time I began to feel these plants so deeply, that every time I opened the door to visit them I experienced this wave of love and appreciation that nearly knocked me off my feet! To feel embraced, comforted even, by an isolated office plant on the fiftieth story of a financial building in midtown Manhattan rewrote everything I knew about nature connection. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Having access to pristine wilderness spaces is a privilege, and one that fewer and fewer of us are able to experience on a daily basis. But this is why house plants, the dandelions growing up in the cracks of the sidewalks, or the fig tree planted outside of an old tenement building are absolutely powerhouse communicators. They are not a “second-best” option, they are the life blood of where this revolution of coming back into relationship with the natural world is happening.
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