Quotes from Robin Rose Bennett

Your immune systems are comprised of all parts of the eco-system you know as yourself, and include not only every part of you, from your conscious and subconscious thoughts to your physical body systems, but also how you live and function in relationship with the larger ecosystems that surround you.

If ever there was a plant that speaks to its connection to your heart, it is sweet blue violet. Not only does violet help your body dissolve cysts, lumps, and bumps, this plant's soothing nature can help you dissolve the red-hot burn of anger, cool the draining white heat of frustration and resentment, and relieve the simmering roil of feeling stuck in separation when ruled by your judgmental mind.

Soulful healing asks, while you are healing your body with herbs from Earth, that you look for the meaning in what is happening within your body as it relates to your whole being.

We tend to overemphasize and over-rely on our minds to the point where we disengage from our bodies and let our instincts and intuition atrophy. This is neither safe nor wise, and causes us to live in more fear than is healthy.

To call something unremarkable simply because it happens every day and is commonly available is harmful to the enthusiasm and depth with which we can live.

The wisdom teachings that permeate this book revolve around the truth that radically honest, compassionate self-exploration leads to self-awareness, and that true self-awareness is always healing. It opens us to the naturalness of love, peace, joy, and our own boundless creativity. Love, and especially self-love and acceptance, is the greatest healing force that I have gleaned thus far.

One aspect of soulful healing that is most challenging and therefore most fruitful is the need to release a part of your story that may be lying underneath and behind the illness. Healing requires a willingness to rewrite the story you tell yourself about what has happened in your life and why it's happened. There is often an emotional attachment to the pattern that doesn't allow for easy change.

In my experience, we are always trying to be good to ourselves, to be healthy and safe, but are often doing this in a convoluted way because it's the best way we know at that moment. As soon as we are ready to open to a healthier way, a path opens up before us and we find that we've always been standing on it. And alongside, and over, and underneath our path, are our herbal allies.

Bodies always tell the truth. They give us hints of how to listen for it, and to recognize it when we hear or see it.

Dig a small hole in the earth. Ask Mother Earth to help you as you release your grief (the grief can be over a specific thing or a general feeling that is weighing you down). Cry over and into the hole in the earth for as long as you need to. Feel her receive your tears without judgment.

replenish the connection that you have never truly lost with Earth.

Entelechy is the vital force that guides what we, and all life forms, are growing into.

I was not brought up to know the Earth in intimate detail. No one I can remember from my childhood ever suggested that the land I lived on and was surrounded by contained anything important to me. My sense of kinship was connected to my house, my bedroom (my one almost personal space), my family, and my friends. I had no conscious sense of connection to the wild; the closest I came was that I deeply loved the trees in our small suburban backyard.

My introduction to medicinal plants transformed my health and my life, and enhanced and expanded my spiritual practice by connecting me deeply with the Earth, changing my life in the best, most enjoyable ways possible. I am forever grateful.