Quotes from Eliot Cowan

The different human peoples did not evolve out of a common ancestor; they were each born out of the womb of their own homeland. We appeared in different parts of the world at the same time. Each group was as much a part of their environment as the other animals and plants of the region.

Plant spirit medicine is the shaman's way with plants. It recognizes that plants have spirit and that spirit is the strongest medicine. Spirit can heal the deepest reaches of the heart and soul.

The dream of nature is a complex web of mutuality in which each part supports the other.

All things enjoy ecstatic union with nature. Life without ecstasy is not true life and not worth living. Without ecstasy, the soul becomes shriveled and perverted, the mind becomes corrupt, and the body suffers pain. Ecstatic union with nature is necessary for normal health; it is necessary for survival. And to think that plants are mere dumb creatures that do not know ecstasy is ignorance or tragic, arrogant folly.

Ultimately, though, healing is not about whether you die. Healing is about how fully you live. I

There is only one active ingredient in plant medicines: friendship. A plant spirit heals a patient as a favor to its friend-in-dreaming, the doctor.

Dualism is the proto-dream underlying clock time and all modern dreaming. Dualism might be defined as the illusion that there are two discreet principles in the universe: self and other. Dualism implies isolation, conflict, and a continuous struggle of opposing forces. For this reason, actions based on dualistic vision are simplistic, aggressive, and destructive.

Somewhere along the way, we lost the experience of unity. We live our lives propping up the pathetic lie that we are different from everything else. This is a lie because the same awareness shines in the heart of all things. The lie is pathetic because it dooms us to a dry life of alienation.