Plant Spirit Healing by Pam Montgomery: A Review
Saturday, February 21st, 2009
The first adjective that comes to mind while reading Pam Montgomery’s Plant Spirit Healing is “magical.” I say this because you may need to suspend some of your ideas in order to grasp the enormous impact of her words and findings. For example, ever since I read The Secret Life of Plants years ago, I acknowledge that plants communicate with one another. But Pam goes one step further and says that plants talk back to her, helping to guide her to find the right herb or tree to help heal people who come to her for help.
In her Introduction, she notes that the idea of talking to plants came from spending time with her grandmother who, when Pam was only a child, viewed plants as living beings to be in relationship with. Those early experiences have helped shape her beliefs about plants and herbs and their healing powers.
The subtitle helps explain her ideas a little more, because it notes that her book is “A Guide to Working with Plant Consciousness.” As I read deeper into the book, I had to admit that her ideas seem a little “far out,” but the anecdotes and endorsements from others who attend her workshops at the Partner Earth Education Center in Danby, Vt. at her home, Sweetwater Sanctuary, are quite convincing. Within the context of supporting scientific evidence, traditional indigenous knowledge and her empirical experiences with plants, the notion that plants have consciousness becomes believable.
The book is divided into three parts. Part One is called “The Theoretical Basis for Plant Spirit Healing.” Part Two is entitled “The Practical Application of Plant Spirit Healing,” and the last part is “The Healing Gift of Plants.” Perhaps the best way to introduce you to this book is to find quotes from each section.
Part One, p. 10: Spirit is defined as the vital principle held to give life. The ability of the earth to create itself is the ultimate in vitality, without which there would be no life.
Part One, p. 16: To maintain a balanced spiritual ecology we must view the world as one that we can partner with co-creatively. The key to effective co-creative partnering is effective communication, a skill we can all develop.
Part Two, p. 72: When entering into the spirit dimension, an altered state of consciousness is required.
Part Two, p. 83: Our personal experiences and the investigations in many areas of science verify that life is based on interconnected relationships……Deep intimacy is possible with plants, even to the point of moving sexual energy.
Part Three, p. 180: Each plant has so many healing aspects, and how those manifest for one person may not be the same as for another….Remember, you are the author of your own experience, making you an authority.
Plant Spirit Healing is an experience as well as a book. Pam has introduced ideas about plants that I had never considered in an easy-to-read manner. The color plates in the front of the book contribute to her conviction that plants communicate and have the power to heal us. You really have to read it to get the full meaning of her teachings. Better yet, attend one of her workshops, something on my “To Do” list.
Plant Spirit Healing costs $16 and is published by Bear & Company in Rochester, VT. If you click onto Pam’s website , you will find all the information you need tolearn more about Pam’s incredible work with plants: www.PartnerEarthEducationCenter.com. Check it out and put her book on your Books to Read list to expand your own personal awareness about the power of plants to heal.
