Whether it is a giant beanstalk, benevolent flowers, wise herbs, sacred birch goddesses or mossy coats, many ancient folktales remind us how our ancestors lived in harmony with plants, relying on them not only for sustenance but also for healing, protection, wisdom, empowerment and inspiration. Ancient plant folktales encapsulate wisdom and teachings passed down through generations, reflecting the roles that flora and fauna have played for our survival, cultural identity and in the mythic imagination, often intersecting all three.
Read MoreThe Goddess Isis: Shedding and Becoming
In the beloved Egyptian myth of Isis, Isis searches for the scattered parts of her murdered husband’s body, resembles him, and breathes life back into him, and makes love to him, which then gives birth to Horus who becomes the next Pharaoh of Egypt. Isis shows us that taking the aerial point of view, or birds-eye-view, gives us the power to hold the tension between what is dissolving and what is emerging, to see the whole instead of only the parts, and to recognize our own agency in the potential for transformation.
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The Birch Witch Awakens: Reclaiming the Wisdom of Baba Yaga and the Potential Hidden in a Forest's Ashes
What if the wisdom we fear the most—dark, wild, and unpredictable—is exactly what we need to find our way through the ruins? Here we follow the forest path of Baba Yaga, the wild crone of Slavic folklore, whose kinship with the birch tree teaches us that destruction can be a beginning, not just an end. In a world unraveling—ecologically, spiritually, and politically—her fierce, untamed wisdom calls us to root ourselves in cycles of death and rebirth, and to remember that becoming who we truly are often begins in the ashes.
Read MoreResilience in Bloom: When Beauty Refuses to Obey
Though some may see its delicate pink puffs of clustered flowers as a sign of fragility, the Smoke Tree is far from frail. Living between sidewalk cracks, in stone walls and quarries, and in the rocky foundations of houses, the smoke tree teaches us about resilience and transgression. The smoke tree is an elder who shows us how we, too, can resist and transgress what society tells us we cannot do.
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