Communication
Motherwort Medicine

This is the essence of Leonurus Cardiaca. Or at least how she presents herself to me. By the common name, she is known as Motherwort. The scientific name actually means “Lion Hearted”, and boy let me tell you what… Yeah, that’s her medicine.
I spent a few nights camping by myself in the woods two weeks ago. The only thing I knew was that I had to go by myself, and I needed to just receive and be quiet. On the last day, I asked yet again what offerings the land wanted in return for what they gifted me. I finally got a response from the pines. They said, “Nothing. You already gave it. You receiving us fully and without question was enough for us.” In shock, and with them finally speaking with me in a language I could understand, I asked them the burning question that was in my heart. Whenever I’m around people, or certain properties/land, I am heavily affected by it. Certain situations leave me super drained and I have to pay very close attention to who I am around, who I interact with, and the land that I’m on. Out there in the wildlife sanctuary where I camped, I felt back to myself with an abundance of energy. I asked what the difference was, and about how I’ve been working on my boundaries so hard, but it’s not helping my sensitivities at all.
It was like the pine trees pat me on the head, and answered with a question, “Would a frog be able to do the same in polluted water since they breathe through their skin?”
I didn’t “get” the message for more then a week, but it’s been bubbling and resurfacing the more I’ve been working with motherwort. I’ve been thinking that me being hypersensitive to my environment has been a flaw that I needed to work on, but that’s a pattern of mine I’ve been working on. Once I tapped into the flip side and let go of my judgement and harsh self criticism, I was able to accept that perhaps it is in my true nature to be this sensitive.
Over 6 months ago, I was in a field full of metal cages harvesting tomatoes. I was muttering to my ancestors about how nice it would be if I wouldn’t be living my mothers patterns. Within moments I was hit by lightning, and that cascaded me down this intense healing journey. My prayer was answered even though it was catastrophic and I didn’t understand it at the time. It took many months before I finally accepted that a lot of my health challenges couldn’t be fixed physically, and it was on other planes I needed to address it. Motherwort had really stepped up to help me address my self nourishment deficiencies and where I was hemorrhaging energy due to the bad habits I was living because I was acting out a lot of my mothers patterns.
And I got it. One of the reasons why I went into the “Miserable Me” pattern was because I was always in the mothering role to my own mother. Living that pattern was the only way I was able to get energy from others, and doing so distracted me from focusing on just one step at a time. Motherwort highlighted that one of my deepest fears was that I was going to become my mother. In growing up with a primary caretaker that has schizophrenia, I took that technique of scattering myself to try and apply it to a way of surviving. Little did I know that following that example was perpetuating a huge pattern of imbalance and I lived the fear I was so afraid of. Another function of schizophrenia is walling off different parts of the self to the point where they seem like different personalities, and I realized I was doing that to my self. One of the reasons why I didn’t have energy was because a lot of my energy was going towards internal walls that prevented me from fluidly accessing vital parts of myself as needed. The walls being self judgement and bullying to try and control my own behavior. I needed so many years of shadow work just to cultivate the amount of self compassion to allow parts of myself just to be, instead of walling them off. The more I fought myself, the more I separated myself into different sections of self to present to others. I had a self that would show up to yoga, show up as a teacher, show up as a student, or in community, and on and on.
Motherwort shared that it’s not the fact that I have shitty boundaries, but the energy I was putting up towards boundaries internally were what was sapping my strength to functioning well in everyday reality. It especially hurts when I found how much I marked off certain parts of me as “dangerous” or how some parts of me were so vulnerable I needed to shelter them from certain people. It takes the courage of a lion and a lions heart to be this hypersensitive in today’s world. Instead of the energy going towards boundaries, it could be going towards supporting the heart that I need in order to endure the constant heartbreak of what is happening in the world.
Yes, I’m a frog in polluted water where I’m currently living. But it’s because I need to face the heartbreak that I live in a county where conventional agriculture is rapidly degrading the topsoil and certain neighbors don’t know the meaning of a healthy ecosystem, and they choose to control it with chemicals and tilling instead. No, I can’t just live in a healthy ecosystem that stretches for miles, untouched by mankind just so I can feel better and breathe easier. Those healthy ecosystems can help me recalibrate my sense of what “true north” feels like in my body so I can steward this land I’m currently on and work on educating neighbors to navigate more towards that.
The question isn’t how I can have boundaries that help me feel numb to the heartbreak around me, but how can I support my big heart to accept the world as it is and still choose to navigate it as best as I can with the level of sensitivity I’ve been gifted with? It takes a lions heart to choose to nurture myself and show up daily to tend this land with community and help restore it to a healthier state. As I tend the land, I tend myself because I feel how intimately we are connected. The pains I feel, the shortness of breath, the tiredness, the fatigue, no wonder I chose to be out of my body for most of my life. Being this sensitive is exhausting because of how much I have to filter and process on a daily level. When the lightning knocked my mothers pattern out of me, it woke me up to the true nature of my own heart. To have a heart big enough to love it all, no matter how much it hurts. To not try the overwhelming feat of changing so many things at once out of distraction for feeling the bigness of the heartbreak, but in relying on Spirit to help me as a tiny human navigate the extreme complexities of how to repair broken ecosystems one step at a time, while feeling deeply. This includes my own inner ecosystem, addressing the walls within my own emotional body.
The beauty of motherwort has shown me that the one step I am on is all that matters. Not two or three steps ahead. Not dwelling on the past. Sure there are times for planning and dreaming, but living is different. The present is meant for holding that space in the now, preventing me from sliding backwards and repeating old patterns I’m trying my hardest not to choose. The more I tried to focus on multiple steps at a time, the more I fragmented and parts of me slid backwards while at the same time other aspects of me moved forward. Perfect example on why I walled off different sections of myself, so I would be blind to my own disorganization. But Motherwort helped me see that I needed this orchestration of getting “all of my parts” to the current moment/current step. Talk about whole hearted.
Another flower that’s been speaking to me in this spring time. Dandelion. They are perfect for degraded ecosystems where the top soil has been eroded. Their deep tap roots dig deep down to bring up nutrients that other plants can’t access because of their superficial roots. In the midst of me learning to be lion hearted, I’m also learning the benefit of being deep rooted so I can be a dandy-lion.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. It touches my heart that you got this far. May the blessings of spring be abundant in your own life.
Growing
How does a tree grow?
Simple. From the air. No, seriously. Literally from the air. Trees breathe in carbon dioxide, and through the process of photosynthesis they take the carbon and make plant material out of it. The soil is more of a sharing of nutrients that the plant needs. It’s designed to be this network or web where the different plants and microorganisms talk to each other to share resources. The actual composition of what the plant needs to grow is literally taken from the air through carbon dioxide. Carbon is the building block of life and is how the tree grows roots, leaves, and branches.
In my cosmology, air is related to our mental wisdom body. Our society rewards people for pushing themselves and overthinking, to the degree where many people have developed either a low tone generalized anxiety, or an intense expression of worry/anxiety that can be paralyzing. Isn’t it interesting that one of the contributing factors affecting climate change is the excess amount of particular gasses in the air? Overthinking is crippling us.
As I’ve sat with the wisdom of the earth through my recovery process of getting hit by lightning 5 months ago, I’ve deeply connected to my own foundation and what makes me tick. I have realized that I haven’t been breathing in deeply enough to set more roots in the ground. I’ve just been cycling in that pattern of anxiety of how to get my sh*t together to make it look like I’m a functional human being. I really sat with how self destructive I’ve been my whole life, being motivated by the expectations of other people instead of from my core values and beliefs. Sure, I *thought* I had done a lot of work around that… But as most people who have had a surgery or broken bones can attest, there’s nothing like a good ole injury that sets you down on your ass for a few months to have you question why you do everything in your life, and why it matters that you do it.
One of the biggest ways that I’ve been cycling is that I’ve been trying to make a business of separating my spiritual life from my everyday life. I overidentified with being a healer, and even though I have helped a lot of people, I wasn’t really helping myself the way I needed to. A lot of my focus was going out instead of in, and the past few years I’ve really had to put the brakes on a lot of it. To my clients, thank you for your patience while I took these past few months to really focus on me and what I needed without interruption. To my friends, thank you for your support and letting me crash at your places while little dude played and I rested. To my community, thank you for giving me the space to be messy while still holding me accountable for my actions and behaviors.
As I sat in the stillness and worked with my body, doctors, new medicines, herbs, acupuncture, and qigong over the past 5 months – I found some things that I am really passionate about and I’m excited to start exploring in 2021. One of them is soil health and regenerative agriculture. I’ve started taking herbalism classes again, glad to be learning so much from the plant world around me. The other is that I’m studying an online course to become an electrician. I won’t go as far to becoming a journeyman electrician, but I want to learn enough to be able to install these DC Microgrids comfortably without asking for help, and helping people transition to an off grid lifestyle. And safely. Because we all know how much electricity loves me (thanks, lightning!). Talk about a “grounded approach”
Last but not least, things have been slow moving but I’m co-founding a new intentional community that is turning into an education facility and integrates how to live in right relationship with that land with a restorative agriculture point of view. Right now the magnolia house is set to being straw bale wrapped next week. It will serve as a demonstration of these off grid technologies that are more easily accessible for people with mobility hinderances, and also serve as a mini connection hub for Living Energy Farm and possibly some other communities in the area.
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my life was to set up these huge tasks for myself, overcommit to several projects, and not follow through with them until completion. I’ve left a lot of things undone. I gave my time and energy to projects and jobs that weren’t things that filled me with passion and hope for the future. I tried to adjust my business to the needs of the marketplace, and ran events based off of what other people said they wanted instead of what I truly wanted to give. I saw possibilities and ran with them, depleting and robbing from my future energy resources to where when I had a physical body catastrophe, I was laid flat on my ass for 3-4 months. This left a never ending cycle where I didn’t grow roots in the ground, and I spun up in my head without nourishing my very real needs to what my soul and body were asking me to do in this lifetime. This crash and burn mentality is exactly what feeds the broken system we are living in, but I didn’t know any other way to operate.
Until the plants sang to me. They taught me how to be in my body (for better or for worse, chest pains and all), and taught me what it was like to take it a step at a time. Now I see so plainly what all my past actions amounted to, and how there were similar themes to what I was doing all of my life. I just had to slow down enough to hear the songs the plants were singing. Now I’m breathing in the carbon of my old expelled failures of projects, allowing those “failures” to become the fertilizer, and grow new roots and shoots for the projects I feel super passionate about. I’m still going to see clients and teach, but now it’s a more integrative approach on how to be spiritual through daily action instead of separating the spiritual from the mundane.
Heres to activism by planting an organic garden. Here’s to regenerative agriculture, carbon sequestration, reversing climate change through how we tend the earth, and to building new communities that connect with others who want to do the same. We can’t fix a system that is broken if we are contributing the same broken energy to try and “fix” it. The world won’t get fixed by heroic efforts of self depletion. I feel very strongly that it’s through practices that maintain, sustain, and regenerate a healthy embodied relationship with everything around us in a balanced way. I don’t have all the answers yet, but I’m excited and hopeful about finding how I can personally contribute.
Living Energy Lights
Wintertime in the Northern Hemisphere is the time for dreaming, resting, and planning for the next year ahead. As many have noticed and commented, I have been hard core going within. My adventure has taken me deep within my own cocoon of personal development. Since I’m in this 5 year shamanic training program with the Last Mask Community, I have hard core discovered that I was an addict to suffering and a chronic “over do-er”. I consistently pushed myself to exhaustion, fitting thing after thing into my busy schedule. I over planned and even managed to double book my “self care” times. Eagle Therapies is an extension of me, because it is my business. It’s been a reflection of my own personal progress as just 2 years ago I was offering anywhere between 6-12 events per month. It also lent itself to a huge US Tour that was quite an adventure! But it was stressful financially, and a great experiment of trust in Spirit. Overproduction much?
It’s a really sad thing, because our society rewards multitasking and pushing yourself to the extent of martyrdom. I can’t rightly see clients when I don’t practice what I preach, so I have been following the advice that I had been gifting out like candy.
Slow down.
I couldn’t hear my own song. And gradually over the last year, my life has taken an incredible turn. I moved to an intentional community called Living Energy Farm back in September.
I got involved with organic farming, open pollinated, non-GMO, USDA organic crop growing and an off the grid lifestyle. Talk about slowing down! I have been living very simply, and taking a minimal amount of clients (thank the gods for distance sessions and mobile internet!).
But my favorite thing? Well, you see in the 5 year program, the first year is all about our relationship with our authentic self, the second year is all about our relationship with shadow repressed/shamed aspects of self, and the third year is all about our relationship with power. In my third year in the cycle, I’ve gotten involved in this huge project that Living Energy Farm is putting forth. In addition to successfully living off grid for about a decade, they are passionate about sharing this renewable energy model with other people. Their big donation project is all about installing 50 battery boxes with solar panels in Navajo and Hopi territory. The four hubs we will be working with are the Tsaile/Wheatfields Dineh Water Users, The Diné College, Rez Refuge, and the Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture Institute.
That’s right. In my shamanic training year where it’s all about relationship to power, I synchronously got involved in a project of returning power to people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to power.
It’s still sad to know that there are people here in the United States that do not have access to electricity or running water. Many kids move away as they grow up because there aren’t any big paying jobs on the reservations. When they make money, they either send money back to their parents, or they purchase mass produced solar equipment that’s based off of the consumerist model. Unfortunately the solar models that are out on the market at the moment are built similarly to regular electricity running through a house, and are operated with materials that break down within a few years so you have to go back to these companies to replace the parts (which means more money for these companies). There’s thousands of dollars of melted inverters, solar panels, and dead batteries all over reservations in the South West.
Living Energy Farm has an alternative, and is offering an opportunity for people who also want to help people who don’t have access to power or running water. We’re looking for desk lamps that have regular screw in light bulbs. We will be re-wiring them so that they can be used in this donation project. If you’re in the Northern VA/DC/MD area, I can definitely stop by before I go. I’ll be up in the DC area on January 14th+15th. You can also feel free to drop off lamps at the Intuitive Wellness Center or bring them to the Journey Group on the 14th.
Don’t have a lamp? We will happily accept donations! There are three people from the farm going out to AZ and NM to install these solar kits who will be using these donations for food, lodging, and other travel expenses. If you’re looking to gift a larger donation that is tax deductible,you can use this link. After we complete the Arizona project with the Hopi and the Navajo, we also have some installations we will be doing in Ghana, and also some eco-villages in Costa Rica.
Curious about what makes this system different then the conventional solar kits that are on the market? We will be expanding after this big donation project and have begun mass producing this DC Microgrid system and will start selling them beginning in February. Find out more on our sister project site Living Energy Lights (this is our for profit site) where a portion of each battery purchase will go towards funding these charitable adventures.
In order to support myself while I am out there, I will be offering distance journeys and mini shamanic healings for $50. This will include a detailed email with what I discovered on my journey or healing, and will give practical next steps for your healing process. This package deal also includes a recording and a phone call to go over the results. The best part? I’ll be doing this in-between these installations and on the reservations, close to powerful sacred and ceremonial places. Receive the juju and blessings of the South West in this magical opportunity!
I am unsure what events I will be offering when I get back from this big month long install as we help out 50 families/institutions get these DC Microgrids. I definitely know that I will still be continuing the Shamanic Journey Groups. My passion has really come out whenever I offer dance ceremonies, so perhaps I will do more of those! But we shall see 🙂
Thank you to all who have been supporting me while I incubate in my cocoon! The support that I feel as I go inward has been immense and has dropped me to my knees in gratitude more often then I can count. I can’t wait to unfold into the person I was born here to be!
Hope to see you around the fire, in the dream world, or around the sacred circle soon. Many blessings to you and your loved ones.
October 2018
Some might have noticed that things have been slower then normal here at Eagle Therapies. We aren’t doing as many events, and we also haven’t been sending out newsletters as often as we used to. Thank you everyone for your patience as we turn the wheel and rediscover who we are.
This month we will be focusing on the Ancestors since it is that time of year. There is a separation between this physical reality world, and the realm of the dead, and that veil is thin at this time. Hence why our Shamanic Journey Groups and Ancestral Healing Circle will be hyper-cognizant about this as we weave our circles this month. Now that we have streamlined our distance options, you can participate even if you’re not even in Virginia! Join us via Facebook Live for suggested journey topics, and message if you will be participating via Zoom so we can know whose coming to participate. We are currently in the process of dismantling our forums, so you can directly comment on the recorded posts that we make available. Or you can comment on our Facebook groups for the Ancestral Healing Circle or Shamanic Journey Groups.
Here are the dates and topics as follows:
October 7th: Ancestral Healing Circle – The theme of the month will be “playing small”. What parts of ourselves did we have to shove away into our margins because we had to “fit in”. And how much of this is what our Ancestors have passed down to us?
October 9th: Bi-Weekly Journey Group – Difference between ghosts and ancestral helping spirits. We will dive into this topic and see what is coming up for us during this time.
October 20th: Monthly Journey Group – This evening we will be doing two journeys. The container will be strongly reinforced by those who have gone before us. We won’t have a suggested journey topic, so feel free to bring your own!
October 23rd: Bi-Weekly Journey Group – Our relationship with grief. What are we afraid to grieve, and how can we release grief that we didn’t know was in us?
May we be the answer to the prayers of our ancestors
Introducing the Soul Compass Path
We live in a time that is challenging. How do we become the people who can create a sustainable change and transformation in this world? Join Eagle Therapies starting in the fall of 2018 on a 9 day program stretched across 9 months.
This program was specifically crafted and co-created with Spirit to help bring people the basic foundational Shamanic Skills necessary to engage with the world around them in a good way. It doesn’t matter if you are new to this path or have been down the road of several spiritual traditions for decades. Using ancient Shamanic techniques and honoring the ancestors of the worlds traditions, we will engage with Spirit in an age old fashion that has been specifically crafted for this time. This cosmology and teachings are based off of the Cycle Teachings and the Last Mask Community, an authentic and contemporary cosmology which honors the way our ancestors have done it without taking their rituals, ceremonies and culturally appropriating them.
Stephanie Seger has graduated from Mary Tyrtle Rookers 2 year Shamanic Training program and is a current student of Christina Pratt, Shaman, Author, creator of the Why Shamanism Now podcast and Director for the Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing. Through Stephanie’s vast life experiences and training, she strives to bring her best to giving her all to this program.
The Soul Compass Path is 6 hours once monthly stretching over 9 months. This program delivers a practical set of tools, techniques, and a way to engage with the more intimate aspects of yourself. If you are new to any type of spiritual exploration, this will hand you the basics. For the more seasoned practitioner, it will provide the framework to deepen your connection with your guidance and allow yourself to hear the song of your soul ever more clearly. This program is dedicated to helping one get out of their own way and step into their power with authenticity, integrity and sovereignty. Learn how to find your own life’s purpose and be able to live it in the world.
Payment is based on sliding scale, negotiated between your own heart and Spirit. Eagle Therapies is just the vessel to deliver this program of self transformation. What is the sacrifice you are willing to make? Suggested sliding scale pricing is $75-$200 per class. Payment due at time of class. Orientation and first class considered “one class”.
What might be a comfortable set of finances for one person might be a large sacrifice to another. Is $100 a night on the town, buying movie tickets and a couple of drinks while dancing? If so, then $100 is not a sacrifice, it is a simple commodity. This is an opportunity to put meaning to the monetary exchange and intentionalize it, not blankly pay with a consumerist mind.
The Spirit world understands the language of sacrifice, and it is up to you to decide what is the right price to pay within your own heart. Use your intuition and measure it with your own truth. It is possible that one month you can pay towards the higher end of the fee, while others it is the lower end. It is also possible that money is no issue at all and $200 per class does not cover the value of what is within the course material itself for you.
*reworded, but basic concept of language attributed to Christina Pratt
For those that prepay for the first class as a deposit before July 31st will receive a personalized Shamanic Healing as a gift. Can be redeemed at a distance. Your own healing starts when the commitment to your own personal healing is made.
We, as a culture, have large wounds around the exchange of money. If you would like more guidance in this arena, a lovely book you can download for free is “Sacred Economics” by Charles Eisenstein. Once you read the book and you feel compelled to gift back, then you can choose to pay for it. The Non-Local Shamanic Community that Stephanie participates in is currently doing a community wide transformation around Love and Money, and obviously it has a large impact on what she is offering to the world. If you want to change something in the world, start with yourself first. Change comes from within.
If you feel very drawn to this course but do not think you can commit to the full 9 month program, then you can choose to save up for at least the first two meetings. It is fine to pay month by month. If finances are a challenge, there is always delving deeper into the material learned and then hopping on to the program next year (yes, we are planning for this to be a repeating yearly program). Once you take the class, the materials and resources from that class will be shared with you, and you can still choose to communicate with your fellow classmates.
Is this program right for you? Read more about it on the Soul Compass Path landing page to check out dates, the syllabus, and other tidbits you might find interesting.
Already feel that this resonates within your bones to take this course? Fill out our application form!
A good resource if you are anxious to get started is through the free, listener supported podcast, Why Shamanism Now. There are over 400 archived hours, and a teaser to what is available both within this course and beyond. A great place to start is the Basics of Living Well series and the specific podcasts below:
You also have access to the archived recordings of the Ancestral Healing Circles and Bi-Weekly Shamanic Journey Groups through the forums.
The song of your soul is calling you.
Now.
The world is waiting for your gifts.
Water Blessing Ceremony – Part 1 of 3
Wow! I am so blessed by the open community that is forming around this US Tour. There has been an interest generated that I am humbled to witness/be apart of. Here is the first of a 3 part Ceremony series called the Water Blessing Ceremony – Coast to Coast Series.
It’s not too late! This Ceremony was recorded for a reason, and the way it was energetically set up means that people can participate at any time as long as they have heart and meaning when they participate. Feel free to pass this Ceremony along to friends or family that might be interested in putting their prayers energetically into that bottle of water that currently holds water from the Potomac River. It’s short, simple and only 30 minutes. Not a lot of “woo woo”, so even people that are new to Ceremony don’t have to be intimidated. It’s as simple as saying why we are grateful for water, and all of the lovely things that water does. Apologies for the airplanes in the background! Will bring the microphone next time so the wind blowing doesn’t affect the sound quality and it will be easier to hear the speaker.
This blog post is the space for the recording, however if you would like to participate in a discussion, feel free to hop on over to the forums.
Interested in more?
Why Go Across the United States for the US Tour?
As my son and I prepare for our last week in town, the last weekend in town we hosted 3 events. The Eagle Therapies US Tour – Crucible of Transformation happened on Saturday. It was my heartfelt explanation for why I felt called to go across the United States, exposing a little bit more of my personal story. Towards the end I pose some big questions and as a group we discussed what that means for us as a small community – connecting in with larger communities. Feel free to engage in the discussion on the forums.
Other related posts:
May 2018 AHC
Hey everyone! My website is kind of wonky at the moment and it won’t let me upload videos directly to the forums. Here is the recording for this months Ancestral Healing Circle:
If you would like to post your results, questions or comments, please redirect them over to the topic in the forums.
This Ancestral Healing Ceremony was specifically about inheriting the patterns of shame and guilt from our Ancestral lines. This shame or guilt motivates us to be a certain way, fitting into a box instead of allowing ourselves to be authentic in the world. We dive a little deeper into what Ancestral Healing means as well as how to tap into that first layer around it.