Introducing... the present moment!

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature

– Joseph Campbell

One of the most important skills to hone and develop as an herbalist is presence. It is a skill and ability that I overlooked in my early years in connecting with plants, which impeded my development and learning on so many fronts. Eventually, my primary mentor introduced and challenged me to nurture a daily presence practice, and after many years of struggle, boredom, 'am I doing this right?' and putting it off to do other things I considered 'more productive', I finally found a groove for myself, and discovered an entirely new dimension of practice (both as an herbalist and human) that would transform my work as an herbalist and enrich my relationship with plants to a profound degree.

I also discovered a political and social dimension to my discomfort around being still: The dominant culture wants us to move quickly and resist slowness at all costs. There is a reason for this. I included a few quotes from Tricia Hersey's book Rest is Resistance to provide some food for thought here: