Plant Listening

About

In this wild tea workshop, we will explore the way we communicate with plants, giving ourselves permission to meet them with our keen animal senses. By imbibing their essence in the form of tea, we create space for incarnate plant-human connection.

To take a single leaf or blossom and place it in a cup, is to pay homage to a particular plant. Through the mysterious alchemy of water, we can access the innate quality of that plant, releasing its healing potential in the form of tea.

By taking the time to clear a space of noticing - elevating drinking a cup of tea to a space of meditation, we partake in a very holy communion. The empty vessel of the cup is filled with the tea, just as then the empty vessel of our minds and bodies are filled in turn. A new story unfolds, told in waves of experience rather than words.

The plant is able to unfurl and express itself in its fullness and we are imbued with its spirit, those unique qualities that are all its own. By becoming silent and still, just for a moment, we transform our body into a quivering ear, so that we can amplify earth’s acoustics.

Bio: Plant Listening is a not-for-profit organization who offer walks and workshops that foster a dynamic connection with the natural world. Working with the ancient way of the hunter-gatherer, we use the practical skills of foraging and tracking (hunting and gathering) to reawaken a dynamic relationship with our local environment.

Plant Listening works with deep listening - slowing things right down - so that we recalibrate how we sense and move through the world. By taking time to look very closely at the wild lives that surround us we alter our awareness and are drawn more deeply into the heart of life.

Participants describe our events as ‘soothing’ ‘calming’ ‘a gift’ ‘mind-altering’ and often ‘life-changing’. Both nutritious and healing, gathering wild food and following animal lines soothes the modern mind, returning us to a state of kinship with the world.