NATURE WISDOM (NATURA SOPHIA)
Nature is alive and intelligent, but her intelligence is different from the prevalent mindset of today. Instead, she thinks in patterns – hot, cold, damp, dry – and forces – Bear, Wolf, Dog, Deer, Turtle. This is what Paracelsus called the lumen nature (Light of Nature). In order to understand this language, we need to learn to think in these kinds of intuitive patterns. This is called the “Language of Nature,” or the “Green Tongue.” This is the language of our intuition. Carl Jung found that we had four “functions” or perceptions of the world, thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. So, we study and teach human and animal constitutions.
THE LIVING NATURE (ANIMA MUNDI)
Nature is alive and that means she is ensouled – is a living soul, the Soul of the World (anima mundi). We aspire to be citizens of that world because it is our true home, where we are comfortable – if we can kick off our human baggage. If we are lucky, we can tune into and be at one with this world-soul, or with a citizen of that world – mineral, plant, animal. We should not make presumptions, however, the first thing we need to do is ask permission to share space with Nature or one of her ensouled, living citizens. Then, we should let them do the talking. So, we explore plant journeying.
THE STORY OF SOPHIA or THE DESCENT OF STAR WOMAN
The archetypes or primal ideations or forces of creation exist in the spirit world. The knowledge of these forces is called "Nature Wisdom" or "Natura Sophia" and is related to the concept (or experience) of Sophia. The stars represent her wisdom or archetypes and are imprinted upon the world in people, animals, plants, and minerals. According to the Native American story Star Woman descended from the Sky, the birds of the air circling around her, to set foot upon Original Turtle, while the little water animals piled up the soil from the bottom of the sea to make the earth on the back of Original Turtle. This wisdom is also known as Turtle Medicine.
THE DOCTRINE OF SIGNATURES
The intelligence and language of Nature manifest in the shapes, patterns, and characteristics of the plants. This is the ancient doctrine of signatures, much-criticized today, but one of the chief ways Nature makes her alphabet known to us. When the plant has the signature of an organ or resembles in some way a process or function or illness in the body, then it heals that analogous structure or function. This is called the “law of similars.” The correspondence between the “archetype” and the physical manifestation, or between a plant and a person, animal, organ, or function or disease, is called the “doctrine of correspondence.”
THE MEDICINE OF NATURE
PLANT SPIRIT JOURNEY
ANIMAL MEDICINES, PLANT MEDICINES
The animals are the closest to an “alphabet” of the "Language of Nature.” There are about twenty to thirty basic, archetypal animals (unless we live in Australia), and these are the “letters.” There are so many things we can learn from them. And, they correspond to plants. "When a plant looks like an animal or is used by an animal,” it is associated with that particular animal, and represents it, or is an expression of that letter in the Language of Nature. This is called a “spirit signature,” and this is an especially strong kind of medicinal power. Practically speaking, many of them fit the endocrine system, which so often determines constitutional typology and expression.
INCLUDING:
- Bear medicine (the adrenal cortex)
- Deer and Rabbit medicine (sympathetic, thyroid, and bones)
- Turtle medicine (bones)
- Wolf medicine (joints, boundaries, edges, gallbladder, the wild)
- Dog medicine (solar plexus, instincts)
- Horse medicine
- Alligator medicine
- Badger medicine (stomach)
- Panther or Cat medicine (parasympathetic, smooth muscles, intestines)
- Solar medicine
- Lunar medicine
- Snake medicine
- Crow, Raven, or Buzzard medicine (antiputrefactive)
- Bat medicine (antiviral)
- Shamanism: The Importance of the Animal Self
