“What’s wild carrot?” I asked on my first herb walk several
years ago. It was a name I’d heard
Kate, our herbal guide, say several times as we began our afternoon walk
through Prospect Park. Kate led us
over to a tall slender stemmed white flowering plant with a red center. “This,” she said triumphantly, “is wild
carrot.” “Queen Anne’s Lace?!” I
exclaimed overjoyed that I knew a plant, and wasn’t a total herbal neophyte. “Yes, also called Queen Anne’s lace,”
Kate confirmed.
Hypnotized, I moved closer to the plant. Something about Queen Anne’s Lace
always attracted me. Growing up, I would often find myself simply standing by
her, feeling the draw to be close to her stately presence. On family vacations,
I had a tendency to walk over to her at road stops and run my fingers over her
bird’s nest of delicate white flowers with the mysterious solitary red center
that appeared even more crimson in the summer’s sunlight.
On this particular herb walk, Kate, our guide, invited us to
speak with wild carrot and open ourselves to receive any intuitions or
information from the spirit of the plant.
Having never actually had a dialogue with a plant before, I played along
and followed my intuition as it guided me towards a tall statuesque Queen
Anne’s Lace towards the middle of the field. I stood in front of her delicate flowering top and
introduced myself.
“Hello. My name
is Isis.” In that instant, I was
immediately swept into a deeply ecstatic state, as if meeting a long lost love. I felt my womb space open and expand
and the edges of my labia begin to tingle and become moist. A pleasurable wash of energy galloped
up my spine and my mouth opened letting out a sound that could only be equated
to an orgasmic surprise. I blushed
and quickly looked around to see if anyone heard me. The other women were deep into their own meditation and did
not hear my very public pleasure-filled moan. My Goddess, was I having an orgasm in the skirts of Prospect
Park?!
I turned my attention back to Queen Anne. Rather than having a happy chatty
conversation like I assumed the other women were engaging in, the waves of
pleasure continued to roll through my system, and the hair on my arms
goose-fleshed and stood straight up on my body.
“Oh Isis,” I
heard a voice say. ‘Ha!’ I laughed
out loud losing all awareness of anyone else around me. “Did I just make this plant,
moan?” I stammered in my mind. I then felt the two of us, the spirit
of the plant and my spirit pull together like magnets. I could feel my heart
beat in my uterus and my energetic roots unfold from my legs and reach out and
twine around Queen Anne’s roots.
Wave after wave of orgasmic energy moved up my spine. After about five minutes, Kate, our
herb guide, asked us to circle again. I was sure my energy field looked like
I’d just had a romp in the hay. My
cheeks were flushed, my heart racing and a glint of perspiration covered my
skin. Had I just made love to a
plant? Kate looked at me
quizzically catching my eye and asking if I was okay. I nodded, and darted my eyes around. Did anyone else notice my quickie with
the plant? When she asked for
impressions around what we experienced, my lips remained sealed. I wasn’t one to kiss and tell.
My life’s work the past decade has been dedicated to the
study and teaching of sacred sexuality through the lens of Shamanism. Orgasmic experiences were a dime a
dozen in my line of work. But
having an energy orgasm with a plant… This was an entirely new paradigm that
raised even my eyebrows.
Startled by my experience on the herb walk and feeling the calling of my
spirit to immerse more fully in the green world, I signed up for an herbal
apprenticeship with Susun Weed at the Wise Woman Center.
The day before the start of my herbal apprenticeship, my
husband and I drove up from New York City and stayed in a B&B in the
Catskills. We unpacked our bags
and checked into our room. As we
settled into our cozy accommodations, I took a look around our room and
discovered that above the bed on the wall was a picture of Queen Anne’s
Lace. So that’s what this
apprenticeship is going to be like, I thought, silently laughing to myself.
As apprentices, our main assignment over the course of our
apprenticeship is to cultivate a green ally relationship with one plant. We were asked to ally with one plant by
sitting with her each day, breathing with her and listening for her song. When the apprentices were given our
plant ally assignment, I felt Queen Anne dance beside me. “Yes,” I told her. “I
know. We’re allies.”
Throughout the seasons of the seven-month apprenticeship, I
meet with Queen Anne daily for the
first two weeks and then weekly. I
saw her grow from a feathery rosette with a white tasty root, to a statuesque
Queen who towered over most other wild flowers and finally to the dried hand of
the death crone as fall and winter turned and all that were left were her
seeds, holding her blue print for the next year. During the seven months we spent together, she and I moved from
rapturous romps to bosom buddies.
I realized too that our first meeting was her acknowledging my work in
sacred sexuality and was also her way of telling me she too was an ally in the
sexual arts.
As a young maiden plant, her green feathery hair drapes
along the Earth’s floor and her curvy and plump womanly root body nestles
against the grooves of the Earth cradling her powers for her second year’s
growth. In sitting with her
maidenly form in her first year, Queen Anne tells me “Most don’t, but you
can actually sauté my greens and root as a tasty vegetable addition to any
meal. My maidenly first year
leaves are brain food and supports cell health in the brain and circulation in
the body.”
Her second year, she grows a long slender stem and has a
crowning white head with a mysterious crimson center. This is when she is ready to be harvested and when her
womanly magic is afoot. Queen Anne
tells me “With strong intention brew my crimson spotted flowerheads in
boiling water for fifteen minutes and drink the day after an unwanted potential
impregnation. I will support a
fertilized egg from attaching to the wall of the womb by making the inner
surfaces slippery so that it comes right out.”
In her final phase of life, after her head closes, she
instructs me “Take my seeds and carry them in a sweet medicine pouch next to
your night table where you keep condoms and lubricant. I go there if an ‘accident’ happens.
Take two teaspoons of seeds every four hours for two days after your ‘opps
moment’ and I will keep you from being with child. In my second year of life I have a hairy stalk to remind you
of the psyllium like qualities to move eggs from the womb.”
“My second year head furls back in the fall but my first
year leaf stays green. In two
years, my life is complete and seeds scatter and begin again. I am the keeper of the maidens
moons my red dot shows you when your cycle is upon me and I help bring it on.”
After spending seven months with Queen Anne and graduating
my herbal apprenticeship, I feel like my relationship with her has only just
begun. As a sacred sexuality
teacher, I’m not surprised that Queen Anne chose me as an ally when so much of
her energy teaches about healthy sexuality and reproductive choice, something
that our religious and political climate still attempt to usurp control
over. Queen Anne reminds me
how to listen to the seasons and cycles within myself and to honor my body, my
sexual energy and my reproductive choice as my own intuitive right as a woman. My relationship with Queen Anne brings
me deeper into my own inner rhythms around conscious conception and personal
sexual power. As a sexual shamanic
teacher, my wish is for each woman to align with and feel Queen Anne’s support
on the rapturous road of their lives.
