Illuminations

What Really Matters

 

Hardship distills our perception. It’s strange, but true. Looking back on the hardest eras of my life— those defined by chronic pain and illness— what stands out is not the complexity (though it felt completely unsolvable at the time), but the vivid clarity that eventually rose up like a groundswell, delivering me to the other side. With time, I now see that those experiences— no matter how hard they were— gave me an irreplaceable gift. It showed me what really matters in life.

Like golden light at the edges of a thunderstorm, when times are hard, the things that truly matter stand out. This past year has been difficult in uncountable ways. But within all the hardship has come a strange gift of distillation, an opportunity to see what matters most on our journey.

Because when we see what matters, we can let go of worrying about all the million details that demand our attention. We know what to focus on— and what our soul is calling us towards.

Lately, there is a sense of ebb in the air, a change in the routine of the past year. Our first tentative steps into a world that is called after. As the other shore draws closer, I’ve been reflecting a lot on just how much this past year has stripped away what doesn’t really matter— to show me what does.

And what I’ve found feels more precious than spring.

 

 

Before the pandemic I often got caught up in things that didn’t really matter— showing up for every social event, rushing through errands, planning the minute details of my calendar. But after a year when none of these things were possible, I find myself looking into the storm-cleared sky and remembering the truth that’s always been at the heart of my life.

What matters most is my unbreakable connection to my own soul.

What matters is my ability to listen to my inner knowing, to hear the voice of my intuition and follow it like a light out of the dark.

What matters is the gentle on-goings of the earth. The spirit-saving transition from winter into spring. My cat stretched out in the sun. The benevolent cycles of nature. And the realization of my own nature as someone who is sensitive, empathic, and in need of so much more slowness than I realized before.

What matters is the living world of springwater and weather, songbirds and ferns… and the way this world helps us come home to our true selves.

Knowing what matters to you is a kind of superpower, one that breaks the spell of unconscious patterns, freeing you to live the life your soul has planned for you.

So now I’m curious about you… what have you found truly matters to you in this life?

 

 

I first started talking to plants because I felt the tug to connect to something that mattered deeply— more deeply than the view of reality I had been handed.

Riddled with an “unsolvable” chronic pain condition, I turned away from the buzz of doctors and a culture where I felt hopelessly out-of-place, and began speaking to the natural world. I developed a direct connection with the earth around me— despite not knowing anything about herbalism or ecology— and found a truth that changed everything: I belonged.

The plants held me as I let go of all the things that never actually mattered… so I could come home to how much I mattered, and what was truly possible for me in this world.

Are you feeling the call to return to the ground of what really matters? To be inspired, enlivened and clear about your next steps in this world? Come join me for Intuitive Plant Medicine.

With over 3,000 graduates, this profound eight-week journey was designed to show you the gifts that you carry on this earth, through bringing you into direct communication with the living world.

Because if you have the sense that there is another world —  one where the natural world and everyone’s natural gifts matter — you’re right. There is another world. It’s right here waiting for you.