Poisonous plant medicine with Kathryn Solie

Poisonous plant medicine with Kathryn Solie
Kathryn: Each plant has its own kind of unique vibration, and depending on where we are in that moment in our lives the different kinds of trainings we've had, the different types of ways that we view reality, we're going to pick up on different parts and interpret it through our own experiences .
So. Long story short, plants are communicating with us. I mean, how do we think complex natural medicine traditions came about - like traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda? Where they just randomly trying thousands of plants and combinations and being like. Oh, this treats fatty liver. I doubt that. you would die like many times over.
So my hypothesis is that people in the past were far more integrated with plant consciousness and, it would have been just a natural part of being alive - recognition that These plants speak to us. They tell us things through different means.
Lana: You're listening to Plant Love Radio episode number 77.
Intro
Lana: Hello friends. I hope you're doing well.
I've been a student of herbal medicine for some time, and I have a healthy respect for toxic substances as a pharmacist. This is why when I started learning more about poisonous plants, I began developing a greater degree of curiosity. During today's interview. You'll hear about some of my relatively recent experiences with poisonous plans and also how they inspired me to explore this area of Plant medicine further.
My today's guest is Kathryn Solie. Kathryn is an herbalist specializing in poisonous plants and Plant consciousness. She's a terror reader and a meditation enthusiast.
Kathryn hopes to give voice to the almost forgotten medicine of poisonous plants through his courses and offerings. We'll talk more about those during the episode. Creating communities where people can connect with the ancient human lineage of plant spirit communication is absolutely at the center of her work.
During today's episode, we talk about ways in which plant spirit communications assist in understanding poisonous plants better. We talk about three poisonous plants that are especially relevant in today's culture. And we'll also discuss some poisonous medicine books that you should consider adding to your reading list.
Today's episode comes with a giveaway raffle of Kathryn's essences Belladonna Yew tree and Foxglove and we discuss these three plants in greater detail during today's conversation. To participate in the raffle please head over to https://ko-fi.com/plantloveradio and share some of your favorite moments from today's conversation. For all the links and resources from today's episode please head over to the show notes at https://plantloveradio.com/77. Enjoy!
Interview
Kathryn. Hi. How are you doing?
Kathryn: Good. How are you?
Lana: I'm good. I'm really excited to have you on the show. Today we will be talking about poisonous plants and poisonous plant medicine. And this is not the area that I have a lot of knowledge in, as you know.
I shared with my audience in a newsletter that I signed up for one of your courses, because this was one of my goals to learn more about this side of plant medicine, part of it because I love learning. And part of it is because I truly do not know enough about it. And it was so fascinating to me.
I've been following your journey in this world for about a year and have been getting more and more excited about this. But before we talk about poisonous plants, I want to ask you how your journey in the plant world in generally, how did it begin?How Kathryn got started in the world of plants
Kathryn: Well, it's an interesting question when you asked that, because my first response is well, I'm a human, I am a living being on this planet. So I think anyone who is able to slow down and feel their humanity feel their realness will feel connection to all living things, including plant life.
But that's going really far back, but my personal kind of story. I mean, as long as I can remember, I was communicating with plants. I can remember playing in the backyard as a little kid and talking to the trees and talking to the elements.
And I think that this is a very common experience for kids actually, but I think a lot of us forget that we did that or our parents or someone says, Oh, that's silly. That's not real.
And we just decide, it's just play. It's just imagination. But I had that where I questioned that, but it always kind of stuck with me even through my teenage years where I was hugging trees and things like that. But then for a lot of years kind of plant medicine went into the background.
I got very invested in meditation and non-duality and Eastern philosophy and things like that. And that really ended up informing a lot of the work that I do now. But then in my mid twenties or so I lived in Boulder, Colorado for a long time, which has a lot of kind of new age, healthy living kind of stuff there. So I was exposed to a lot of plant medicine.
I worked in a tea shop there where we were primarily focused on Chinese tea, but we also had a lot of herbal teas. And then I worked in another shop that had different herbs and like raw vegan foods, which I'm not raw vegan, but I learned a lot working in these places.
And then ended up doing an herbal apprenticeship when I moved back East in Vermont. And that just kind of really solidified it for me. And at that apprenticeship, the first weekend I met a poisonous plant, and that was like my initiation to poisonous plants.
But in my personal life, I don't just work with poisonous plants. I work with all different plant medicine all day and fungi medicine.
Lana: That's awesome. But you mentioned poisonous plant that you met her during the first day of your apprenticeship, right? So why poisonous plant medicine became such a draw for you?
Being drawn to poisonous medicine
Kathryn: Well, in the moment it was just a very strong pull for me. But I think if I look at my life historically again, kind of going back to even when I was a child, feeling like I wanted to understand death. I wanted to understand all the things that nobody talks about, all these things that are really important parts of life.
Some of the most important parts of life we never discuss in like quote unquote polite society. We don't discuss it in the over culture. It's kind of hidden. It's underneath the rug, so to speak.
Like I mentioned, I was and still am like very much interested in Eastern philosophy, whatever that means, going towards kind of what I would say would be like the truth of reality at its deepest level.
But one kind of philosophy in there is wrathful deities. And particularly in Eastern religion and Buddhism and Hinduism, they have Pantheon of gods or deities.
And what we're missing in Western religion is the wrathful deities. These kind of beings that say, cut it out, snap out of it, Wake up, let go of this nonsense that you're holding onto these illusions. But they're doing so with lots of love, they're doing so from this awakened, enlightened, compassionate space. I don't believe that there's actually like these gods or deities doing this. From my perspective, it's more like archetypal energy that we can tap into within our own selves.
But that was like a huge part of my path. I worked in hospice for a little while. It just makes sense that when I got more steeped into herbalism that the plants that would draw me in the most would be the ones that have been kind of maligned and forgotten in the last a hundred, 200, 300, 400 years, depending on where you're out in the world.
Lana: This is super fascinating. So your online presence is under the name of Persephone's path. Can you remind our listeners how this Greek mythology goddess of the underworld is connected to your work?
Persephone Myth
Kathryn: Yeah, well Persephone, she's the queen of the underworld in Greek mythology, but she's also goddess of springtime and flowers. For those that aren't familiar, she spends six months of the year on the underworld and six months above ground.
So, most people look at the Persephone myth - this is where we get our seasons, because when she goes to the underworld, her mother Demeter, who's the goddess of the harvest and grains gets so sad that she just lets all the plant life die on the planet. But when Persephone's emerges in the springtime, she's happy again, and everything can come back to life.
But I see it as much more than that. I think of the Persephone myth as something that we can connect in with, within our own psyche is like these again, kind of like the wrathful deities. And this mythology is also representative of different archetypes, different parts of our psyches.
We all go through these difficult times. I mean, collectively we're definitely going through a really difficult time right now. But individually, we all go through these times where we feel depressed or we feel discouraged, hopeless, helpless, unsure if we're going to be able to continue on, heartbroken, pain, all of these things, anger. And so you can kind of relate that to when Persephone is in the underworld.
During this time where we feel like we're confused. Cause the first time Persephone goes down, she's confused. She doesn't want to take in any nourishment. She's upset. She doesn't want to be there. She wants to go back up, but eventually she decides to take in some nourishment, which is what ties her to the underworld forever, she has to continue to go back.
But when I think about our own kind of human experience, how, when we have these difficult experiences. The initial response is often I don't want to be here. This isn't fair. Why me? I want to go back to the way it was before.
But I found in my own experience and I've seen this reflected in many people that I know that When we began to kind of open to and accept what's happening like we can't change it. So let's open to it and see what we can make of it. Maybe we can make something beautiful from this painful experience maybe it can help us to understand ourselves better. Maybe it can help us to become stronger people. Maybe it can help us so that we're able to help others who find themselves in difficult, similar life situations at one point or another.
Persephone doesn't stay in the underworld forever and neither do we. We don't stay in these kind of really difficult, painful experiences forever. There's always a hope. And I think the reality that we do come out and we are able to experience springtime. We can't force it, of course.
Connection to the poisonous plants
But my connection to this, just to give that whole background on Persephone, my connection to this is that the poisonous plants are the parts that are going to be like, let's go on to the underworld. Let's go into your traumas. Let's go into these more difficult experiences that you've had, these parts of your own self that you might not like, anything that has been rejected by us.
And that can be not only difficult traumatic experiences, but also kind of gifts that we might have. Like we might come into the world being really gifted in certain ways. I mean, we all do. We all have our own kind of unique genius. I think that we're here to be fulfilling, but culturally we're conditioned away from it. And so when we're conditioned away from it, then we're like, well, that must not be good. So I'm just going to put that into this part of my psyche, into the dark. I'm going to forget about it.
But the poisonous plants, then not only tend to bring us to our wounds, but also to our gifts.
And to me they're speaking to the same kind of thing, the Persephone myth and the poisonous plants are very much speaking, singing the same song, so to speak just different choruses maybe.
Lana: So beautiful and so poetic. Thank you for sharing it. So you mentioned that you had different experiences starting to think more about the poisonous plans. Can you recall the first time when you actually paid attention to one of these plants, got to know it and why you felt that perhaps this is a calling.
Kathryn: Well, I mean, I've interacted with poisonous plants when I was a kid, interact with poisonous plants all the time. Most of our landscaping plants tend to be poisonous, but more specifically feeling like this was something I wanted to engage more fully in was that first weekend at my herbalism apprenticeship when the herb school that I went to is the Gaia school of healing in Putney, Vermont. And it has a strong focus on plant spirit medicine on like plant consciousness.
So Sage, the teacher invited us to go Find a plant to connect with on the land. And I went and sat with Hellebore. I didn't know what hellebore was, I didn't know that it was poisonous, but just got this very strong message from this plant through like a plant spirit communication that I was to do this work, that this was where I was going to be working within this kind of realm.
And then it was so exciting and activating to me that pretty much for the rest of the apprenticeship, just like thinking about poisonous plants a lot. I mean, of course I love Rose and oatstraw and the Cedar and all those beautiful friends, but I ended up doing my final project on poisonous plants.
I'm actually like a very introverted, quiet person. I don't think I hardly ever talked like through the whole apprenticeship. And then I think everyone was surprised because when it came time for me to present my final project, I was beaming, just so excited to be talking about these plants.
And it just kind of like clicked in me. Like there's something to this. It's been taken out of a lot of herbalism schools and practices, especially in the West.
Lana: I actually want to talk to you about some of the reasons why it was taken out and perhaps misunderstandings, but before we do I want to follow up upon something that you said- plant spirit communications. For someone who is listening. Can you talk a little bit more about it?
Plant spirit communications
Kathryn: Well, the way that I understand it is that all plants are conscious. They're conscious beings. They're not objects, they're having their own experience. Science even recognizes this, that they're living beings, but then we still relate to them like they're objects. Like we can do whatever we want with them.
And then a lot of science actually now too, is showing more of the intelligence. They're not just living, but they're also intelligent. They have a different type of intelligence than we do. But there is an intelligence there. I've been thinking a lot, like the last year about well, what is plant consciousness?
Because there is something that people experience I've seen it happen for thousands of people at this point that the plants communicate with us in these different ways. How does that work?
So far, in what feels like a really primitive understanding for me, I feel like there's so much more to it than what I'm about to say is I think that the plants are giving off a certain vibration, like everything in the universe gives off a vibration and the vibration has a certain story to it.
So each plant has its own kind of unique vibration, and we can kind of pick up on it. And depending on where we are in that moment in our lives the different kinds of trainings we've had, the different types of ways that we view reality, we're going to pick up on different parts of that vibration and interpret it through our own experiences through our own lenses.
So. Long story short, plants are communicating with us. I mean, I think about this a lot. How do we think complex natural medicine traditions came about - like traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda? Where they just randomly trying thousands of plants and hundreds of thousands of combinations of plants and being like. Oh, this treats fatty liver. I doubt that. I think it would be insane to do that. And you would die like many times over.
So my hypothesis is that people in the past were far more integrated with plant consciousness and, it would have been just a natural part of being alive - would have been recognition that These plants speak to us. They tell us things through different means.
Lana: It's fascinating and I remember listening to an herbal teacher that was discussing Ayahuasca and how the two components of Ayahuasca are not very showy that they're just green plants somewhere in the jungles. And yet someone put those two things together to potentiate each other.
So all of a sudden it makes sense. These things don't grow next to each other. So this was the moment when I started thinking that maybe there is something to this, maybe plans do give us the signals and really invite us to do something with them. thank you for really mentioning that.
Kathryn: It's amazing too with Ayahuasca if you have these two separate plants, they don't work in the same way. Like they need each other in order to create this transformative visionary experience.
And I often get curious about certain plants that I study. Because Western European civilization has been broken for the longest out of all of these different lineages.
And I wonder what are the combinations of plants? Because I feel like they would have had these visionary psychedelic medicines, but what are we missing? What have we lost? Of course they had different psylosibin mushrooms and different things, and I don't know if we'll find it again. Yeah.
Lana: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely fascinating. So at some point, I want to talk to you about specific poisonous plants. But before we go there, I need to bring this idea of how to consume these plants. I want to make sure that people that are listening to us, recognizing that you're not suggesting to ingest and eat them and do all sorts of things that they are probably accustomed to with typical herbal medicine. So can you talk a little bit about your tips for how to work with poisonous plants safely?
Working with poisonous plants safely
Kathryn: Yeah. So with these plants, they are poisonous. It should go without saying. So with that comes a lot of risk because we can hurt ourselves. We can cause short-term, or long-term damage to our physical bodies. Even death can occur from certain plants. So we need to be intelligent, informed, cautious about the way that we work.
For example, Datura is one that is sadly a lot of people don't know what they're getting themselves into and they read something about how you can have like a hallucinogenic journey with Datura and where Datura it's a deliriant, so you can black out for days, weeks at a time. It's not a good thing. So my suggestion is pretty much like as a rule of thumb is don't ingest these plants.
There are certain cases, for example, Datura, there are definitely cultures all over the world who work with ingestion of these plants, but they're working within a very specific lineage and understanding of how to do it. And if you are not trained in that, and that's very dangerous.
So my preferred methods of connecting with these plants, first of all, is plant spirit communication. This is something that can be done by anyone anywhere anytime. You can do this in an apartment, you don't even have to have the physical plant with you. You can do this anywhere. You can do it in a jail cell, you can do it in space.
And that's probably the safest and in a lot of ways, maybe easiest way to work with plant consciousness or to work with poisonous plants.
Second option is a flower essences. So as long as a flower essences prepared properly, then a flower essence, even of a poisonous plant should be completely safe. Flower essences, vibrational medicine - you're not actually ingesting the physical plant, but you are ingesting, this liquid, and they are quieting down and hearing plant consciousness, a great way to just like amp up your ability turn the volume up.
And another way that I recommend is topically. So this is only applies to the poisonous plants that are in the Nightshade family. So plants like Datura, Belladonna Mandrake, Henbane, Brugsmansia - they need to prepared by someone who trained properly.
But physical medicine can be extracted via oils. And then you can either apply them via the oil or you can have a salve. And people use these topically for pain management. That's probably like the number one way that I've heard of people getting off prescription opioids for pain management from using these plants topically. It can be somewhat similar to like using CBD topically. And then other ways that people work with those topically there's different ways, but also for visionary experiences as well.
But again, if you're hallucinating, then that's like a poisoning dose. It's not the same as if you're taking other types of Ayahuvasca or psilocybin, or DMT or LSD or something. If you're getting into visualization realm than you're poisoned which I think could be pretty hard to do topically.
I think you'd have to have something that was poorly prepared. Like it was too strongly to use a lot of it. And if I can, I would also just like to recommend sources for the topical applications.
Because I think that there are more people now starting to make these topical applications because poisonous plants are showing up on people's radar. And I haven't tried everybody's out there, but I get worried that some people are making medicines before they should be. I really like Sarah Anne lawless gentle salves. And then this man named Ian from poison plant cult, who makes these really beautiful oils that also made to use topically high quality. Both are like really high quality. Both people are into poisonous plants and beautiful medicines. They don't pay me, not sponsored. These are just ones that I like.
Lana: Thank you. I'll definitely include the links in the show notes. You mentioned flower essences. Can you talk about the difference between flower essences and tinctures, for example? Flower essences versus tinctures
Kathryn: So, you're making a energetic imprint of the plant onto sunlight, and then you're watering it down. So you're getting a very, very, very, very, very low, energetic dose of a medicine that is really confusing to those of us who are raised in a Western culture where Western medicine is King and more's better. You take more, you get a stronger dose. And it's a learning curve for a lot of people. and a lot of people think that it's psychosomatic.
I've had so many experiences to the contrary. it can be a very life-changing medicine that is very safe. So again, when we're working with poisonous plants, you just want to make sure that you're getting an essence from someone who knows how to make essences. And also ideally someone who understands poisonous plants and how to make a poisonous plant essence, because. If someone doesn't understand the terminology, doesn't understand medicine making practices, and then they accidentally make like a tincture and they say, it's an essence. That's dangerous.
Lana: because you're consuming all these poisonous ingredients.
Kathryn: Yeah. And, and that can be deadly.
Lana: Thank this reminder. So. You mentioned Datura, Henbane, few other earlier. And I know that you teach about many of the different poisonous plants in your courses. I'll ask you about them in a few minutes, but I wanted to talk about maybe three to five of your favorites. Tell us a little bit about them. Why they are your favorites? What do we need to know about them? What are their energies? How do people use them? Anything that comes to mind?
Few of Kathryn's favorite poisonous plants
Kathryn: Oh, that's so hard cause I love them all so much, but I'll just speak to some that I think could be collectively useful right now.
Yew tree
One is the Yew tree that comes to my mind right away. Actually took a little Yew tree essence before we started.
So, first of all, the yew trees are amongst the oldest living beings on our planet. So very, very conservative estimates put the oldest yew tree is at like 500 years old. It's more kind of liberal estimates, put them out like 30,000 years old. They're hard to date because they're so slow growing that when you try to date them by their rings, you can't even tell. And also, as they age, they hollow out in the center.
They're just the most Amazing magical trees. So a lot of people though will be familiar with the yew tree because for example, I'm looking out my window right now. I can see my neighbor's front yard and they have a bunch of yew bushes planted in front of their house.
So they're yew trees and people will trim them. And then the yew tree is so regenerative that, it'll just Bush, and makes these really effective hedges. So a lot of people grew up seeing these around. And then when you look at these like boxes of these, yew bushes, these you hedges and then...
I encourage everyone if you're in a safe environment to do so, like you're not driving. Look up on a search engine, yew trees, they are unbelievably gorgeous. Each one is unique. They just are amazing, amazing, amazing, beautiful trees. And if you look at the hedges, a lot of you will probably be familiar with them.
They have these very gelatinous red berries. That's one of my early memories of poisonous plants was gelatinous berries, which are actually edible. The whole rest of the tree is poisonous, including the inside the berry. But the berries are yummy and sweet and Interesting. The yew tree is also used in modern Western allopathic medicine - they extract taxol from the yew tree, and it's used to treat cancer. And they used to extract it from the bark of the yew tree. And then they found that they could actually extract it from the soil growing around the tree So they don't need to hurt the huge tree in order to do this.
So. Yeah, it has a long history. There used to be vast forests of the yew tree in Europe, but many of them were decimated. They have like flexible, strong woods. They make good long bows for the 1400-1500 in these stupid Wars. They cut down all yew trees to furnish these Wars which just really breaks my heart.
But we do luckily have several surviving ones. Well, more than several many surviving ones in the UK specifically.
Lana: And So you mentioned that you took some essence, so why would someone use yew essence?
Kathryn: Yes. I was going to say that, but then I got so excited talking about the tree. so I like to take yew essence - it's really helps ground me and helps open me up to a greater perspective. So like in my day to day life, I might get into these like, Oh, what did my friends say? It hurt my feelings ... Circular, uninteresting thoughts that we spent so much of our lives wasting our time and energy on.
With the yew tree, because it has this ancient presence. It always, I feel like it helps zoom me out and see a greater, bigger perspective.
It also helps me feel like I belong on the planet. I think many of us feel like we don't have a purpose. Like in our society, most of us are not encouraged to follow our hearts longings, like what we're really came in being able to do. And I find that the yew tree says, you here, you're needed here, offer. Like just kind of an ideal elder kind of architect.
Lana: that's really beautiful. Thank you.
Quick pause
Hello again, just a quick pause here to remind you that today's episode comes with a giveaway raffle of Kathryn's three essences Belladonna, Yew tree, and Foxglove. To participate in this giveaway raffle, please head over to https://ko-fi.com/plantloveradio, and share some of your favorite moments from this conversation. You can also find the link in the show notes at https://plantloveradio.com/77. And now back to our discussion
Let's continue...
Any other ones that come to mind?
Belladonna
Kathryn: Belladonna, I think it's a plant we could collectively benefit from right now. Atropa belladonna is popularly sometimes called deadly Night shade family.
If you've ever had your pupils dilated, it probably was extracted from a Belladonna plant - atropine which is a tropane alkaloid present, and many of the poisonous nightshade plants .
But belladonna's a unique plant spirit, a unique kind of vibration. I mean, all the plants have their uniqueness. But there's something about Belladonna - it's very empowering to wounds of the feminine Which can exist, no matter how you identify on the gender spectrum, wounds around sexuality.
Working with the plant, like the essence or working with the consciousness of the plant I think can be very empowering in a more sane way than we're culturally offered, what's it supposed to look like? Like muscles and guns and money and, tight butts and I'm sure we could expand upon that a lot.
But, I feel like the empowerment that comes from Belladonna is very embodied sensual, grounded. It comes from a sense of self-worth that comes from deep within like, within our hearts, within our bellies, our wounds. It doesn't come from these external, things that we've been like propagandized to believe are valuable and empowering.
Lana: Let's try one more.
Kathryn: Well, I feel like I'm going to ask you, is there one that calls to you?
Lana: So there are a couple, for example, foxglove is something that I often think about because they're so beautiful. And if you go to the West coast, in the forest if you're hiking, there are so many gorgeous foxglove plants. And of course foxglove, there is a connection to me personally, in terms of my profession, because the digitalis and digoxin, this is one of the medicines that has been used by the pharmaceutical industry. So I have learned a lot about foxglove in the herbal medicine and the women that we're working with it how their knowledge was utilized to bring it into the more contemporary medicine.
Other ones... I think elder is another plant that I really love. I think during today's day and age, I've been using a lot of elder with my family in terms of the elderberry syrup and various other things. But I know that the plant itself can be quite poisonous and especially if the berries are not ripe and things of that type.
So, this is probably one of the reasons why I am so curious about those, because I have these little things, whether in my professional training or even in my childhood. When I was thinking about some of the archetypes, of these medicine women using different things back and Ukraine and former Soviet union. Sometimes they were the scary characters that were portrayed throughout, the television and books and so on and so forth. And as you grow up you start realizing how all these myths and stories all interwoven. So these are just a couple I familiar with and know a little bit more about, but I am super curious of learning more different types.
Kathryn: Hmm. I love hearing about your experience with the understanding the chemical constituents and plants. I feel like that if we can get more people tying together, plant consciousness, historical use of plant medicine and also understanding the more like quote unquote scientific aspect. I think that would be so good. So helpful.
Datura
Lana: And I think to tell you something else that really sparked my curiosity more than anything else. I live in Massachusetts. And about a year ago I was walking on a sidewalk right next to my building and I saw this plant that was growing and it felt very much out of place, right. And so it was growing next to some tree and I kept looking at it and it was a little scary. I had fear every time when I was passing this plant. There was just something that was just really communicating with me. I think prior to that, I really didn't pay attention, but I knew was a poisonous plant. Jimson weed?
Kathryn: I was going to ask, was it Datura? That's jimsonweed
Lana: I don't remember the flowers as much as I remember the fruit, the pod..
Kathryn: Spiky.
Lana: Right. And the opening of it, I don't know, it left my skin tingling and it just wasn't a very comforting feeling. And so in some ways it made me more aware of what's going on and really pay attention to the offerings in this world and actually made me pay attention to your messages a little bit more than probably I was prior to that.
Kathryn: Yeah, welcome to the club. You've probably heard me say this, but, so many people I think come to the work that I'm doing because they met a Datura plant or Jimson weed plant in the wild. And we're like, what is this? Because it's such a striking plan. Yeah. I love that kind of description that you said of this seems out of place.
There's something that's so absorbing strange off-putting but also seductive about this plant. I mean, Datura is definitely overarching. Feels like a plant for our times that we're in right now.
Lana: Why do you say that?
Kathryn: Well, God, I loved Datura so much. Datura is, it's a poisonous plant again, it's also night shade family, like Belladonna is as well. And it has all of those kinds of aspects like I was talking about in the Persephone Myth and the wrathful deities with these kind of ability to take us into these painful traumatic, darker parts of our psyche, but Datura also has this angelic energy to it that, I think is a really good gateway so that people can feel safe and going into these darker places within themselves. Because, I think collectively, if we don't start integrating, understanding, processing our traumas we're not going to get out of this insanity that we've been a part of for the last several hundred years and I think that the poisonous plants are one piece of many in terms of getting us collectively to wake up from this total delusion nonsense that we're collectively under the spell. Yeah, it's really special plant.
And in the poisonous plant medicine course, it's a week, three eight. That's the only plant that we talk about because there's just so much, it's a plant that also it touches every continent. It grows on every continent. It's really hard to figure out where is it indigenous to like maybe it's indigenous to North or South America, but then there's another variety that's indigenous to India. And there's ones that grow in Africa. Everywhere that you go people were using these plants, the indigenous peoples were using it medicinally for myriad of things. But this is the one that also speaking to at the beginning where people can hear that it's this visionary plan and then get themselves into trouble. So we need to be super cautious with the Datura, super cautious.
Lana: It's good to hear you say that because I remember with my personal experience, how I wanted to touch it, but I was afraid to touch it. So now I understand why.
We talked about few of these plants, but I know that in your work you rely a lot on the imagery associated with these poisonous plants. Many of them are known for their beauty. And I wanted to ask you to talk a bit about that, why this is important and how does it fit into overall picture?
Imagery and poisonous plants
Kathryn: I mean, for me personally, I majored in painting in college. I've always been A lover of art and a very visual person. For example, in my slide shows and stuff in class, I show artwork because I want people to have something to look at, to kind of rest into. I'm just talking and gabbing on and on and to help kind of evoke different feelings, emphasize the words that I'm saying.
But with plant spirit communication, with plant consciousness, when we're communicating with plants, everyone kind of experiences these plant communications differently, depending on our brains, on our life experiences, what we're interested in. but for the most part, it seems like maybe like 80% of people tend to have visuals, they get imagery. So imagery is an important piece of plant communication. In my experience that's not necessarily exactly how the plants communicate with us through images, but it's an easy doorway into understanding what the plants are communicating.
And then there's an added layer of having to understand the language of symbology, because usually they're communicating in symbolic language rather than direct. The way that like I'm speaking to you now kind of communication.
Lana: And I think certainly imagery, something that really peaks your curiosity. I was talking to someone earlier today who said, Oh, your website is so beautiful. And I never really thought about why website would be beautiful or not, but my website has a lot of images of plants on it. And this is what human mind finds beautiful - the beauty of nature.
Also, when I walk around one of the plants, not necessarily poisonous, but on the spectrum of edible it's closer to the poisonous spectrum, American Poke.
This is a plant that has been growing all around me. We have a lot of construction in this area that's going on. I am absolutely mesmerized by the shifts and colors and how the berries become bright and how the stems become purple and vivid.
Kathryn: I think that's also that's like what you're talking about. Like the pink of Poke which also, if anyone is not familiar with poke or poke berries, look them up because they're just these hot pink amazing plants, but that feels like it's part of the medicine too, is the beauty. I think we tend to collectively disregard that because we're used to just taking like a white tasteless pill and that's what medicine is.
But there's also medicine and, Looking at something beautiful and letting it nourish you. I know that sounds really hippy to be, but I think it's true.
Lana: I agree with you. In the Northeast when the fall comes, the trees and the leaves change in color. I remember reading somewhere that the bright yellows and the bright reds even on gloomy days, create this feeling of happiness in us. And it's all visual, right?
So if that is creating feel of happiness, why would seeing these beautiful berries or beautiful plants, even if they're poisonous, why would not that be a part of the medicine? So I completely agree with you on that.
Okay. So as one of your students, I learned that you love to share poisonous plant resources. You mentioned two of the companies and I will definitely include them if there are any other websites or books or anything else that you can recommend?Recommended resources
Kathryn: So there are many books out there currently and it's increasing. There's one called the Encyclopedia of psychoactive plants. And this is a big but it's kind of expensive, but it's very much worth it. It has beautiful color images throughout, Well-researched. Of course I'm sure there's things in there that I've heard people question, but there's a lot of information. It goes through the historical medicinal, mythical lore, the chemical parts of many different psychoactive plants, including many, many poisonous plants. It's by Christian Ratsch.
And then there's another book called Pharmaco Gnosis by Dale Pendell, which is also a wonderful. He wrote a series of these pharmaco books, but the pharmaco gnosis book has a whole chapter on poisonous nightshade plants and a whole chapter on Amanita muscaria, the little red and white mushroom. He just has a unique voice and just seems like. Well, he's passed away, but he seemed like a very lovely human.
And another one is Plants of the gods by a couple of different author authors. I believe Albert Hoffman is one, he's the synthesizer of LSD and also Christian Rutsch is also a contributor to that book and someone else's name I'm forgetting.
And I have one more, that's kind of a new one. Oh, there's so many books that I want to recommend, but this one came out last year. It's called The Immortality Key. The name of the author is escaping me right now, but it's not totally 100% what we're talking about today, but this guy did massive amounts of research into the connection on kukeon it's how he pronounces it.
In Greece for almost two thousand years, I believe it was 1,997 years. Every year they had this event the Eleusian mysteries, where people would go and ingest kukeon, And have this kind of group experience. And they would all have connection to Persephone, Demeter, Hades story.
And we're not totally clear of what was happening there because was you were sworn to secrecy to not expose what was happening there. So we get little kind of tidbits here and there, but more and more over time, like the last 30, 40 years, It's becoming clear that they were ingesting something like an ergot derivative and LSI, so very close to LSD. So they were taking the psychedelic medicine and he did lots of academic research into it. Really interesting.
He also talks a little bit about Amanita muscaria and if you're not wanting to read that whole book, he did, like a three hour interview on the Joe Rogan Experience like six months ago or something that. Whatever you feel about Joe Rogan it's a good, interesting, really interesting interview. yeah,
Lana: I love learning about new books. And so thank you. Thank you for that recommendation. So at this point, I want to talk a little bit about your own offering. As I mentioned at the beginning of this interview, I am taking your class and enjoying it very much.
And I wanted to ask you to talk about the different offerings that you have in terms of the courses. And also you have a beautiful Patreon page with a number of different things . If you can talk about them and for people that are not quite ready to do that, perhaps you can also discuss what type of information you share on social media. Perhaps that would be a gateway for them.
Kathryn's offerings and ways to connect
Kathryn: Sure. So yeah, I share a lot on social media. I kind of have been stepping back the past couple months cause it just does not feel healthy to be in that sphere right now. But yeah, I have like many, many posts that you can go back and read where I give out a lot of information and different little videos on Instagram with lots of free information about poisonous plants and various things. I have a Patreon that you can join first, starting at $2 a month, and there's all different kinds of offerings that I have, I think about 20 different video classes that are all between, about 20 minutes and two hours long. I put up a new one each month On all different kinds of topics ranging from plant medicine to poisonous plants, to Tarot to all different kinds of things, non-poisonous herbal medicine as well. And there's also through Patreon, we do monthly plant journeys in a very lovely group of people. And we do these plant journeys together, online.
And also There's also these monthly herbal care packages. So every month I send out unique medicine that I created that feels like it's what I think is needed at this moment in time for the collective. So there's lots of different offerings on there and, and there are some free things on there too on Patreon, which is https://patreon.com/kathrynsolie .
And the main course that I do is the six week course that you're in the -poisonous plant medicine course. We basically talk about plant consciousness. We talk about many different poisonous plants. We talk about shadow work, mythology. It's my goal in that class to give a kind of framework so that you can really deepen your understanding of plants, what plant consciousness is, what plant medicine could be, and to really get to know yourself better through these plants.
I love doing it. It's been an amazing thing there's been at this point about a thousand people that have gone through it. I was thinking when I started at that, it wouldn't run at all because I was thinking, no, one's interested in this stuff. And I've been shocked to find that so many people are interested in poisonous plants. I will be offering that again in like May - June of this year. And then I also have a shop on my website, https://kathrynsolie.com, where I do sell essences of different plants and different plant medicine, a little book that I wrote and illustrated. And I do too many things I think, but I think that's it.
Lana: That's great. Thank you. I just want to repeat your Instagram.
Kathryn: My website is kathrynsolie.com and then my is persephonespath
Lana: okay. And I will spell everything out for our audience, for our listeners, so they will be able to find it in the show notes.
Kathryn, thank you so much before we end, I have one last question for you. Do you have any parting thoughts for our audience?
Parting thoughts
Kathryn: I think don't be afraid of these plants, that there's something important that they're here to communicate with us. And the things that they're communicating with us might seem like the things that we might want to avoid, but are so necessary for us to go towards them - our wounds, our traumas. It's it's really needed on the planet right now.
And not only going towards our wounds and our traumas, but it's also needed right now that we go towards our unique genius. Like everyone is a genius in their own way, even though that seems like it's the opposite of what we've been told.
And there's something that you have, that's uniquely yours to offer to the world that doesn't have to be like curing cancer or saving the environment on a mass scale, but it can be just these little things that you can do in your life to affect your own wellbeing and the wellbeing of your family, your community. You know, you have more power than, than you've been led to believe.
Lana: thank you. This is beautiful. I love your message. I love your energy and I'm so, so grateful for your time and your wisdom. Thank you.
Kathryn: Thank you so much for having me.
Thanks for listening!
Lana: Thank you so much for joining us today for this conversation with Kathryn Solie about Poisonous Plant medicine i hope you have enjoyed it. For all the resources discussed during today's interview please head over to the show notes at https://plantloveradio.com/77.
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