Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Joe Grumbine: The Sacred nature of medicine pt 1
The journey with sacred plant medicines rarely follows a straight path. After four decades of cannabis use—from teenage experimentation to activist battles with the government—I've discovered something profound: true healing emerges when we approach these powerful allies with reverence.
My first real connection with cannabis wasn't through consumption but through cultivation. As a 12-year-old tending a secret plant in my father's greenhouse, I developed a relationship that transcended recreation. Though that first plant met an untimely end, it sparked a lifelong exploration of ethnobotanicals—from kratom and kanna to the potent DMT extracted from mimosa hostilis. Throughout these explorations, I've learned that sacredness isn't limited to plants; it extends to minerals, animal-derived compounds, and even elements like sunlight when approached as medicine.
What transforms any substance from potentially harmful to deeply healing is intention. The coca plant—demonized in its refined cocaine form—provides gentle, nutritive medicine when used traditionally. Cannabis can relieve cancer-related symptoms or trigger anxiety, depending on one's approach. During my darkest moments battling cancer, this plant "spoke" to me in ways I'd never experienced despite our long history together. This spiritual connection revealed something crucial: we're working with living teachers, not mere substances. When we recognize the sacred nature of these medicines, we tap into healing that extends beyond the physical—connecting us to the creative force flowing through all things, whatever name we give it. The most powerful medicine isn't found in the plant itself, but in our relationship with it.
Ready to explore the sacred dimension of plant medicines? Listen now and discover how intention transforms everything.
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Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine, and today we're going to have a conversation about sacred medicines. And you know, just like so many things, there are practices that are potentially really positive for people's health, that go back maybe all the way into history, and they have awakenings that happen from time to time. And I believe that you know, right now we're in sort of a crazy time, but you know we've always been in a crazy time. Now we're in sort of a crazy time, but you know we've always been in a crazy time, but you know, spiritual wellness, retreats, plant medicines, uh, indigenous practices these are all very in vogue in a lot of ways, and there are people that are profiting from it, capitalizing on it, becoming quote, famous for it, whatever all these things. And so be it right. I mean, it always has happened, it'll always happen. But I want to talk about the sacred element of medicines and what makes that different from the latest thing, and we're going to talk about intentions. We're going to talk about how we treat things. We're going to talk about what we're actually doing. What we're trying to actually do.
Speaker 1:My experience with sacred medicines goes back, I would have to say to probably about 1980, maybe 78, I guess, or 70, yeah, 77, 78. I was just a kid and I tried cannabis for the first time and that was my first experience with the sacred plant medicine. I didn't consider it to be sacred at the time. In fact I didn't really know anything about what I was doing. I was influenced by a friend. Anything about what I was doing, I was influenced by a friend. It seemed all right, it seemed fun, I tried it. I didn't really get a whole lot from it, but over the next few years I dabbled here and there and became connected with the plant. But really the first time I really connected with the plant was, I would have to say it was probably about maybe 1982, and I had some tie stick that I had gotten and and you know that was a pretty important piece of the puzzle back then. You know, if you could get ahold of some tie stick back then, that was some a good experience. And of course, like most of the pot back in those days, it had seeds in it and I planted my first seed, and so it wasn't so much with the imbibing of the medicine that I connected with this plant, it was actually growing it and I can remember, as I don't know what was I 13 years old, maybe 12, 13?
Speaker 1:I remember connecting with this little plant and we had this little greenhouse that my dad never really went in and I planted it in there and over time it grew up. I didn't know what I was doing, I just had it in a little pot and basically just watered it, but spent time with it and connected with it and it was a plant that I would go out and visit every day and share my energy with. Now, I wasn't doing that with intention, because I had no idea what it was. I was a 12-year-old kid, but in some way, shape or form, the plant connected with me on a deeper level and I felt drawn to the plant and I never even got a chance to harvest it or smoke it. My dad ended up finding it and killing it and, um, kind of broke my heart a little bit. But I planted another plant another spot in the yard. We had a pretty big backyard and a lot of hiding places and the next plant I grew turned out to be male and I didn't know anything about, you know, male and female plants back then. I mean, this is. You know, early 80s there wasn't all the information there is today. There was no youtube, there was no computers, there was no internet, none of that. There was, you know, a couple of books here and there, and I think Ed Rosenthal was a big deal back then. But over time I learned and eventually found a mentor and learned how to really grow and got some good genetics and walked down that road and during that time I experimented with a lot of different things.
Speaker 1:And when I talk about sacred medicines, I'm not just talking about plants. You know there are minerals involved in some medicines, there's animals involved in some medicines. It's not the sacredness of a compound, isn't specific to it being a plant, and I know I work with a lot of plants. For a lot of reasons. I make products with plants and I think plants are a very amazing way that God puts together compounds in a way that we can use them, and so I am extremely prejudiced towards plants. I love plants. I have a botanical garden.
Speaker 1:I work with plants on many, many levels, but I don't hold them in higher regard than I do other things, for example. You know, for example, you know sunlight, minerals, animals and other ways that we can find, harvest, prepare medicines that can help us to heal. I dabbled around with just about every drug you can imagine, even did a little laudanum back in my day, which is an opiate tincture. Enough to know that I needed to keep away from that because it was just too darn lovely. And you know there's a lot of plant medicines that can be deadly, and I think that's one of the reasons why dealing with the sacred aspect of it is so important, because when we lose sight of that, we can take something that is powerful and could and should and often is used for good, but it can also cause harm without the thought, without the care, without the love, without the respect, without the love, without the respect, without the sacred element being recognized. And even pot, even cannabis, can be debilitating to some people. It can be devastating, it can cause problems and I never wanted to see that.
Speaker 1:You know, if anybody knows me, I've been a cannabis activist for 20 years. I've been locked up for my support of cannabis medicine and helping people. More than a few times I went through a six-year battle with the government. I stood my ground, I fought for this plant and you know I continue to do that on some level, but not in the same way that I used to, and partly because I realize some things that you know. We hold sometimes things in such high regard that we think they can do no harm, and we tell ourselves that and we believe it. But the truth is anything can cause harm in the wrong hands, when it's not respected, when it's abused and abuse is a word that you know we can do with just about any any subject. You know if you, you can abuse water to the point where you die from it. So if you can do that, any plant that has any possible toxicity level to it could certainly be harmful in the wrong hands, with the wrong intention, in the wrong way. So that's part of what I want to really make sure we address, as we're looking at the sacred side of things.
Speaker 1:There are plants that people consider to be, you know, problematic, like the coca plant. You know cocaine and all of the problems that it causes. But coca plant's a sacred plant if used correctly, in the right hands, in the right way. There's a medicine that is made out of the leaf and you know it's used as a like a dip. You put it in your mouth and and just kind of suck on it and it can give you, um, not a cocaine high at all, but a more of like a vitamin, um, cleansing energetic level of of medicine that is so different from the chaotic, just wild energy that cocaine has when it's refined down to its pure form.
Speaker 1:A lot of the things that plants bring is a double edge. You know a lot of ethnobotanical plants, which is a term that used to be used a lot more. I don't know, I don't hear that term very much anymore. I guess back in the 90s, early 2000s, I was working with a guy, what we used to call Farmer Hank, and he collected ethnobotanical seeds and what these are are different plants that are used historically by indigenous people in various areas all around the world, and there's hundreds and hundreds of these plants. I used to I have a plant book called Plants of the Gods or Food of the Gods, and it's, you know, a story of a number of different ethnobotanical plants and what we find is that all around the world, different cultures have connected with the energies of different plants and they've learned how to make extracts and to deal with these.
Speaker 1:A lot of plants will have multiple compounds in their whole form and they'll have maybe a chemical compound that connects with certain receptors in your brain or causes you to feel or behave a certain way. But also that same plant may have certain alkaloids that can be very toxic, and often there's a preparation that's necessary, whether it's, you know, chewing this plant with that mineral, or cooking it a certain way, or blending it with other herbs or plants, or there's just so many different ways that things need to be prepared in some cases. And like, for example, I met a guy. And like, for example, I met a guy this isn't all that long ago, maybe about 15 years ago or so that was making DMT out of mimosa hostilis root and he taught me how to do it. I didn't really take good notes because I thought we were going to work together for years.
Speaker 1:I had a pretty powerful couple of experiences with it, but I can't say that I I treated it in a sacred way, more of like a science experiment, more of an exploration, if you will. And you know, in my life I've been an explorer, I've been a curious individual and I'd like to see what happens when you do certain things, and so I've used myself as a science experiment in many ways, and sometimes putting a spiritual element to it, other times not so much just seeing what happens for the sake of seeing what happens. And I believe he approached it from a more reverent position than I did at the time. But I followed his lead. I did what he did, how he did it, and got a really powerful experience from it and felt that it was transformative in some way. But again, I wasn't purposely connecting with spirit that way. I wasn't seeking to get closer to my creator or nature or any other thing like that, as sometimes we do. Later on the guy turned out to be a dick and just disappeared and got upset over some stupid thing and I said, well, I'm probably not going to make that medicine anymore because it was connected to that.
Speaker 1:And even though I'm not calling myself any kind of a shaman or a medicine man or anything like that, I'm a tinkerer is what I call myself. I make things that help people in the best way I can. I make my own medicine. I do things I work on myself, basically, and if I help other people, I do, but I don't run ceremonies or anything like that. That's not to say that I haven't and can't and that sort of thing. It's just not my. It's not my place in this world right now and with these ethnobotanicals there were many of them.
Speaker 1:I remember back in the time I mean this is again, again almost over 25 years ago I was working with this guy that was bringing kratom in and nobody knew about kratom and we were working with a herb called canna and lion's tail and Syrian rue and all these different plants. And I remember at the time I saw a movie I can't remember what it was called Emerald Forest or something, and it was about ayahuasca. And you know, this is again almost 30 years ago and it was a story about a guy who went into the jungle and worked with some medicine people and his experience with ayahuasca was done as some kind of a snuff and they shoot it up your nose and, uh, how he became the forest. And it was a very interesting story and caused me to be interested in in the power of some of these medicines. Now, I've never done ayahuasca to this day. My wife has, but if and when it calls to me, I will look at it. But that's part of what this conversation is about.
Speaker 1:It's always been a very recreational plant, but it's also in its recreation is where the medicine can be. Sometimes you know medicine in a plant can be, you know, a powerful psychedelic experience where you see things that either aren't really there or are there and we normally can't see them. Or you experience, you know, sounds on a different level, light, all these different sensory experiences, or they can just be very internal, meditative, message oriented experience, or they can just be very relaxing or very uplifting or very contemplative, and cannabis can tap into all those things and at the same time it has some powerful medicinal properties at its fingertips. It can attack cancer cells, it can cause sleep to be easily had. It can vanquish anxiety, stress, fears, but it can also bring them. It can cause you to have an appetite when you struggle to have one. It can relieve nausea. For me going through my cancer experience, that's been a tool that I've been using as a very medicinal experience. A couple little hits and the nausea and lack of appetite can be diminished and turn around so that I can eat a decent meal and keep my weight strong. These are all very powerful experiences.
Speaker 1:But today, you know, I spent 40 years playing with this plant and 25 years now probably about 35 years making medicine with the plant. At the same time no-transcript seeing it in the same sacred light that I do today. Let's just say that. But when I went through the darkest time, as I was literally on my deathbed with this cancer, and as I began to turn it around and see the light again, see that I had a chance and see that I was gonna, I was ultimately gonna win um, I saw, I connected with the sacred side of it and it spoke to me in a way that spirits can speak to you, and it said you know I can help you. And I was whoa, you're right, and and and so for the last maybe four or five months, I've had a different relationship with this plant and we have a long history and we have a good history. But I also had a little heartbreak and it wasn't able to help me with some things that I thought it would, and I had to overcome that. And now I've connected with it in in a, in a spirit way that I see that it's it's. Things aren't necessarily good or bad. It has a lot to do with your intention and how you're connecting with the thing that brings out the good and bad as it applies to you. That brings out the good and bad as it applies to you.
Speaker 1:As I said, I've dabbled with most compounds out there in some way shape or form and I recognize that there are some compounds that are so powerful that I just need to keep them at arm's reach because I don't know how to work with them in a sacred way and I don't know that I want to. The addictive nature of some things are very difficult. I've recently re-established a relationship with tobacco. Now, tobacco is a very, very sacred plant and it's also very, very abused and it's also very, very potentially dangerous to a lot of people when and if abused.
Speaker 1:But if you work with the sacred side of it, in the sense of you work with its true spirit, with reverence and in a sacred way, I it's been used historically, um to carry a prayer.
Speaker 1:You know we we're human beings and and you know it's funny I have a lot of people in my life that I've shared pretty deep experiences with that are spiritual and vulnerable and my connection to God or source or spirit or creator, whatever, jesus, you know all the ways that that we express our human experience of something that is not human, or even of this world, for that matter.
Speaker 1:We live this three-dimensional, low-vibrational life and even the best of us are just animals and we've got to really be honest about that. You know, if you think about the nature of things in the universe and the creative power that is moving things, and again you can believe what you want. We all will do that. But I believe there's a creative force in this universe that causes everything to happen in a way that I'll never probably understand, and for me to be stuck holding a name or a face or a picture or an image or a set of words that applies to everything as the be-all and end-all, in my opinion is limiting, and I know for many, many people it's good, it's enough, and I suppose it could be enough for me as well. But I believe in really the unlimited potential of the human experience. I believe we have inside of us the very particles that create a force and that we have inside of us the ability to connect and become or be or use or express that part of us if we figure out or
