Journey to Well
We are not created to do this healing journey or life alone. In fact, it was Bessle Van Der Kolk who expertly shared “healing happens in the presence of an empathic witness”. That is the heart of this podcast & my business : to witness. You can expect a plethora of conversations on nervous system regulation, breathwork, human design & astrology, cycle alignment, energy & spirituality work and so much more. We are all on a journey back home to ourselves, rediscovering our innate power within & I am thrilled to take this journey to well with you. be well xx
Journey to Well
The Sacred Dance of Plant Medicine and Meditation | David Crow L.Ac.
The profound intersection of plant medicine and meditation offers a pathway to healing that goes far beyond symptom relief. David Crow, a pioneering clinical herbalist and acupuncturist, shares his extraordinary 40-year journey studying with Tibetan doctors in the Himalayas, nine different Ayurvedic practitioners, and various healing traditions that recognize the inseparability of medicine and spirituality.
At the heart of this conversation lies a revolutionary insight: the way we take herbs matters as much as which herbs we take. When we approach plant medicine with mindful awareness, paying close attention to the sensations they create in our bodies, we dramatically amplify their healing effects. "Where the mind flows, the qi flows," David explains, describing how focused attention directs healing energy precisely where we need it. This practice creates a beautiful synergy - herbs support meditation, and meditation potentiates herbs.
David challenges our modern supplement culture with its "more is better" mentality. Instead, he advocates for "more mindfulness, not more herbs," revealing how microdosing with complete presence produces more powerful effects than handfuls of supplements taken mindlessly. This approach makes profound healing accessible to everyone - you don't need exotic substances or expensive formulations, just sincere attention to whatever herb you're already taking.
The conversation also explores the traditional context of plant medicines, especially powerful entheogens like ayahuasca. David discusses the importance of proper containers - the land, culture, ceremony, and tradition that safely hold these experiences - and how their absence in modern settings can lead to psychological harm rather than healing.
Whether you're new to herbal medicine or a seasoned practitioner, this episode invites you to slow down and experience the union of plant consciousness with human awareness. In this mindful exchange, we reconnect with the original purpose of healing traditions: not just relief from symptoms, but support for our journey toward greater awareness, integration, and ultimately, spiritual transformation. Discover how a simple cup of tea, approached with reverence, can become a doorway to profound healing and connection.
Connect with David at https://www.crowconsultations.com/
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xx Hannah
Hello, welcome back to the podcast Journey to Well, I am Hannah, your host, and today I am joined by with David Crow. He is a clinical herbalist and acupuncturist and a expert in Chinese medicine. I've had some people I've had an acupuncture and oriental medicine practitioner on my podcast before, but completely different topics, completely different ways that we're going to share about all of this beautiful medicine. So, david, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. He is also before I forget, he's a 2-4 emotional generator, so you know that I talk about human design as well. And my favorite question, probably of the entire podcast, is the first question, which is who is David and how would you like to introduce yourself to this audience and how has your journey been thus far in your life?
Speaker 2:Well, thank you been thus far in your life. Well, thank you for the invitation, the opportunity to talk about myself. It's the best to acupuncture Chinese medicine first. But when I started my training a long time ago, as one of the first Westerners to go to an acupuncture college in the United States in the first year that there was such a thing, I also came in contact with the Tibetan Buddhist community that was also beginning to come to the Western culture. So I actually encountered both Chinese medicine and Tibetan Buddhism around the same time, in the early 1980s in San Francisco. And this is basically what has been happening ever since these two lineages of classical Asian medicine and classical Asian spiritual lineages. But in my own studies it has expanded quite a lot.
Speaker 2:And so I completed my acupuncture training, I became licensed as an acupuncturist, I started learning and using a lot about Chinese herbs, but I quickly discovered that there was far more going on in terms of the spiritual roots of these medical lineages than was being taught in contemporary Western Chinese medicine.
Speaker 2:And so because I had contact with the Tibetan Buddhist community, specifically through a very renowned, very accomplished spiritual teacher, kalu Rinpoche, who was the real thing, the real yogi, who practiced for years in snow caves and just wearing, wearing a cotton cloth. He was like the real, the real thing, and so I was very impressed when I met him and I became very interested in the tibetan spiritual teachings and lineages and tibetan medicine. So I ended up studying both of these subjects from a variety of different sources teachers and lineages and I actually went to the Himalayas and studied with a Tibetan doctor over a period of several years. I lived in Kathmandu for a year the first time and studied with Dr Nalwang Chopal, who was a Tibetan doctor, for a year the first time, and studied with Dr Ngawang Chopal, who was a Tibetan doctor, and I was learning simultaneously. Chinese medicine.
Speaker 2:Ayurvedic medicine and Tibetan medicine over a period of about. You know well, it still goes on. So it's been over 40 years. I've been studying it and at the same time I was also doing a lot of retreats with these Tibetan lamas and teachers. And then, through Ayurveda, I became very interested in the Vedas and Tantra, and all of these lineages of medicine and spirituality were all happening there in Kathmandu in my studies, and I was bringing this all back to my clinical practice in California, a step at a time, and then I became very aware that the medicines, the plant medicines of the Himalayas were endangered, increasingly endangered from a number of different directions. They were being over harvested, there was loss of biodiversity, huge demand, all of these things. And so I then took my clinical practice more and more into the sustainable agricultural side and developed one of the first kind of green businesses in the field of natural products and started an essential oil company called Floricopia. That went for 20 years and that took me all over the world being involved in sustainability projects, ecological and organic cultivation of medicinal plants and aromatics and distillation of essential oils, and so these are three of the big rivers of study that I have been involved in and I have been really now going full circle back to the integration of the spiritual teachings and the medical teachings, and they were always there together.
Speaker 2:In my studies of Tibetan medicine, I attended many large ceremonies where medicine was being made and consecrated with mantra and prayer, and this is very universal everywhere. It's also part of Ayurvedic medicine, and so I began to learn, at the same time that I was learning about the herbs and learning about, you know, the system of Chinese medicine learning about the herbs and learning about the system of Chinese medicine, learning about the system, the concepts and the principles of Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicine. I was also learning the associated lineages of spiritual practice. And so in Chinese medicine, even though it wasn't being taught, Chinese medicine is inseparable from Taoism and Chinese medicine is inseparable from Qigong and Tai Chi and Taoist alchemy, Taoist spirituality and all these things. So that's where I was introduced to this inseparability. And then in Tibetan medicine it's inseparable. Ayurvedic medicine it's inseparable. Buddhist medicine it's inseparable, and at the same time, what we are receiving here in the West is very separated. And so people who study Chinese medicine, you know they have to fulfill a curriculum, they have to go and they have to get accredited and then pass their state board exams and then they can have a license. And that's a big job and there's not a whole lot of time for doing spiritual practices.
Speaker 2:But that was the basis of the classical systems is that all of these things are used together, use together, and so my focus, especially now for the last several years, has really been studying, I guess, what you could just call mind-body medicine.
Speaker 2:How do these things work together, why do they work together and why is it important? And it turns out that human consciousness plays a huge role in what happens physiologically inside the body when we take herbs. And when we take herbs it has a huge impact on human consciousness. And so it makes perfect sense that in these traditions that the medicines that were being made were being prayed over and consecrated and so forth, and that actually changes how they work. And then if we do that ourselves and we take them with mindfulness and reverence and things like that, then it changes how they work also. So, to sum it all up, all of this is basically led to a place now where I understand and really appreciate that herbal medicine supports our spiritual practice and spiritual practices support herbal medicine and this is a very important thing to understand how this works and why it's important.
Speaker 2:Because it's very practical in the sense that it potentizes the herbs when we use them with mindfulness and it changes actually. Anybody can feel it, anybody can experience that meditation makes the effects of the herbs stronger. And likewise it's explicitly stated in these traditions that the goal of medicine is not for curing disease. That's considered to be like the lowest goal. The lowest priority is treating disease, but the highest priority of medicine is to help achieve moksha, transcendence, illumination, enlightenment, whatever we want to call it. In other words, there's an ultimate spiritual goal and the herbs were always put in that context.
Speaker 2:Medicinal plants, natural medicine, was always put in the context that it's not just about being free of symptoms. It's also about having a long life, and not just about having a long life, but having a long life with a purpose which is to deepen our spiritual practice and that has a goal which is a final attainment illumination. So these are the two primary subjects that I've spent my life studying and have seen that it is a very practical and a very important thing and what it does is it actually translates into real benefits because, historically, herbal medicine was always used to support meditation, and what that means is that we have these resources now that we need for this global pandemic of dementia.
Speaker 2:You see the herbs that support our meditation practice are the herbs that strengthen our brain and support our nervous system and calm the anxiety and antidepressant and all that. So that's where spiritual practice and mental health are closely related and that's where herbs come in at that level. So that's a brief overview of a long journey.
Speaker 1:It has been a long journey, I imagine. I have so many questions and I do want to share one thing before my question. What you just said about meditation helping to strengthen the brain and helping also with anxiety and mental illnesses, I shared quite honestly about this. A couple years ago I had a very dysregulated nervous system. Quite a few situations in my life led to that dysregulation and so I started experiencing a lot of anxiety and that was new for me. I had never had panic attacks or felt anxious, and one of the only things that helped during an actual panic attack was actually meditating, and at the time I found Dr who was it? Yeah, it was a Dr Joe Dispenza meditation.
Speaker 1:And then there's also Andrew Huberman talks about NSDR, which is non-sleep deep rest, and you can literally look it up on YouTube.
Speaker 1:It's a 10 or 15 minute video of really just body awareness and bringing your body awareness to specific pieces, which we don't have to go into all the science behind it, but that's really helpful when you're having a panic attack to be able to come into the present moment.
Speaker 1:But they'll find five things that you can see and the four things that you can hear, and and other body awareness or present moment meditations never really worked for me, but those were two that really worked for me, and I'm so interested to hear about how herbs can support medicine meditation, because I have been an on and off lifelong meditator. I started meditating when I was a kid, actually, because my mom was a meditator and she had me meditate with her when I was in like elementary school. But I've never used herbs with my meditation, so I'm very excited to learn about that. But first, my first question is why learn Tibetan, ayurvedic and Chinese medicine all at the same time? And then part B of that question is what are the differences between those three that you felt were very important to learn and that led you to kind of continue down this road of exploring all three of these modalities?
Speaker 2:Good question, Many questions actually so many.
Speaker 1:I know I can't. I'm so excited to talk to you. I have so many.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, tibetan, Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine are fundamentally very similar.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're also very similar to Unani medicine, the Persian medicine and to Greek medicine. They're similar in the sense that they have underlying principles that are the same, and we find things like Vata, pitta Katha in Ayurveda. Well, that's there in Tibetan medicine, it's there in a different form in Chinese medicine we hear about the five elements of Chinese medicine and it's there in Ayurvedic medicine in slightly different form. And the other thing that they all share is plants and similar kind of diagnostic methods. But the reason that I was fundamentally interested in Chinese medicine first was because that's what was starting to appear in the West first. Chinese medicine came first, ayurveda came later, and so therefore I started through the doorway of Chinese medicine and became licensed as an acupuncturist and went into a clinical practice and continued my studies. But through entering that doorway I basically was going into the doorway of Asian medicine, which was also eventually going to take me into old European medicine, because as I continued my studies I have also studied Paleolithic herbology and Persian medicine and Greek medicine and old European medicine and also spent some time in Central and South America and learned about the shamanic uses of the plants, and so basically it's all one system and there's no such thing as an Ayurvedic herb or a Chinese herb. What there is is there's the plants, and people have been using plants forever. What there is is there's the plants, and people have been using plants forever, and then there are the different cultures that explain the plants in different kinds of ways. So what happened was my interest in Chinese medicine took me into contact with Asian medicine in general, but then my interest specifically in Tibetan Buddhism, from meeting Kali Rinpoche, first took me into Tibetan medicine, and that is where I saw the similarities between Tibetan Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine.
Speaker 2:Because when I got to the Himalayas, I also started studying with nine different Ayurvedic doctors. I had nine Ayurvedic teachers that I worked with and one Tibetan doctor that I worked with, and I worked with all of these people for many years, coming and going and spending periods of time both in Nepal, the Himalayas and in India. And so I was fortunate because I was one of the few Westerners who actually got the hands-on training in a classical kind of internship where you go and you, you know, go and harvest the herbs and chop them up and things like that. So that is basically how I came in contact with all three, because they're all there, all three of those things are in that part of the world and you can find in Kathmandu, you can find Tibetan doctors, and you can find the Unani.
Speaker 2:The Arabic medicine is there, and you can find Ayurveda. They're all there and they're all very similar and they all use a lot of similar plants and they all use a lot of similar concepts. So that's how that happened. But in terms of your broader question about how do we use herbs for meditation, all right, well, that's a big topic. I'm so interested.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, there's several ways that we can think about this.
Speaker 2:One is we could look at the plants that have always been used to support meditation and we find that there is a special class of plants and that these have been known for a long time, and these are things that we now know about. Also, many of these are brain tonics and many of these are adaptogens and many of these are longevity herbs. They all work in different ways, but then we also have to consider, well, how many obstacles are there to meditation that we need to overcome? So the broader answer is that any herb that helps you meditate is good for meditation. You don't have to think of some exotic herb. If you need to drink a cup of chamomile tea to help you move from being in a state of, you know, activity and busyness and restless mind and so forth, to move into a calmer state, then chamomile becomes an herb to support your meditation. See, but there is a category specifically of herbs that are considered to be longevity tonics for the brain, and that's a little easier to understand in terms of well, what are some of the things that the yogis used? Well, we find in Chinese medicine, the most famous is the ginseng, of course, that it's said to give a person a long life and to support the brain. But in Chinese medicine we also find the reishi mushroom, okay, and that's literally called the mushroom of immortality. So there was a whole lineage of yogis and alchemists and meditators and practitioners who were looking for plants that would give them long life long life and that became the basis of an entire branch of medicine in Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine and Tibetan medicine also. All these plants became part of a system that were renowned for protecting the body or, in Ayurveda, for rejuvenation rasayana and these are the plants that we now know primarily as the adaptogens. And so in Chinese medicine, the reishi mushroom was said to be the mushroom of immortality, and now what we know is that it is neuroprotective and it reduces inflammation throughout the body and it has all these adaptogenic functions and helps balance the immune system and all of these things.
Speaker 2:So is there a specific herb that helps you with meditation? Then that's the one, okay, so what I uh share when we look at the question from that standpoint, what herbs help meditation? Well, maybe you need nourishment to support your brain, okay, maybe it's not, uh, so much an herb that's going to help you meditate. Maybe you need to have a little bit of soup or bone broth or something before you meditate. A lot of a lot of people need that. But then there are all these other herbs that are like neuroprotective, like.
Speaker 2:Two herbs are called brahmi in ayurveda, and brahmi means is a word that is derived from the term brahma, which means pure consciousness, the creator, pure consciousness of the creator of creation, and and Barammi means two species. Okay, one is Gotukola and the other is Bakopa, and both of these herbs are famous for their neuroprotective effects. They're both being used a lot now for the pandemic of dementia and for ADD, all of these kind of things. So we find that there's a whole class of herbs that are very supportive to the brain, but that's only one explanation, you see. That's that you have the herbs and they have these different functions, and some of them are real classical longevity herbs and some of them are just like relaxants and some are nourishing herbs. Okay, so that's starting from the standpoint of the herbs. But then there's an entirely different way to answer the question, and that is it's not just the herb, it's the way you take it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you can take any herb pretty much mindlessly yeah and that's how a lot of people do and they're sent home from their visit with a practitioner you know a grocery bag full of products and they take a handful of your supplements on an empty stomach in the morning and they don't pay any attention to any of it.
Speaker 2:They don't experiment with just one thing and see what it does, and furthermore, they're in a big rush, and that's part of the problem is that, you know, the gut-brain axis is always in overdrive and that's why they've got all their symptoms, and so herbal medicine becomes part of the problem.
Speaker 2:And therefore, if we ask the question, well, what are the herbs that are good for meditation? We can say, all right, there's these different classes of herbs that can help us in different ways. But, even more fundamental than that, we can say how do we take herbs so that they become the meditation? And once we start looking at herbal medicine that way, then we're really weaving back together these two lineages again. And so, therefore, you slow down and you have your cup of tea, and it can be virtually anything, but of course you want to pick something that is going to be supportive of your meditation physiologically. But let's just say Tulsi tea. All right, so Tulsi is a very simple herb and it's an adaptogen and it's relaxing and rejuvenating to the nervous system, and so it's always been used for meditation. But you can drink your Tulsi tea in a big hurry and it's not going to help you relax. Or you can sit down and you can meditate with your Tulsi tea and you can sip on that Tulsi tea very mindfully.
Speaker 2:And this is the most important part of this whole story, and that is when the human mind comes in contact with the plant. There's an exchange of information, all right. And so let's say, you've got that Tulsi tea and you sip it very slowly and you pay close attention. Well, what is attention? That's fundamental to how this all works. What is attention? Well, attention is the focused mind. Well, what is the mind? Well, this is important to understand also. The mind is a field of awareness that is directed by attention, and the more the attention is focused, then the more we receive information and the more energy is transmitted. Okay, so let's think about this, the transmission part. A really good example of this is anybody who does pranic healing, reiki, anybody who does any kind of energy work with their hands, and your mind is very focused and very clear. You start to feel the qi around your hands, and another person can start to feel the qi around their hands also.
Speaker 2:What is that qi? The qi is your own mind that is being focused by the qi of your attention. All right, so then what happens is that the mind becomes very focused and the focus begins to direct the flow of the qi, and in Taoism they say yi dao, qi dao. Where the mind flows, the qi flows. So, in other words, if you're paying close attention, you're doing some qigong healing, you can feel the flow of that energy and that is directing energy to another person. But when you're sitting there with your tea and you're paying attention to it, what you're doing is you're directing the qi into the tea. Okay, the tea is becoming infused with qi and you are being more present with the tea, and because you are more present when you sip that, you're going to taste a whole rainbow of colors that you're not going to taste if you're just in a rush. Okay. So, in other words, mindfulness changes our entire experience, and mindfulness opens this channel of energy to flow both to what we are mindful of and from what it is into us.
Speaker 2:Now here's how this translates into the most basic and practical part of all of this, which is that when we use herbs, with this high level of meditation-focused mindfulness, the physiological effects are amplified tremendously. And this is what we want. We want to take herbs and we want them to work. But how do we know? How do we do this? How do we know that we are actually potentizing the herbs? Well, the answer is simple when we are paying close attention to what the herbs are doing in the body, then our awareness of those physiological processes is enhanced. So, in other words, if we just drink a you know, cup of tulsi tea. While we're running around being busy, we're not going to pay any attention to those body sensations on the other hand.
Speaker 2:If you sit and you make that cup of tulsi tea your entire meditation yeah and you smell its fragrance going into the sinuses and feel how it changes the sinus cavity and feel how that information is passing into the brain, feel how the tea is moving through the throat, feel how it moves into the stomach, feel how it moves into the heart, feel how it moves to the extremities. If you're paying close attention to that heart, if you move to the extremities, if you're paying close attention to that, then what you're actually doing is you are amplifying the body sensations that the herb is producing. And if you are amplifying the body sensations of what the herb is doing physiologically, the body sensations of what the herb is doing physiologically, that means that you are potentizing it, and so, therefore, this is something that can be easily experienced by anybody.
Speaker 2:It's just the basis of biofeedback therapy, for example and I have seen this because I have been teaching this now to thousands of people and everybody can do it and everybody reports the same thing, which is that if you are in a really focused state and you are directing the prana of your attention to the herb the prana of your attention to the herb, and you are receiving the prana from the herb by being completely present with it.
Speaker 2:then the body sensations of the physiological therapeutic benefits are going to be greatly magnified. The end result of that is that you can drink a few sips of Tulsi tea and you will feel that it's a powerful drug, and a practical benefit is that you can learn to produce very strong therapeutic effects at a very low cost at a very low cost.
Speaker 2:Okay. Another benefit and this is one of the reasons that I was very, very impressed with the results of this in larger groups. When I teach classes where we're using herbs, there may be hundreds of people in those classes and I don't know anything about their medical condition and they may be on all kinds of medications and we have to be very careful about using certain kinds of herbs that are really, you know, potent but we're microdosing, Okay, that's. The other thing is that we're just microdosing and people can feel the benefits. But because we're microdosing and people can feel the benefits, but because we're micro-dosing, it's very, very safe for people, Because what people are actually learning how to do is to use their mind, to use the prana of the mind and the attention in conjunction with the healing prana, the vitality, the life force of the plants. So, in other words, we're using our mind to potentize the healing benefits of the plants, but physiologically we're taking very low doses.
Speaker 2:So that's a quick overview of that process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which I think is an important topic to touch on mind altering herbs or mushrooms or you know, like, even like any kind of journey like Rappe or Bufo or like what's the. All I can think of is ashwagandha. That's not what I'm thinking of. Ayahuasca, ayahuasca, any of those big, any of that. Ayahuasca, any of those big, any of that.
Speaker 1:What I would consider that's like a big thing to explore and there's nothing wrong with it. I'm not saying that, I just personally haven't felt called to it. But what I touched on when you and I had a conversation was the importance of kind of exploring these different aspects, because I personally think that it's so cool to explore chamomile or Tulsi or ashwagandha or these plants or these I don't know how you would technically explain them, but they're not mind mind altering, like, like ayahuasca is, or maybe, if you really microdose, ayahuasca. I don't know, I don't know enough about herbs, but that's something that I would love for you to touch on and I would love for your opinion on and how you have seen. I'm sure that you have experienced both, so I would love to hear a little bit about your experience.
Speaker 2:Again, lots of questions. Okay, well, I do have some experience with entheogenic plants, but my experience was a long time ago in the traditional cultures. Okay, and that's the difference.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You see, and things are very different now than when I met Maria Sabina in the mountains of Oaxaca.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And now, you know, all you have to do is go to a yoga studio on a Saturday night and somebody's pouring ayahuasca and there's all these things that are available, or you can just go on TripAdvisor. You can actually, you can actually, you know, find ayahuasca ceremonies on TripAdvisor or ecotourism, okay, yeah. Now the main problem with this is because it's using a very powerful plant that can shift our perspective of ourself very dramatically and it can make us very sensitive and it can dissolve the boundaries of our personality and our ego and sense of self. And that has to be done carefully, because if you're not ready for it, it's too powerful, or you're surrounded by a hundred people who are all having, you know, a whole bunch of emotional catharsis. It can be very painful, and so what's missing is the traditional container, and there were actually four containers and these are all important to consider, and the main problem now is that these containers are gone. All right.
Speaker 2:So the first container is a container of the environment itself, and people historically lived in an area and they didn't travel far and they had these plants, and these plants were in the geographical region and people had knowledge about these plants and went back a long, long time. And so in the amazon it was the ayahuasca and many other things, in the mountains of oaxaca it was the psilocybe mexicana. In the southwest, northern, in northern mexico it was a peyote. And so the first container is the land itself. Now, if you take the plant out of that land, then it changes the plant and it changes the nature of the experience. But the second container inside the land was the culture, you see, because the culture had a mythology and the culture had its mythological creation, stories and its deities and its songs, clothing and art and preparation for the ceremony and after the ceremony. Much of that is gone, you see, and so the second container is culture inside the container of the land.
Speaker 2:And then the container inside the culture is a ceremony itself, and so that would be the teepee ceremony of the Native American church, you see, or it would be the all-night vigil staying up with the mushrooms of the Mazatec Indians, or it would be the all-night ceremony of the ayahuasca drinking, you see.
Speaker 2:So then there's a ceremony and the ceremony is a container itself, and the container is that people are there for a purpose, they're there to pray, there's an elder, there's a sequence of events, there's music, there's training, there's all of these things that happen, and that's a container within the container of the culture, within the container of the land. And then the container inside the ritual is the plant, and the plant is the container of the active ingredients. You see, now, when you have all those containers, then what happens? The person is in the land and they're in the culture, and they're in the culture and they're in the mythology of the culture, and then they're in the ritual and they're in the inner guidance of the tradition and the elders, and then they ingest the plant and all of those things are holding the experience in a way that makes sense, and therefore the person knows why they're there, they know what they're doing and they become familiar with it.
Speaker 2:And many times people weren't just dropped into these ceremonies. You had to be initiated a step at a time and learn these things carefully, and you weren't invited to the next level until you were ready. And now people can just drop into anything and get blasted away by high doses of this stuff and they're not familiar with the inner landscape and that's where the problems come. They're not familiar that, oh, I've got so much pain in my body. It might be because the person next to you is is going through chemotherapy. You know people don't have the knowledge to identify the inner landscape and the phenomena that's happening. And they also, in many cases and I have worked with many people where this happens they hear that these ceremonies are going to be so good for them, resolve their past trauma and all you know that's the main thing why people go.
Speaker 2:You know it's going to help with your past trauma, but all it does is it just triggers it yeah and, furthermore, it's triggered in a way that makes you very vulnerable and you start having all this overwhelming uh information coming in, and anytime the personality structure is fragile, there's a risk of damage.
Speaker 2:And so there have been many people, and it's not just ayahuasca, it's not just ceremonies. This can happen in a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat, or it can happen just in a really intensive kind of you know, motivational weekend. For some people, it pushes them beyond the ability of their personality to integrate what's going on and they end up, you know, having a psychotic breakdown. That happens. That happens because people go into these situations that are simply too powerful for their psyche to handle. They're not ready for it, and that's what's missing is that in these containers, you have this sequence of events where people are trained a step at a time, initiated a step at a time. You know you're brought up in these containers so that by the time you get to the real powerful stuff, you're ready for it, you know what you're doing and you know what you're getting yourself into.
Speaker 2:So, my opinion about entheogens is that they're incredibly valuable. They're very, very valuable. They help a lot of people, but they're totally out of context now and because of that then you know, certain people get hurt from it and a lot of people they have a great experience, but then it's kind of like well, life goes on, everything's pretty much the same. So these plants have a place. They have a very important place if they're used correctly by people, when they're ready for them and they use them in the right way and they get the right information from it. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it has any ultimate, higher purpose. And here's a real, fundamental difference between shamanism and the meditation lineages. When we are talking about an entheogenic experience to have this breakthrough and this cleansing and this healing, we're talking about great benefits and we're talking about relieving suffering. Okay, we're talking about a person becoming more psychologically integrated, a person healing the past, being able to live a better life, all of these kind of things. But that was never the goal in the traditional lineages okay, in the classical spiritual lineages of Asia specifically, but also in the higher teachings of the shamanic lineages also, there was an ultimate goal. And because there was an ultimate goal.
Speaker 2:There was very little emphasis that was placed on resolving your past trauma. What they were really looking for was resolving all trauma permanently. So they talked about it in different language. They said moksha, emancipation from bondage to the senses. They called it enlightenment, okay, they called it illumination. Okay, they called it crossing to the far shore. They called it relief, escape from samsara. They called it relief, escape from samsara. So in these lineages there was much less emphasis on your personal trauma and much more emphasis on an ultimate state of liberation from all suffering. Now that's very different. Now the entheogens can be a part of that process, but what we see is that people can do the homework with their entheogens, they can have a breakthrough with the entheogens, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a deeper understanding of the nature of the mind and the reality that is really transcendent. Okay, I've gone a little off on a tangent here.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. The thing that I was going to say earlier was how you're connecting it. You know, even if we have these big mindset retreats or 10 day meditations, we can still do damage. I am certified in somatic breathwork and we talk a lot about that in the training and some one way that I have chosen really to lead my breathwork journeys because I realized this lead my breathwork journeys because I realized this is not to push people. I think breathwork is also one of those things where it is extremely transformational. It's this beautiful, powerful, potent tool to dive deep into your soma, your body and and you can have these really beautiful experiences and insights and healing.
Speaker 1:But when we push ourselves or are pushed by the practitioner to go deeper or express in a way that our body is just not ready or our psyche is just not ready to express, it can be very damaging. So a lot of times in breathwork journeys, sometimes people fall asleep or sometimes people will, will come to the end and they'll say I didn't, I didn't really feel that much Like I just don't feel like I experienced everything that other people are sharing and I want to really normalize that, and one of the ways that I say is is if, especially if your body falls asleep, it's a protective mechanism, so you fell asleep for a reason. And if you don't feel that you are able to experience what everyone experiences what I'm putting in quotes because everyone's experience is so different but if you, if your expectation was not your reality, it's likely that your body wasn't ready, and that's good to know, and your body is protecting you and you still had a beautiful journey, I mean, you still got something out of it. But if your expectation was different than than what actually ended up happening, it's it's, our bodies are very wise and very protective, and so that's also. I mean you touched on everything, pretty much, that I have issues with, with those ayahuasca journeys and all of those types of journeys, because it it can be very damaging and it also can be very transformational. Again, I'm not I'm not negating it, but bringing awareness to the other side of this could also happen.
Speaker 1:And that's again why I love this conversation of start experimenting with herbs, other herbs start experimenting with. I mean, you've already listed so many, but my last, my second to last question would be how do we know how? No, how do we explore and decipher what herbs might be most supportive for us. So how would we, if we feel that we're not very in touch and in tune? How would we know if it's better to choose an herb that calms the nervous system versus one that stimulates the brain, versus one that helps with longevity? How would we go about navigating that in our own journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, good. Well, I don't think that that is a starting point. Okay. Because the starting point is really paying attention to any herb.
Speaker 2:Okay. And so, therefore, the real discovery is not so much learning about herbal medicine, is not so much learning about herbal medicine. It's about learning about the relationship between our mind and body, and learning about the relationship between the mind and the body and the plant, and therefore what we're really learning about. If we have a simple tea and we're doing mindfulness meditation, paying very close attention to the tea and tasting it and feeling it, then that process is actually miraculous and it is bringing together, first of all, our consciousness, our body, the plant and the plant consciousness, and so four things are coming together. If you're drinking a cup of Tulsi tea with mindful meditation, your mind is present, you are feeling your body, you are ingesting the body of the plant, and the body of the plant is transmitting the consciousness of the plant. And so four things are coming together two forms of consciousness and two forms of bodies. All right now. That's how herbal medicine works and that's how our food works, and this is an ongoing process.
Speaker 2:Every time we eat something, okay, consciousness is being assimilated into our consciousness. All right. The body of something else is being assimilated into our body, all right now. If we go very deeply into that, then that opens up all of these possibilities for self-healing. And that's where visualization comes in, because not only do we start to feel these sensations, but we can actually focus on a particular part of the body and the herb will go there.
Speaker 2:And so if you are drinking Tulsi tea and you want it to nourish your brain, you drink the Tulsi tea and you smell the fragrance going to the sinuses and you will feel that the fragrance is actually activating your brain. And if you are paying close attention to your brain, you're activating it. You're increasing the circulation. Cerebral circulation is increasing just by paying attention, and so, therefore, you are sending the Tulsi to your brain. Okay, so we can learn how to send the herbs to different parts of the body. Now, that's more important than knowing about the different kinds of herbs first. Okay, what's most important is to study the process, no matter what you're eating or what you're drinking, okay or what you're taking, and so most people can start with that, because they already have something. Probably. People already drink Tulsi tea, they drink ginger, they take some turmeric, they probably take some adaptogens.
Speaker 2:What's most important is stop taking so many things, okay and take one thing really carefully and pay really deep attention to it. All right, because people will have this idea in our contemporary herbal culture that more is better and so if it's going to be more, it should be more mindfulness, not more herbs. All right, and people are really in this kind of consumer mindset when it comes to, oh, the latest product and greatest adaptogen and this and that. Okay, and that's not what's important. Okay. What's important is to understand and cultivate a deeper relationship with the plant and its consciousness, and from that comes great reverence. Actually, when you can start to feel the presence of that consciousness that's in the herb working inside your consciousness and your body, then you have entered into a very deep level of herbal medicine.
Speaker 2:And then if you have that level of sensitivity, you don't have to listen to all this information. And that's a lot of what I do in my medical consultations is, people are greatly confused because there's so much information out there about, oh you should do this and you should do that, and they've got these gigantic herbal pharmacies and they don't know what's doing what. And okay, how do we answer that question that you just asked? How do we pick the herbs? Well, all right now, we can answer that herbs. Well, all right now, we can answer that.
Speaker 2:The easiest way to do this is just to identify your primary need. So what is the primary need that you have when you sit down to meditate? Well, there are two things that are going to happen. One is first you're going to be restless and then you're going to be tired. Those are the two primary obstacles to meditation. Those are age-old obstacles to meditation. Now, here we have to ask a bigger question, you know? So what? So what if we're agitated? So what if we're tired? Well, the so what is that? We're trying to meditate in a culture and a time that's not conducive to meditation. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so now we say, well, do we want to use herbs to kind of overcome that? Well, sure, you can take some cannabis, you can hit your brain over the head and you can, you know, get into a deeply relaxed state pretty fast.
Speaker 2:But you know you'll wake up the next day with a bit of brain fog from it. Okay, all right. So there's a couple of things you can do. One of the most basic ways to incorporate herbs into meditation practice is to take things that help you relax faster, and it doesn't have to be powerful. You don't have to take cannabis. And it doesn't have to be powerful, you don't have to take cannabis. It can just be chamomile. It can be a little bit of lemon balm. You see, it can be just a little. You know anything that you like. A little catnip tea is very relaxing. Okay, you can take a few drops of a little bit of you know valerian tincture.
Speaker 2:If you're really overstimulated, you can take a little bit of California poppy. Just take a little bit of a relaxant herb and notice how relaxing it is, and then the next thing you're going to notice is you're asleep. And so then the question comes well, what's the matter with that? Nothing, you didn't enter into meditation, but what you did was you turned off the internal nervous system stress for a while.
Speaker 2:Now really deep meditation is not going to come until your nervous system has been rested and rejuvenated for a while, for a while. And that's why in the classical monastic settings, where the longer retreats happen, what you see is the same over and over again. First morning, all the monks and nuns come in and everybody sits down and everybody falls asleep on their cushion, and that goes on throughout the first day. Second day it repeats itself. Third day it starts to get a little bit better and then finally, by the fourth day, people in the morning meditation sessions are actually staying awake. It takes about four days to transition out of ordinary life into a routine where you can actually meditate Okay, actually meditate, okay.
Speaker 2:But here's where individual choice also comes, because you may find that what is most nourishing for you and most supportive of your meditation practice is not a nerve-align calmative, like you know, chamomile, lemon balm tea, something like that. You may find that what is most supportive of your meditation practice is a cup of soup or bone broth with some reishi mushroom tincture in it, you see. And so therefore, we have two primary categories we work with. One is the things that help the nervous system calm down quickly, and the other is the things that nourish the nervous system, because these are two sides of the same thing.
Speaker 2:You're overstimulated and you can't meditate.
Speaker 2:It means that you're also tired and it means that once stimulation wears off, you're going to fall asleep and in the sleep process you're going to start to rejuvenate, and so after you've had your little nap on your meditation cushion, then you can drink a cup of soup with some reishi mushroom in it, and it's going to be very nourishing.
Speaker 2:You're going to feel the warmth in the stomach and you feel like, wow, okay, now I'm really starting to recover. So that's kind of like a fast recovery from a stressful day. Drink something to calm down, go ahead and take a little rest on your cushion and then, when you wake up, then take something that's nourishing. Take a little adaptogen, have a little American ginseng, you know something like that, and when you start taking those things, then it's building the energy back up, and when the energy starts to come back up, that's when you can sit and really meditate for a longer period of time. So those are the two main categories that we can use, but people should meditate on anything that they're using, anything at all. They should meditate on how it feels.
Speaker 1:I love. You said if it's going to be more because we live in a more culture, let it be more mindfulness. That is one of my favorite quotes from this whole conversation and what a beautiful, beautiful invitation. Thank you so much for all of your wisdom. Thank you for bringing this new perspective and this added benefit of meditation, and a whole new perspective of meditation. I actually I love, I love chatting meditation.
Speaker 1:I taught a class years ago and I named it the art of meditation because, I really wanted to dive into conversation around what is meditation, because we have all of these stereotypes and all of these ideas of meditation has to be that four hour long sitting in like a Tibetan monastery with with your meditation cushion and the incense burning. And it doesn't have to be that and I love. Earlier you said, let the taking in of the tea, whatever it is, let that be your meditation and noticing how it's going down your esophagus and how it's affecting your sinuses and how it's touching all of your senses, and that itself can be a meditation. So I love all of your work. Thank you so much for coming on. I would love to have you share where people can stay connected with you. Where do you spend the most time? How can people stay connected with you? How can people continue to learn from you?
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for all the nice words.
Speaker 1:They're honest.
Speaker 2:And thank you for the invitation to be here and thank you for the invitation to let people know. I have a website it is easy to remember, it's crowconsultationscom, c-r-o-w consultationscom, and on that website you will see that I have a page that is dedicated to my telemedicine consultations, which is what I have been doing since the pandemic started and have just continued on with that. I've been doing that actually longer than that, but since the pandemic I have not been, you know, doing in-person work and I have also not been touring for live events like I was, so I've basically just been working online. Live events are going to start up again and I also teach online.
Speaker 2:I have many courses. Some of those are available and a course that is very specific to our topic here today is called Illuminated Herbalism, and that's available. It's a series of 10 practices. It's a short course. It is 10 illuminated herbalism practices and it's just examples of how we use these different herbs for these different functions, how we can send them to different parts of the body and so on. And then I also teach at the Shift Network, and if you go to that website, the Shift Network, and you put in my name, then you will see that there are many, many courses that I have taught over the last 10 years on herbal medicine and aromatherapy, and also a year-long program that I did twice, a year-long certification in illuminated herbalism. So those are the two main places and if you go to the Crow Consultations website, you will see my consultation offerings and you will see my classes and you will also see that there are regular events.
Speaker 2:We have free meditation gatherings. I have all kinds of courses that I launch over and over. I just finished a course on detoxification of microplastics. There's a a lot of medical and there's a lot of the spiritual and practical things, and the main meditation program that I teach is called Listening to the Heart. It's a system of meditation that's based on listening to our own heartbeat, but it's integrated into all of these spiritual lineages, from classical Asian medicine mostly, and it's a system that people find very easy to practice. It's actually a very accessible way to meditate that helps people a lot. So those are all there over at crowconsultationscom and thank you again.
Speaker 1:So fun. So last question is if the world could only remember one feeling from your work, what do you hope that feeling would be?
Speaker 2:One feeling.
Speaker 1:One feeling oh wow what would one feeling be?
Speaker 2:I guess I would sum things up, things up, a lot of the meditation practices that I teach and practice myself, and actually what I talked about in this interview it's. It's actually a kind of natural reverence that awakens in our mind when we feel unity with nature so I would say that's a feeling.
Speaker 2:I guess it's a kind of bhakti, you know, a kind of spiritual reverence. That happens, it's organic, it's natural, it's not contrived, but you can experience that if you go deeply enough into paying attention to a cup of tea, because the mind is your presence and so your presence is in the body and you are feeling the body of the plant coming in and the body of the plant is carrying its presence. And so there is this union that happens between two types of consciousness human consciousness and plant consciousness, and they're mingling together inside the human body. Now, inside that process, if we study it, if we really learn what it is, we will understand that the sunlight is in there, the moonlight is in there, that's what helped grow the plants. Soil is in there, the water is in there, and we can go very deeply just in that one experience.
Speaker 2:We can go very deeply into the biosphere of the earth. We can go very deeply into the cosmological intelligence of the universe. In other words, everything that's happening in the body is a microcosm of everything that is. And if we can feel that, a step at a time, just breathing, we can dissolve the boundaries of inner and outer.
Speaker 2:Just drinking tea, we can merge into the flow of the water, you see, because all of these things that we identify as ourself, they don't exist, they're all just a creation of our consciousness. That's saying, I am this person, these are my boundaries, but from the standpoint of prana and chi life force, from the standpoint of sunlight, from the standpoint of water, there's no such boundaries, you see, and so that's what the spiritual practices are all trying to show us. They're all trying to take us back to that sense of unity. And from that awareness of unity then come all of the natural, organic, spontaneous, genuine spiritual insights and moods, and one of my favorites is just reverence for all of that that's happening inside of us. I guess that's what I would say.
Speaker 1:I love that. Thank you for coming on, David. This is such a fun.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.