heart of glastonbury JuneJuly 24 - Flipbook - Page 67
PLANTS AS MUSE
written by Elle Chaska
Often after dreamtime I wake with a song in my
head but one morning was different – there was
just one word circling around over and over –
music … and as I listened more closely I heard
the word broken down - muse-ic. Suddenly a
lightbulb went off – thatthis creative process I
am having with plants and music – is because
they are my muse and they wanted me as their
siren.
Some years later, having now recorded a whole
album of plant and nature inspired songs and
gained a modest following for my pretty niche
genre of “plant inspired folk music” I realise that
probably every creative needs a muse and I just
happened to have one from the plant realm that
sometimes wakes me at 3am with songs about
Mugwort running around my head.
But lets go back to the beginning – and where it
all started with one very special mushroom – Fly
Agaric (Amanita muscaria).
I have been working shamanically with plants for
several decades and often undertaking a
process known as a dieta with them – which is
essentially a period of isolation where
distractions are removed and a very bland (and
pretty boring!) diet is put in place – but this is
all done so that one can hear the voice of the
plant, tree or fungi more clearly and the
messages it brings as well as the physical,
emotional and spiritual healing that occurs in
the body. Most plants want to communicate
with us but we have forgotten how to still the
mind to listen. Amanita Muscaria turned out to
be one of the loudest voices of all the plants I
had worked with to date so much so her song
literally fell in just a few hours. It was like the
song was already there in the field and I just
had to capture it and then be the one to learn it
myself !.
Amanita Muscaria also gifted me something huge
to go along with this song and that was removing
my fear of not being good enough, a childhood
program installed by a slightly too pushy (but well
meaning) parent for my sensitive soul, everything
could have just been a bit better if I had just
done x y or z.
This pattern haunted my life and manifested in
various forms of self sabotage or keeping myself
small as the program sought to retain its
stronghold in my core programming of beliefs
about myself.
But Amanita stripped me back to essence and
overnight I was freed of these limiting beliefs. I
started playing the song to community members
and someone suggested I should record the song
– stepping into the studio was the start of a big
journey of stepping into my power and gradually
more and more plants wanted me to sing for
them in a beautiful co creative collaborative
dance that is ongoing!
You can listen to Elle’s Plant and Nature Inspired
Songs here
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/453cwbq71Rm0
0ZKu4SYRj8?si=4e165c717b404dab
About – Elle Chaska is a shamanic herbalist and
musician based in Devon in the UK you can
connect with her work here
www.therainbowportal.com
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