I crouched down close to the dirt as I looked around to see if anyone could overhear what I was about to do.

“Hello,” I whispered to the stinging nettle in front of me. Nothing. I tried again, louder. “Hello, my name is Lucy. It’s nice to meet you.”

The Urtica dioica’s thick woody stem, heavily laden with seed clusters, shot upwards and swayed gently in the wind, its leaves fanned out to the sides and splayed backwards over themselves, as if in mid-shrug. The plant looked… relaxed.

I laughed – out loud – at myself, and stood up. Two hikers were approaching. I tried to look casual, and frantically conjured up a plausible story to explain what I could possibly be doing talking to a stinging nettle if they happened to stop and ask me. Of course, they didn’t. This is LA, after all.

Two years ago, I signed up to an online course to study sacred plant medicine. This type of medicine maintains that plants are intelligent and conscious beings, able to fully communicate with us, with the power to teach and heal.

It was completely out of character for me, a cynical disillusioned journalist who had never even lit a stick of incense until I moved to LA in 2018. But I had grown bored during lockdown and had begun dabbling in aromatherapy. As a child I’d always enjoyed mixing potions out of my mum’s beauty creams and sprays, and this didn’t feel much different. Except, I got really into it, and found myself becoming increasingly curious about the healing nature of plants. My mum’s childhood friend – Carole Guyett – happens to be a world-renowned and highly respected medicine woman and herbalist. I had signed up to her newsletter at some point, and along came the opportunity to take an online course she was running called Sacred Plant Medicine.

I’m not sure what drove me to apply. I think some desire to find purpose in life. I was becoming jaded with journalism – it didn’t feel as fulfilling as it used to. I had reached a point where I was unable to deal with stress and anxiety. I follow the usual British prescription of bottling it all up and carrying on. But the past two years had been among the most stressful periods of my life – and my body was not coping.

The man who raised me, who I call Dad, died after a gut-wrenching battle with brain cancer. I attempted to patch up a relationship with my estranged biological father (with fairly disastrous results), whom I had seen once in the past two decades. I also became an overnight stepmum – having zero prior parenting experience. The list went on.

My skin exploded into a fiery, angry rage of eczema, which became so severe that I didn’t want to leave the house. I felt I was being pushed to breaking point – and then this course appeared.

As I was deliberating whether I could handle something else on my plate, I had the strongest urge to just do it, as if a voice was commanding me to sign up. I applied – and was accepted. And so began 12 months of learning to speak to plants and immersing myself in a whole new world.

It took me suspending every ounce of disbelief I had to engage in the course. At the beginning I was constantly torn between feeling sceptical and desperately wanting it to be true. What if plants really could communicate with us? How would they help me? What would they offer?

My many questions were soon answered. Our first assignment was working with the elder tree. Traditionally the leaves were used in pagan rituals to induce vomiting when an individual was sick. The berries, when cooked, are edible – and the flowers can be used to make a delicately fragrant tea. Both are packed with antioxidants and vitamins to help quell inflammation and ease stress. The tree is used to connect with ancestors and is often referred to as the ‘Elder Mother’.

In November 2021 I was back in England, visiting my mum and my dad, who by then was going through an intensive bout of radiotherapy and had just had gruelling brain surgery. I sat, crossed-legged, on my childhood bed, my cup of elderflower tea steeping as I listened to Carole’s instructions. I duly imbibed the tea and waited for the guided meditation to begin. The drumming began, I closed my eyes and Carole’s voice took me on a journey to meet the spirit of the Elder Mother. My brain kept snapping me back, alerting me that I was still sitting on my bed.

I persisted. I relaxed my body and stopped trying to make something happen. It doesn’t matter if nothing happens, you’re relaxed and that feels good, I told myself repeatedly. Carole’s voice guided me to stand in front of a large elder tree, and all of a sudden, my mind slipped away and I was taken fully into the meditation – my cynical running commentary vanished. 

I was inside a large elder tree, in the trunk, looking up and surrounded by branches bare of any leaves. The entire scene was a deep dark purple, apart from the sky, whose billions of stars and milky ways flashed a psychotropic bright, pure white. I felt a rush of energy, as if one of the elder tree’s branches had plugged into my heart socket. The energy rippled through my chest, and as I exhaled, my entire body began to tremble. The shaking became more intense until I felt an earthquake-sized tremor at the end of every exhale, one after another. My entire body was prickling and fizzing with energy, and my right hand began to violently jolt.

The shaking almost felt unbearable, like thunderbolts were rippling through my spine, but I forced my body to stay in it. I began asking the tree questions, and the answers would come back immediately – like they were from some higher intelligence than mine.

Carole’s voice re-emerged from the drumbeat, telling us to thank the elder tree, and leave a gift in gratitude – I found myself offering a small black stone, triangular and thick with a light grey streak running through it. In return, the tree would give us a gift. I felt the elder tree instil me with courage – something that I would need in droves in the coming months. Carole instructed us to walk the path back, and return to our physical bodies.

I opened my eyes. It felt as if two hours had passed by, but it had been less than 15 minutes. I felt completely shell-shocked. I had had a full psychedelic experience, and yet I hadn’t taken anything that would have caused me to hallucinate. I looked at the tea. Did I just… speak to a plant?

As time wore on, my cynicism fell away, and although I am still cautious about who I speak to regarding my newfound love for plants, I will happily lay a hand on my favourite eucalyptus tree in my local park and chat to him (yes, I feel a masculine energy) without caring who sees.

My perspective on the world has shifted, and I appreciate the natural world in a way I never have before. My relationship with plants has led me to appreciate ‘place’ in an entirely new way. I notice the trees along the road, the weeds growing through the cracks in the sidewalk, the battered old oak that has lived through innumerable presidents and multiple wars. I see where I live through different eyes, I live my life through a different set of values, and I respect my surroundings through a new lens. I feel fulfilled, calm and content. Yes, I still get stressed and anxious – but they’re feelings I know will pass, and now I have the tools to help myself.

Talking to plants is not only soothing, but it’s humbling. They’ve been around far longer than us, and they’ll continue to be here long after we are gone.

Frame Of Mind is Stylist’s home for all things mental health and the mind. From expert advice on the small changes you can make to improve your wellbeing to first-person essays and features on topics ranging from autism to antidepressants, we’ll be exploring mental health in all its forms. You can check out the series home page to get started.

Images: courtesy of Lucy Sherriff