Flora Gnosis: Recent Episodes
Kathleen Callahan
A podcast exploring the relationship between plants, planets, and humans. An ongoing discovery of the self through personal lessons with plants, flower essences, and even how they relate to the astrological journey of the self.
Have a story about what a plant has taught you? Submit your story to floragnosispod@gmail or voice message!
...and healing the individual! As we have entered the threshold of a new year, it's in this darkest time that we are initiated into the world of the poison path with teacher Kathryn Solie of @persephonespath. My teacher in plant spirit communication and consciousness, two years ago she opened my heart to the depth of experience and healing that these often maligned plants can offer, as a mirror to our own inner wounds, or even shining a light in the darkness of our pains.
In our conversation we talk about:
- How she arrived to this work, and how Hellebore was the first poisonous plant she met and how she began this path
- Kathryn's background in Eastern philosophy and religion, how she sees "poisonous plants as the wrathful deities of the plant kingdom"
- Working through blocks and resistance in beginning plant spirit communication
- How plants talk to us individually, and collectively. Plants giving us different medicine at different points in our healing journey
- “We’re going to keep repeating the patterns out in the world until we heal the pattern within ourselves,” and a discussion on how these plants heal the collective by healing ourselves first
- Our personal stories with Monkshood and Datura
- Plants that are needed now: Datura (imitation into shadow work), Giant Hogweed and Poison Ivy (protecting oneself from taking on too much from the collective), Belladonna (divine feminine and sexual wounds), and Amanita Muscaria (childhood wounds)
Kathryn Solie is an herbalist specializing in ‘poisonous’ plants & plant consciousness, a tarot reader, and a meditation enthusiast. She hopes to give voice to the almost forgotten medicine of ‘poisonous’ plants through her courses and other offerings. Creating communities where people can reconnect with the ancient human lineage of plant spirit communication is at the center of her work.
Her Patreon is a wealth of information with over 30 classes, monthly readings, plant journeys, and monthly herbal care packages. You can find her musings over on instagram at @persephonespath, where she announces all her classes throughout the year. Find all her work at https://www.kathrynsolie.com/
Original music by Steve Bada
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This week I'm honored to invite Ashley Stinson for a conversation on embodiment here on Flora Gnosis. I wanted to have Ashley on as a guest to talk about the somatic part of experiencing deeper layers of this work and how it is a part of this practice. Her work with embodiment and the many-layered meanings of the body and what it holds is beyond fascinating!
CW Birth Trauma
In this episode we discuss:
- Ashley's unique approach to the body called Energy Archaeology. It's a process of letting the body tell us it’s story rather than a prescriptive, imposed narrative of what we think is happening in the body.
- A decentralized approach to embodiment
- Listening is the first step
- “The body is always doing the best with the information it has… Embodiment is messy, but its a relationship worth building”
- Plants and the energetic body, Bindweed and the sacrum and shoulder blades and Amanita and Protea, etc
- The Energy Archaeology Oracle Deck
Ashley is the creatress of Energy Archaeology™ - an energy healing modality and personal discovery method that accesses the energetic wisdom in the body through the six realms of embodiment - bones, muscles, fluid body, organs, nervous system, and DNA. She is a teacher, a mentor, and a guide for embodied wisdom, energetic anatomy, and deep listening. Ashley will encourage you to explore the depth and breadth of your human experience through her innate gift to find patterns in what’s said, unsaid, seen, and unseen. She uses this in her work to support you one-on-one, in group healing programs, and through the Energy Archaeology Oracle Deck.
Ashley lives and works on unceded Monacan land, west of Charlottesville, Virginia.
@theashleystinson
https://ashleystinson.com/
Original Music composed by Steve Bada for Flora Gnosis
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Hello and welcome all to Sagittarius Season with this brilliant and in depth conversation that two Sagittarians have about Jupiter! Today I have Brady Waller of @themythiclandscape to chat with me about everything that Jupiter has to offer, the entire spectrum of it, and oh my god do we cover ALOT.
Brady is an astrologer living on Lenape land in what is now called Pennsylvania. They have been a student of myth and philosophy their entire life and of astrology for the last 6 years. Their practice is one of blending the many different traditions and legacies of astrology together into an applicable and accessible format that helps people living today. At different times, Brady has been a tarot reader, author, teacher, and facilitator. For more of their work, head to TheMythicLandscape.com or @themythiclandscape on Instagram.
In this conversation we cover:
- Jupiter is the "confirmation of good things, and relief from bad"
- The spectrum of Jupiter 's dominion: hope, vision, institution, what binds society together for the "greater good," life giving, freedom, excess, overpromising, entitlement, no follow through, prosperity, growth
- Jupiter Returns, and Jupiter Retrograde
- Jupiter in Pisces
- Essential dignity of Jupiter
- some planets and flower essences of Jupiter
The books that are mentioned:
The Classical Seven Planetsby Charlie Obert
Planetary Joys by Chris Brennan
Post-Colonial Astrology by Alice Sparkly Kat
Retrograde Planets: Traversing the Inner Landscape by Erin Sullivan
Housekeeping - I realized after that I said "Thetis" here when I meant to say "Metis." In reference to Zeus' first consort and mother of Athena.
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In honor of Scorpio Season, and the Scorpio New Moon, I am honored to have Corinna Rosella (they/them) of Rise Up! Good Witch as a guest today dive deep into the realm of Pluto. I have long admired Corinna's work in astrology, herbalism, flower essence work, mutual aid, and anti-captialist work, and they dedicate a lot of their platform heal through Pluto issues, and this episode is both an introduction into what it's like working with Pluto, as well as a deep dive.
In this episode we discuss:
- What is Pluto?
- The U.S. Pluto Return
- Corinna's own connection and healing transformation informed by their work with Pluto
- The plants and flower essences to support us through Pluto transits and transformative catharsis
Corinna makes amazing herbal potions and flower essences, is a deep well of information on astrology and a gifted tarot reader and zine maker. Their inspiring work holds space for others during crisis through a trauma-informed and liberatory perspective. They also have an AMAZING podcast called Rise Up! Good Witch: Self Care As Resistance, and I cannot recommend checking their work out enough!
I thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with Corinna and and honored to offer this conversation to you all!
You can find Corinna's work at:
Website (book a reading or shop their apothecary): www.riseupgoodwitch.com/
Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/risen-witch
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/riseupgoodwitch/posts
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/riseupgoodwitch/
Original music for podcast by Steve Bada
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/floragnosis/message
This week I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with mystic Oilbhe Pepper, an eclectic magician practicing a variety of blended ancestral traditions as an uninvited guest on Northern Tiwa land. Their land practice and intimate engagement with plants has always inspired me for the last several years and I am thrilled to offer this beautiful conversation of re-envisioning our relationship with land.
In this episode we cover:
- Olivia’s “unschooled” upbringing and how it influenced their mysticism and work today
- 3 branches of mysticism - natural intuition, research, and practice
- What it means to be in right landscape with the land and beginning the decolonizing process
- Reciprocal and helpful forms of exchange
- Rethinking invasive species as traveling species that grow where we need them
- Intuitive and respectful wildcrafting
- Adjusting our pace alongside disability and chronic illness and how that intersects with working with plants
You can connect with Oilbhe via their instagram (@oliviapepper ) where announcements on future offerings are usually made alongside a curation of amazing memes.
Their website www.schoolforallages.com
Oilbhe's upcoming workshops are Ancestral Remediation, Rainbow Serpent Dreamwork, some pop-up plant illumination workshops on Datura and Purple Aster, and A Mars Workshop. Follow their instagram for enrollment info!
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/floragnosis/message
In this episode we welcome Vanessa LaMorte (vanessalamorte.com) a reiki master, sound healer, and flower essence practitioner living near Las Vegas, NV. Vanessa shares her personal practice when it comes to engaging with the healing qualities of plants, AND how she works with the fae, or fairies. She sheds a lot of light on what it actually looks like to work with them, and alleviates some fears that we hear so often in approaching them.
In this interview we talk about:
- What plant spirit communication looks like and how to decipher messages from the plants
- The lessons of Foxglove as a community plant, a fae plant, as a heart opener, and inner child healer.
- Listen to Vanessa’s own podcast episode where she talks about the fae from her own point of view here https://open.spotify.com/episode/1G5PL8eE9TvbD1QnYaY7f0?si=f84b9a7b57a44202
- Alleviating fears around working with the fae, and best practices
- What the Fae want us all to know at this time in history
- Plus fun stories, other plant medicine like Magnolia and Creosote, and so much more!
Vanessa Lamorte, M.A. is the author of Soul Seeds: Remembering Light Language and the creationist behind Pyrolysis, Soul Seeds and Synesthesia, sound healing alchemy albums. She is a seer, dreamweaver and healer facilitating individual and group work in online and retreat settings on transpersonal dreamwork, mysticism, energy, sound and flower medicine. Vanessa is a Reiki Master, Flower Essence Holistic Practitioner, Magical Awakening Celtic Shamanism Facilitator and Yoga Nidra Healer. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Transpersonal Psychology from Sofia University in Palo Alto, California.
www.vanessalamorte.com
IG: @vanessalamorte
Vanessa's podcast Eye Dream in Keys
Original music created for Flora Gnosis and produced by Steve Bada
Flora Gnosis is hosted by Kathleen Callahan of Daughter of Wands
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/floragnosis/message
Welcome to the initiatory episode of Flora Gnosis, wherein lies the overall core of what this podcast is, and what we will explore together through personal experience and meaning. As "Gnosis" is the Greek word for "awareness" or "knowledge" gained through direct, personal experience, so too will we be sharing our personal experience with what plants have taught us, and in this first episode I even share a few examples from audience submissions.
Have a personal story about a plant you'd like to share? Submissions can be sent via email to daughterofwandstarot@gmail.com or as a voice message here.
Learn more about Kathleen's work at daughterofwands.com
Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/floragnosis/message