Sacred Plant Medicine: The wisdom in Native American Herbalism, Stephen Harrod Buhner

The Sacred: Our capacity to recognize and seek out the sacred is one of the basic drives that makes up the fabric of a human being and which has shaped our common human ancestry. The sacred as I use it is more akin to the dictionary definition of holy, "having divine nature or origin." It must be recognized that because the sacred is made up of both non-rational and non-linear elements, any reduction to simple definitions always fails to capture its essence. One must enter the realm of the sacred and experience its transcendent nature to fully understand it. There is a distinct reality that underlies all religious articulations. It is this reality that, when experienced, is felt to be the REAL, a deeper and more meaningful reality than that we experience in our normal day-to-day lives. The maps that travelers create from their travels in sacred domains, and the bureaucracy that springs up around control over the map, make up the form and substance of religious movements. The maps correspond to specific lineages of religious or spiritual devotion. All humans have a propensity for how they experience the sacred. For example, human beings may experience the sacred as a territory (Native Americans), as a personification (Christians), or a state of mind (Buddhists). This propensity for how one experiences the sacred can lead to arguments (and sometimes wars) over the correct way to experience the sacred, over "The Way." But as the eminent religious historian, Mircea Eliade, has said, "There are no definitional limits to what forms the sacred can take."4 The manifestation of the sacred, hierophany, may occur in any person, place or thing. The sacred, by definition, can take any form. Each religious articulation has its place within the human frame. To claim superiority for a religious expression is to claim the thumb superior to the fingers, the foot superior to the leg. Each has its necessary place and function. One must search for the real center of religion and go beyond the linguistic representations contained in religious maps. If one does not, one finds the human, not the sacred. The sacred has a dynamic aspect in that it has a tendency to manifest itself of its own accord. It tends to come into the world and make itself known. Further, each incarnate form, each object of matter, has a tendency to realize its archetypal, universal, sacred meaning. These two tendencies— that of the sacred to manifest itself and that of each incarnate form to realize its deeper archetype—come together in such a way that any object at any time can incorporate within itself all the power of the holy. When the sacred manifests itself in the world, something in the human allows it to be immediately recognized. A part of the human, most often a subconscious part, experiences the sacred and says to the conscious mind, "that is the REAL." The conscious mind is then made aware of that which is beyond it and that from which it comes, the sacred. The intrusion of the sacred into human experience represents a direct transmission of the REAL, a transmission of God, Creator, Allah, Great Spirit. The human who experiences this is made aware of a reality that transcends the human and thus predates human linguistic and cultural constructs. This presents difficulties. How does one retain the memory and experience of something that predates all things human? To explain the experience and to retain memory of it, human beings automatically structure the direct experience of the sacred into internalized symbolic constructs. Thus the sacred comes to be expressed in visions, wondrous feelings, thoughts, and sometimes smells and tastes. This is due to the nature of memory patterning. Human memory patterns are constructed of aspects of the five senses,-that is, memories are encoded bits of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings. Thus the experience of the sacred is translated into visions, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings even though the sacred is both all and none of these things. Examinations of the written and oral records of those who encountered the sacred show that their experiences were very rich and generally included all of the five senses.5 Strong visionary experience is often accompanied by imperatives for human conduct. Conveyed during contact with the sacred, these imperatives often require the person to whom they are given to act in a certain manner, engage in a specific life work, or make changes in lifestyle or behavior. Because these imperatives are usually interpreted as language when experienced, they most often take on the pattern of language that is already encoded in the person receiving them. To make the imperatives sensible people also interpret them through previously learned cultural experiences and values. Thus, if one is raised in a primarily Christian environment, any direct experience of the divine will often tend to take on Christian forms and symbols. All these things—sensory memory bits, linguistic and cultural structures that give the experience of the sacred memory form—become symbols that contain in themselves the capacity to reinvoke the original sacred experience. Though these elements are used, the sacred does not become only those things. Inherent in the experience of the sacred is the memory of its transcendent nature and humans, according to their capacity, are forced to generate more powerful constructs out of their own existing structures to encompass the immense morphology of the sacred. In this process it is not possible for the human to retain the full experience of the sacred. It is too large a territory. Even so, the human has been changed, is no longer only secular, and the symbols retained point the way to something other and more REAL than the human. Within many cultures, the search for personal contact with the sacred is an integral part of our maturation and development. When contact with the sacred occurs, its nature and content shapes the direction of that person's life. It provides meaning by which that person determines ethical and honorable behavior and life's work. Further, frequent contact with the sacred through personal visionary experience or community ritual gives direction for the deepening of one's own spirituality over time. Though experiences of the sacred cover a wide spectrum of styles the oldest and most widespread is Earth-centered, or what is sometimes referred to as pagan religion or nature mysticism.