S2E6: Plant Intelligence and Ancestral Wisdom

Speaker 1 This episode shares personal stories and practices around herbal remedies. This show is not medical advice and does not replace care from a qualified physician.

Speaker 1 Do not start or stop any treatment or supplements because of something you hear on the show.

Speaker 1 If you have a medical condition, mental illness, or an emergency, call your doctor or your local emergency services. Hi, everyone.

Speaker 1 This is Kai Dickens, and you're listening to the Telepathy Tapes podcast.

Speaker 1 In season one, non-speakers showed us that telepathy is possible, shattering our assumptions about the world itself.

Speaker 1 This season, we're turning to others who've who've also been dismissed, doubted, or mocked for the ways they claim to know, see, heal, or create.

Speaker 1 What if only by listening to those who've been ignored, we could unlock the deepest mysteries of who we are, where we come from, and where we're going?

Speaker 1 This is the Telepathy Tapes, and we're opening up the next channel. The Telepathy Tapes is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians.

Speaker 1 These are the things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home, and more.

Speaker 1 Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way.
Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on your car insurance.

Speaker 1 Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary.
Not available in all states or situations. It's Kai.

Speaker 1 And as we move into the holiday season, I just want to say how grateful we are to be on this journey with you.

Speaker 1 We're halfway through season two, and the conversations and the synchronicities coming in from listeners have been incredible.

Speaker 1 If you're ready to go deeper into this paradigm shift, now is a beautiful moment to join our Backstage Pass.

Speaker 1 Our very first Black Friday sale starts today and runs through Friday, November 28th, with 25% off your first six months on every subscription tier.

Speaker 1 To subscribe, visit thetelepathytapes.supercast.com. The link is also in our show notes.

Speaker 1 Last week we asked if consciousness truly only belongs to humans or if it can also belong to animals. This week we look at the rest of the living world.

Speaker 1 What if plants aren't silent at all, but communicating in ways we've only just begun to remember?

Speaker 1 We'll hear from mycologist Paul Stamitz, herbal experts, indigenous elders from the Lakota Nation, the Simsian Nation, and the Kuntinawa Nation.

Speaker 1 And possibly most consequentially, we'll meet a non-speaker named Nina who says she effortlessly communicates with plants via telepathy.

Speaker 6 I'm Natalia.

Speaker 9 My youngest sister is Nina, and she's a non-speaker who communicates through spelling and is telepathic.

Speaker 1 This is Natalia Meehan. We got connected immediately after the first season of the telepathy tapes came out last year.

Speaker 12 My family knew about the telepathy because everyone was experiencing it inside of our home with Nina, but I did not feel like it was something I could talk about.

Speaker 12 I binged the telepathy tapes in two days and now I feel like I'm able to finally talk about all of these things with no judgment and total openness and realize that we have not been alone.

Speaker 1 Nina is 19 years old and lives with her family in Connecticut.

Speaker 1 When I hopped on Zoom with Natalia, I met her sister Nina for the first time and I asked her what she, as a non-speaker, thought about the telepathy tapes.

Speaker 1 And she spelled that it wasn't that impressive to her because it was old news. And here's a clip from our original Zoom call.

Speaker 11 She ended up saying, I'm so not impressed.

Speaker 6 This is so normal for me.

Speaker 13 But I'm glad that this is getting out into the world.

Speaker 6 I love that.

Speaker 1 I just think the best best response from a non-speaker ever is that it's old news. I mean, I love that.
Of course, telepathy feels like old news to those who've been utilizing it.

Speaker 1 And as we'll explore in this episode, a lot of the abilities and connections our society has dismissed as being impossible or magical would be considered old news or even no news at all to our ancestors and many of the indigenous populations who've kept their traditions intact for millennia.

Speaker 1 And perhaps there's no older or more profound tradition than our relationship with plants and the ways that we've communed with them.

Speaker 16 Nina, for the majority of her life, had really no effective way to communicate.

Speaker 1 The challenge wasn't Nina's intelligence, it was motor planning. Nina has a praxia, a mind-body disconnect that makes motor planning difficult.

Speaker 1 And as we explored in season one, speaking relies on fine motor coordination, and that's nearly impossible for those with a praxia.

Speaker 1 But pointing to letters on a letterboard or a keyboard uses gross motor movement. And with time, guidance, and practice with a professional coach, many non-speakers can learn to spell their thoughts.

Speaker 1 It can take years for the motor pathways to form, but when they do, a non-speaker can be unlocked and they can finally communicate.

Speaker 1 When Nina was 17, it all clicked for her and she began communicating via spelling on a letterboard.

Speaker 12 Once you started to spell, all of our lives changed completely. It was really like getting to know her for the first time.

Speaker 13 Simple things like knowing her favorite color or what she wanted for dinner that night was huge for us.

Speaker 20 But then the deeper layers of how intelligent she is and the things she would bring up on her own about her interests were extremely extremely surprising and shocking because she had no formal education when it came to any of these things, whether it was with different languages, with math, or with science and biology and plants.

Speaker 1 Nina has two older sisters, Paloma and Natalia. And Natalia has become one of Nina's chief communication partners.

Speaker 20 And so when she was openly spelling, one of the first things she said was, I'm telepathic. And I remember my family and I, we were like, what does that even mean?

Speaker 20 She definitely made it a point to make it known that she was telepathic.

Speaker 20 I mean, she brought it up all the time, stating it, but then also showed us in different ways where she would know where people were throughout the day, conversations they had, things that happened in the past, things that even happened and turned out to transpire into the future.

Speaker 20 kind of scared us initially. I think we were all really surprised and taken aback and it wasn't like any of us even knew about telepathy before.

Speaker 1 And one of the things that Nina would communicate to her family most about was her relationship with plants.

Speaker 9 Nina would share things about plants spontaneously and really bring it up on her own and share about their medicinal properties on a physical level but also in a spiritual sense and She knew things about plants that nobody knew.

Speaker 17 It surprised me right away because she would write about a plant.

Speaker 4 She would talk about its medicinal properties, how it's traditionally used, why, where it's from, and I wouldn't know anything about it.

Speaker 17 I would have to look it up online or something or in a book.

Speaker 10 And once I was able to verify that, I was like, oh my gosh, something is going on here.

Speaker 1 Natalia and the family made sure I understood that they didn't know about the plant information that Nina was discussing.

Speaker 1 Because as we explored in season one, some non-speakers claim that they can hear thoughts or read minds.

Speaker 1 So if Nina's family didn't know any of this plant or herb knowledge and Nina, because of apraxia, couldn't control her body well enough to type or search for information on her own, then where was all of this information coming from?

Speaker 1 How did she have such accurate information about plants and herbal remedies?

Speaker 9 Everything she's saying is totally accurate. And it became super interesting to me because it was obviously something that was real and happening.

Speaker 22 When I asked her, Nina, how did you know that?

Speaker 16 How did you know these things?

Speaker 8 She would tell me, the plant told me, I speak with the plants, I commune with the plants.

Speaker 15 She talked about being able to receive information from plants regardless of distance, regardless of time and space.

Speaker 9 I mean, most of the plants that she talks about are plants that she's never even physically met.

Speaker 1 One of the things that completely changed the family's worldview was this. Nina wasn't just talking about plants.

Speaker 1 She was offering loved ones and acquaintances extremely specific herbal remedies that turned out to be right.

Speaker 1 They weren't just vague insights, but precise plant and herbal medicines and uses that nobody had taught her.

Speaker 11 She would want to tell people what to take, like different plants, and she would say that she can connect with the energy of plants and of the earth.

Speaker 1 And here's Nina's mom Raquel, who has witnessed this time and again.

Speaker 25 It was just like, what do you actually know? And how do you know it?

Speaker 26 She's like, the plants commune with me.

Speaker 27 I can read the plants. That's how.

Speaker 25 And I I don't know what that means, but I just know that she would go right into so-and-so needs

Speaker 1 passion flower because they have da-da-da-da-da-da.

Speaker 25 And then we would look it up. And then sure enough, there it was.

Speaker 1 It was like that.

Speaker 12 She could see what was going on with a person and know their issues with their health before they ever said anything.

Speaker 17 And it was always a surprise and a shock for me.

Speaker 1 And so after Nina identifies maybe an ailment or medical condition for someone, does she always offer like a medicinal suggestion?

Speaker 17 She does always offer some suggestions, and they're always so fascinating to me because they're very specific.

Speaker 1 And the story gets even more personal than this for Natalia.

Speaker 8 Part of the story with me coming back home and working with Nina was because I became really sick, and I was living in New Orleans, and I had to come home.

Speaker 8 And no one really knew what was going on with my health.

Speaker 11 I mean, I was in and out of the hospital constantly, and there was a lot of scary, unanswered questions about what was going on.

Speaker 1 But even though the doctors couldn't figure out what was occurring in her body, Nina seemed to.

Speaker 1 Nina began suggesting specific herbal remedies as a way to address the things that not even Natalia's doctors had identified yet.

Speaker 17 She recommended me this plant initially called Astragalus, which I was not familiar with.

Speaker 10 And she told me that I needed to take it every day, multiple times a day, and that it was going to help me slowly build back up my immune system and become more resilient.

Speaker 10 And she was like, this is going to be really nourishing to you and helpful to you.

Speaker 28 So I didn't know if that was how it works or if it was going to be helpful.

Speaker 15 And I ended up looking into it.

Speaker 17 And astragalus is a

Speaker 9 herb in traditional Chinese medicine that's used exactly for that purpose.

Speaker 15 And I ended up taking it and using it and it had profound benefits for me and my health.

Speaker 11 And she knew things that I didn't know that turned out to be true later on once I was able to actually figure out what the diagnosis was.

Speaker 1 And Natalia isn't the only family member who's been touched by Nina's spontaneous suggestions.

Speaker 29 One day we were together and she started telling us what we need to take for our health according to the issues that we were having.

Speaker 1 This is Kari Dadd, Nina and Natalia's grandmother or Abuela and Raquel's mother.

Speaker 29 And she was correct in everyone. She said, Abuela, you have to take King of Viloba for circulation.

Speaker 6 And she told my husband to take agincin to trends all of the organ in his body.

Speaker 29 How she knew our health situation, all of us, and how she recommend to each one of us what to take.

Speaker 2 Incredible.

Speaker 9 My uncle was visiting. He hadn't seen Nina in a really long time, not since she was able to spell.

Speaker 22 And it was a great experience to be together and to see him.

Speaker 17 And I remember she was really excited to see him.

Speaker 10 And when we were all together, she spelled, I'm so happy to see you.

Speaker 7 So much has happened, and I have my new voice now.

Speaker 9 And after that, she became dysregulated and had tears in her eyes.

Speaker 8 And I asked her, What's going on, Nina?

Speaker 8 And she said,

Speaker 6 He is not doing well.

Speaker 28 He is at risk for a heart attack, and he has high blood pressure, and he needs help right away.

Speaker 15 And I remember just not knowing what to do in that moment because I didn't want to make him afraid.

Speaker 9 None of us knew anything that was going on with his health.

Speaker 18 He hadn't shared anything with us.

Speaker 9 No one in my family.

Speaker 15 So I just told him exactly what Nina said.

Speaker 17 And I asked him,

Speaker 10 Does this resonate with you at all? Or is this something that is happening?

Speaker 9 This is what Nina just shared.

Speaker 17 And he turned white as a ghost and was like, I just went to the doctors a few days ago and they told me the exact same thing.

Speaker 15 And it's been nerve-wracking for me because I'm dealing with these health challenges. My uncle's health challenges that no one else in our family knew about at the time.

Speaker 15 And she kind of unearthed that.

Speaker 15 And from there, she gave him some recommendations with herbs.

Speaker 28 And she was like, you need to take Hawthorne Berry and drink beet juice and do this type of exercise.

Speaker 22 And she came up with a protocol for him and was like, it's going to be okay.

Speaker 10 And from there, he implemented a lot of the things that Nina suggested and was really working on it.

Speaker 28 Months later, he went back to the doctor and they were like, oh my goodness,

Speaker 8 you're looking so much better.

Speaker 17 Wow, like what's going on?

Speaker 1 I wanted to understand how Nina could pick up on someone's medical issues without knowing their medical history or looking at x-rays or blood panels.

Speaker 1 So I wrote Nina a series of questions that she spent time answering. And here's Nina's answer in the digital voice that she chose to represent herself in this episode.

Speaker 26 I can often see people's etheric fields, which means I can see where there may be blockages or disruptions.

Speaker 26 Everything has etheric fields, including plants, so I can see where there is a vibratory match.

Speaker 1 I looked this up, and an etheric field is often referred to by energy healers as the life force that surrounds the physical body.

Speaker 1 And we're actually going to do an incredible episode on energy healing later this season, which will underscore some of the late-breaking research that really proves energy healing works.

Speaker 1 So to understand what Nina's doing, it helped me to understand her process as two distinct steps.

Speaker 1 So first she starts by reading the etheric field, or that energetic layer closest to the body, and then identifies areas that feel blocked or disrupted.

Speaker 1 And then she tunes into plants for guidance and not poetic generalities about herbs, but specific and targeted insight. And to Nina, this communication sounds like it's as natural as listening.

Speaker 1 Here she is again.

Speaker 26 Their communication feels like gentle sounds, images, and emotions wrapped into a hazy plume of smoke. And then through the smoke, I know exactly where the fire came from, who created it.

Speaker 26 what kind of fuel and starter it's made out of, and the stories or teachings shared around it. Telepathy is not complicated in fact.
It's our most natural form of information exchange.

Speaker 26 The exchange is effortless, like breathing. You can focus on it intentionally, but just as you automatically and naturally exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide, you are always breathing.

Speaker 26 Telepathy is more subtle and powerfully precise than the messy language of words.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 And for Nina, this connection with plants didn't suddenly appear or evolve as she got older. She says she's always been connected to them.

Speaker 26 I've been communing with plant spirits since I was in my mom's womb. I could always feel their frequency and nourishment.
Humans wouldn't exist without plant support.

Speaker 26 We rely on the oxygen they give us. They are original medicine, original food.
They work on the energetic and physical bodies that span from microbial measures to the macrobiomes of our planet.

Speaker 26 They regulate Earth's body. All beings are telepathic, especially plants.
Plants tell me information and are my family. Plants are perceptive healers.

Speaker 26 They are my guides, teachers, allies, and friends. To commune, we spend time in sacred space where we speak the same language.

Speaker 1 What strikes me most is this isn't just information exchange. It feels like a relationship.

Speaker 1 And like any good relationship, it begins with truly seeing, with recognizing another being for who they are and what they carry. And here's Nina again.

Speaker 26 I can't fully capture and tell you with words how loving and nurturing plants are. They give and give.
They want to help us, to heal us, to guide and nourish us.

Speaker 26 They see us for who we really are and accept us, exactly where we're at.

Speaker 1 Nina's experience is undeniable to the people around her. She knows things that she should not be able to know.
She offers remedies that no one taught her and they work.

Speaker 1 But that raised other questions for me, like, is she truly communicating with plants or is she tapping into a larger informational field? Or are plants themselves broadcasting what they know?

Speaker 1 Kind of like the magnetic field is always there. You just need the right instrument like a compass to tune into it.

Speaker 1 But before exploring any of this, I feel like we first have to ask a more fundamental question. Do plants communicate at all?

Speaker 1 And if they do, does that communication stay within their own kind or can it move across species? To answer this, we turn to someone who has spent his life listening to the forest.

Speaker 31 I'm in communication with fungi every day, and you are too. You're just not aware of it.

Speaker 1 This is famed mycologist Paul Stamitz, featured in the Netflix film Fantastic Fungi, or as he would say, fungi, and author of the best-selling book, Mycelium Running.

Speaker 31 I'm a scientist who studies fungi, and I've been a mycologist for, well, ever since I was 14.

Speaker 1 Paul is an expert on the mycorrhizal network, the vast underground web where fungi and mushrooms connect trees and plants.

Speaker 1 Think of it as the forest's internet, often called the wood-wide web, a living, operating, communication, and resource sharing system.

Speaker 1 And through it, trees send nutrients, exchange information, warn of danger, take care of their kin, and support each other.

Speaker 31 Let's first accept a basic premise. Does mushroom mycelium, for instance, or nature have consciousness and does it have language?

Speaker 32 Now, we have to accept the fact that we're articulating these concepts within the brain that's evolved, that we receive from nature.

Speaker 33 And so the constructs of our language and our capability of cognition is admittedly a limitation. So by framing the question in that sense, we have an extremely narrow field of view and understanding.

Speaker 1 If language shapes what we recognize as conscious and real, then this next discovery widens reality.

Speaker 1 Scientists are literally recording language patterns coming from mycelium networks, the networks of fungi and mushrooms under the forest floor.

Speaker 32 Just in the past year, they decoded 50 words and word packets that mushroom mycelium is using.

Speaker 32 So we're starting to decode the language from another kingdom, and they're actually using word packets through electrodes that were placed across the mycelium networks.

Speaker 31 They could see repeated word packets.

Speaker 32 And the words were a little bit more sophisticated than the words I'm using right now. That was on the basically the first attempt that was, this was discovered.

Speaker 32 It was published in a renowned journal. There's probably thousands of words.
And moreover, when they start talking, what are the responses from the other organisms?

Speaker 35 What words are they using?

Speaker 1 So we have to keep this in context.

Speaker 32 The level of complexity here is so exciting because we're entering into a realm of interspecies communication.

Speaker 32 And just because they don't have vocal cords, just because they don't have a body like us, doesn't mean that language communication systems have not been developed.

Speaker 1 Ever hit that point in the day when you're so drained, even finding the remote feels like a workout? That's where CBD from CB Distillery steps in and says, hey, I got you.

Speaker 1 And it's not just about helping you get better sleep to stay engaged and alert. CB Distillery has solutions that work with your body to help with stress, pain after exercise, even mood and focus.

Speaker 1 And it's all made with the highest quality, clean ingredients. No fillers, just premium CBD.
Imagine waking up rested or enjoying your day without those nagging aches and pains.

Speaker 1 That's the real win of CB Distillery solutions. That's why over 2 million people trust CB Distillery.

Speaker 1 I actually broke my toe this week and it's more painful than I could have ever imagined and sleeping is nearly impossible.

Speaker 1 But I tried the 1000 milligram CBD relief and relaxation tincture and it's like a calming balm for the entire body.

Speaker 1 So if you're ready for better sleep, less stress, and feeling good in your own skin again, try CBD from CB Distillery. And right now, you can save 25% off your entire purchase.

Speaker 1 Visit CB Distillery and use promo code tapes. That's cbdistillery.com, promo code tapes, cbdistillery.com.
Specific product availability depends on individual state regulations.

Speaker 1 As the air turns crisp and the holidays draw near, comfort becomes the best gift of all.

Speaker 1 Quince delivers layers that last, sweaters, outerwear, and everyday essentials that feel luxurious, look timeless, and make holiday dressing and gifting effortless.

Speaker 1 Think 100% Mongolian cashmere from $50, washable silk tops and skirts, and perfectly tailored denim, all at prices that feel too good to be true. I'm eyeing their wool coats.

Speaker 1 They look designer level, but cost a fraction of the price. And the quality, just as good, if not better.

Speaker 1 By partnering directly with ethical top-tier factories, Quince cuts out the middleman to deliver luxury quality pieces at half the price of similar brands.

Speaker 1 My current obsession is the Mongolian Cashmere crew neck.

Speaker 1 I have it in legitimately four colors, and it's the perfect, cozy, but professional piece that I can wear from interview to date night to family dinner.

Speaker 1 Step into the holiday season with layers made to feel good, look polished, and last from Quince. Perfect for gifting or keeping for yourself.

Speaker 1 Go to quince.com/slash tapes for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too.
That's q-u-in-ce-e.com/slash tapes to get free shipping and 365-day returns.

Speaker 1 Quince.com/slash tapes.

Speaker 36 Why choose a sleep number smart bed?

Speaker 1 Can I make my site softer?

Speaker 3 Can I make my site firmer?

Speaker 6 Can we sleep cooler?

Speaker 36 SleepNumber does that. Cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side.
Your sleep number zetting. Enjoy a personalized comfort for better sleep night after night.

Speaker 36 It's our Black Friday sale, recharged this season with a bundle of cozy, soothing comfort. Now only $17.99 for our C2 mattress and base plus free premium delivery.

Speaker 36 Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Check it out at a sleep number store or sleepnumber.com today.

Speaker 1 So what if Nina's tapping into something we simply don't yet know how to measure? The same way tree communication sat in the shadows for decades before science finally recognized it.

Speaker 31 Suzanne Seimard's work actually kind of pierced the envelope and brought us to a new level of understanding that deciduous and conifer trees can actually exchange nutrients.

Speaker 1 Dr. Suzanne Simard is a forest ecologist whose research changed how the world understands tree communication.
Her groundbreaking book, Finding the Mother Tree, is incredible. And here's Dr.

Speaker 1 Seamart in 2016 talking about one of her experiments.

Speaker 27 So we set about an experiment. We grew mother trees with kin and stranger seedlings.
And it turns out they do recognize their kin. Mother trees colonize their kin with bigger mycorrhizal networks.

Speaker 27 They send them more carbon below ground. They even reduce their own root competition to make elbow room for their kids.

Speaker 27 When mother trees are injured or dying, they also send messages, wisdom on to the next generation of seedlings.

Speaker 27 So we've used isotope tracing to trace carbon moving from an injured mother tree down her trunk into the mycorrhizal network and into her neighboring seedlings.

Speaker 27 Not only carbon, but also defense signals. And these two compounds have increased the resistance of those seedlings to future stresses.

Speaker 1 So trees talk. Trees talk.

Speaker 1 A groundbreaking discovery that has now become foundational science.

Speaker 19 It's like a symphony of connections and messaging and delivery of nutrients all at the same time.

Speaker 1 This is Teresa Ryan from the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Forestry, whose work bridges indigenous knowledge and forest science in the Mother Tree Project.

Speaker 1 She's a member of the Shimshian Nation, Native peoples who are indigenous to the Pacific Northwest in British Columbia.

Speaker 19 My Simchian name is Simhayetsk. I did my second postdoc with Suzanne Simart.

Speaker 19 She had read my dissertation and she was amazed by our Indigenous views of connections to place,

Speaker 19 how our Indigenous social institutions were connected to our landscapes.

Speaker 1 The Shimshian social systems mirror the living networks of the forest.

Speaker 19 There is competition in the plants in the forest. From an ecologist's perspective, we understand that competition, but there's cooperation as well.
Cedar and maple have a unique relationship.

Speaker 1 They take turns sending carbon to the other when they need it most.

Speaker 19 Douglas fir and birch. The birch actually have antibiotic properties with Douglas fir.
Birch also provides shade for Douglas fir when they're seedling.

Speaker 19 So it is a relationship that's on a continuum throughout their life cycle histories.

Speaker 19 And if something happens to a mother tree that is a threat, then the mother tree, it's been shown that the carbon gets offloaded to its younger generation fairly rapidly.

Speaker 19 So it's amazing to see this reciprocal exchange with these species that are connected in the forest.

Speaker 1 A few decades ago, the notion that trees communicate was dismissed as fantasy. Today is peer-reviewed science.

Speaker 1 And if forests exchange information through underground networks between species, sending warnings and nutrients, is it so far-fetched to think that humans might connect with the plant world too?

Speaker 1 And if Nina can seemingly do it, what about those who work with plants every day? To explore this, we turn to herbalist David Winston.

Speaker 1 He's a renowned clinical herbalist, ethnobotanist, and author with over 50 years of experience in herbal medicine.

Speaker 1 He's the founder and director of the Herbal Therapeutics Research Library and co-founder of the American Herbalist Guild.

Speaker 1 So he felt like a great candidate to weigh in on whether or not he thought it was possible for plants to communicate with people.

Speaker 44 My first experience with plants that I can remember is I'm maybe four or five years old.

Speaker 37 I'm in the backyard and I'm picking this plant, just one type of plant.

Speaker 47 I'm picking the leaves and putting some water in a plastic bucket and I'm have a rock and I'm mashing them up.

Speaker 48 And I'm probably covered with this stuff.

Speaker 42 My mother comes out and she looks at me and she goes, what are you doing?

Speaker 41 And I'm saying, I'm making medicine.

Speaker 24 This is good for when you get a boo-boo, you know, when you get a cut or whatever.

Speaker 47 And my mother just shakes her head and wanders away.

Speaker 41 At the time, I didn't know the name of that plant, but I do now.

Speaker 42 And it's plantain.

Speaker 34 And plantain, of course, is a great vulnerary.

Speaker 48 It's a great wound plant.

Speaker 34 It's anti-inflammatory and it's antibacterial.

Speaker 42 And it is used to treat a wide range of topical inflammation, cuts, scratches, bee stings, ant stings, et cetera.

Speaker 38 And if you said to me, how did I know that?

Speaker 48 It's because the plant told me I could do that.

Speaker 1 David went on to enjoy a five five-decade and counting career in herbology and ethnobotany.

Speaker 1 And incredibly, he continues to receive messages from plants on how he can harvest them and use them for medicinal purposes.

Speaker 43 I had a patient who has glomerular nephritis, which is a chronic autoimmune disease of the kidneys.

Speaker 42 And at this point, when she came to see me, she had 18% EGFR.

Speaker 45 That's the estimated glomerular filtration rate.

Speaker 41 And I had put her on a Chinese formula, which is the Romania 6 formula.

Speaker 38 And that formula will help keep people from getting worse for a while, for a year, if you're lucky.

Speaker 47 So she had been on the formula for about a year and three or four months, and she had just come back from her nephrologist, and her EGFR rates had dropped significantly.

Speaker 48 And when you're down at 18, you don't have a whole long way to go before you need to go on dialysis.

Speaker 47 And so I knew at this point it had stopped working.

Speaker 44 And I was feeling really bad because as a clinician, your job is to help people and you want to help people.

Speaker 24 It wasn't just that I had nothing left to offer her.

Speaker 34 I couldn't think of anybody who had anything to offer her.

Speaker 47 And that's just a terrible feeling.

Speaker 24 And I was sitting out by the barn at my old farm and it was a typical late August New Jersey day.

Speaker 37 And all of a sudden I look up and I have this big patch of nettles and the nettles is shaking.

Speaker 25 What do I think?

Speaker 44 I think, is there a bird in there?

Speaker 24 Is there a squirrel? Is there a chipmunk, a rabbit, whatever?

Speaker 41 And again,

Speaker 41 it's shaking and I'm looking around. Nothing else is moving.

Speaker 30 There's There's no wind, nothing.

Speaker 41 So I get up figuring again, something's going to either scurry away or fly out of the, of the, of the nettles.

Speaker 30 Nothing happens.

Speaker 45 And I get over to the nettles and all of a sudden in my head, I hear, I can help her.

Speaker 51 So I'm thinking, all right, but I had to argue, it's the wrong time of year to gather nettle leaf.

Speaker 30 Nettle leaf, you know, the leaves look terrible. They're all bug eaten and everything.

Speaker 43 And nettle leaf is a great medicine.

Speaker 48 And it's useful for kidney problems, but minor kidney problems.

Speaker 45 It's not going to help something really significant like glomerular or nephritis.

Speaker 30 And then I hear, not my leaves, my seeds.

Speaker 41 So after I managed to kind of pick my jaw off the ground and pop it back into place, because I was rather stunned, I'm thinking about nettle seed.

Speaker 45 I've never used nettle seed.

Speaker 30 I've never heard of nettle seed being used for anything. I know of no uses for nettle seed.

Speaker 45 The only thing I know about nettle seed that gives me some measure of comfort is that I know in Europe it was used as an emergency emergency food during famine, so I know it's not toxic, but that's about it.

Speaker 37 So I go back to the house, I get some tobacco, which is a traditional offering.

Speaker 1 Just a touch of context. In many indigenous cultures, tobacco is often offered to plants as a gesture of gratitude and respect, a way to acknowledge the spirit and life force within all living things.

Speaker 1 So when someone harvests a plant, they might sprinkle a small amount of tobacco on the ground or at the base of the plant to say, hey, you know, thank you for giving your life so that I might have medicine or food or materials.

Speaker 49 So I'm offered to the plant and wearing gloves because it's also known as stinging nettle.

Speaker 42 I harvest a bunch of the seed.

Speaker 48 I go to the house. I make a tincture out of it, which is an alcohol and water extract of the plant.

Speaker 45 I let it, you know, macerate the requisite amount of time and press it out.

Speaker 41 And then when it's done, I called up my patient and I said, listen.

Speaker 51 I've got this thing that's experimental.

Speaker 45 And if you'd like to try it, I'm happy to give it to you.

Speaker 47 I know it's not toxic, but I can't tell you much more than that.

Speaker 45 And she said, look, you've helped me as much as anybody's been able to help me, and I trust you, so I'll try it.

Speaker 43 She starts taking the nettle seed, and in six to eight weeks, her EGFR has gone from about 16 back up to 19, which is higher than it had been.

Speaker 35 It had been at 18.

Speaker 34 In four months, her EGFR is at 20.

Speaker 47 At a year, her EGFR is at 28.

Speaker 1 The nettle seed worked.

Speaker 46 She continued to take that nettle seed for 12 years.

Speaker 44 And that nettle seed kept her EGFR and all the other kidney markers at a much better level.

Speaker 38 And when she died 12 years later, it had nothing to do with her kidneys.

Speaker 42 And that was the first person I treated with nettle seed.

Speaker 35 I've treated, and I don't know an exact number because I've never counted, somewhere between probably 50 and 80 people.

Speaker 44 with degenerative kidney disease.

Speaker 1 After David's discovery of this use of nettle seed, acceptance of this medicine has become much more foundational in herbal medicine and helping to treat chronic kidney disease.

Speaker 1 But I wanted to know more, like, how exactly did David know it was the nettle that was talking to him?

Speaker 44 It sounded like somebody speaking to me.

Speaker 43 It sounded like a voice, you know, and but it was in my head, and I knew it wasn't me.

Speaker 34 It definitely was nothing, not something I was aware of.

Speaker 42 Whether we are talking about dreaming when you're asleep, whether we are talking about opening yourself into what we'll call a meditative state where you are open to other consciousnesses that

Speaker 42 communicate differently, quietly, and allowing yourself to be open and hearing those things and then using your judgment and discernment to determine whether this is something that's coming from you or coming externally from you.

Speaker 35 And again, I think that when it's, you know, a plan is telling you something, you weren't even thinking about it.

Speaker 24 It's telling you, you can use me for this, you know, why would I even be thinking of something like that?

Speaker 50 And so for me, it's not a question of trying to prove it.

Speaker 24 I know it's all true.

Speaker 1 And Nina agrees. Here's what she said about this.

Speaker 26 Discernment is the most important thing to remember because it instructs us on how to know what's what. Without discernment, we can get lost in confusion in these realms is scary.

Speaker 26 So discerning what is of value is essential.

Speaker 1 And David isn't the only one whom Nettle has communicated with.

Speaker 52 I'm Sophie Strand. I'm a writer at the intersection of ecology, storytelling, science, and myth.

Speaker 1 When interviewing author Sophie Strand for research for this episode, she unexpectedly told us a story of when she was visited by Nettle in a Dream to help with her own chronic kidney disease.

Speaker 52 I went into pretty severe kidney failure. I've had experiences on and off for many years.
My doctors believe it's autoimmune. They've never been able to figure out what triggers it, why it happens.

Speaker 52 And there was a flurry, like, was I going to need dialysis? What kind of intervention was I going to need? And I asked my doctors, I said, give me four days. Like, please, just give me four days.

Speaker 52 I'm not saying that anyone else should do this, but I was at this time in my life where I was like, intuitively, like, I need four days to just think about this.

Speaker 52 And I asked for a dream and I dreamed of nettle and I drank so much nettle infusion.

Speaker 52 Nettle infusion is, you know, I put nettle in water and then I put it out in a glass jar and let the sun really steep it. And I drank so much nettle.

Speaker 52 And when I went back in and retested, my numbers had all recorrected. My doctors could not believe it.
They had no explanation for it.

Speaker 1 If you want to explore something like this, I encourage you to talk to a doctor. This show does not give medical advice and cannot replace care from a qualified physician.

Speaker 52 And I'm not saying anyone else with kidney issues should do this. I'm saying that I asked for guidance and a plant showed up for me and it really did work.

Speaker 1 I asked David if he knows what about nettle seed is so effective in treating the kidneys. And he said, quite frankly, he doesn't, but it also doesn't really matter.
What matters is that it works.

Speaker 24 In herbal medicine, people have used, let's say, willow bark probably

Speaker 1 for, I don't know, 50 100 000 years as an analgesic and pain reliever we've only understood the mechanisms of how willow bark works for 50 years or maybe 70 years at this point we have used things for long periods of time without understanding them but recognized that there was validity to them listening to herbalists like david i noticed that even in the most clinical settings many of those who communicate with plants including nina reference indigenous ways of knowing where plants are not just resources but relatives where medicine begins not with analysis, but with gratitude and what feels like communion.

Speaker 19 The spiritualness or the connectedness to spirits throughout the forest is

Speaker 19 expressed in our indigenous way of life.

Speaker 1 Here's Teresa Ryan, who you met earlier in the episode. She's a member of the Shimshin Nation.
I asked if, based on her traditions, she believed plants and trees were conscious.

Speaker 4 They have spirit.

Speaker 31 I would describe them as spirit.

Speaker 19 And that's partly because I am immersed in a way of life that has a different understanding of the spirits in the world.

Speaker 1 In indigenous teachings, community isn't limited to people. It includes the trees, the rivers, and the spirits that move through them.

Speaker 1 Maybe what we call consciousness is just another name for spirit, the living current that carries ancestral knowledge through all things.

Speaker 1 And what if the reason some people can hear plants or feel them is because of the ancestors who never stopped listening? Maybe in some cases, they're even the go-betweens.

Speaker 1 The ways trees use fungi to speak, maybe humans use memory and lineage and even ancestral spirit as our invisible network. And here's Nina to weigh in on this.

Speaker 26 My connection to my ancestors is a major part of my connection to plants. For example, my Cuban roots hold information about plants as spiritual tools that are tried and true.

Speaker 14 She's known things about our ancestors that I did not know about or that other people in my family had no idea about that turned out to be true.

Speaker 29 I come from Cuba. I came many years ago as an exile.
I've been living here in the United States, but I do remember my ancestry.

Speaker 1 This is Kari Dodd, Nina and Natalia's grandmother.

Speaker 29 Our ancestry did work with plants.

Speaker 6 My great-great-grandfather used to love herbs and write about herbs.

Speaker 27 And he was famous.

Speaker 29 He was very intellectual and he was very holy. And he talked about plants and wrote books about it.

Speaker 29 In our countries, in Latin America, the Caribbean, Cuba, and Mexico, part of the culture is healing with herbs. And those people are called curanderos or curanderas, means healing through plants.

Speaker 29 And how Nina knows all of that? We don't know.

Speaker 14 The Maya Guela, she is my mom's mom.

Speaker 14 She's very Catholic, and so it's very taboo to talk about like more spiritual topics that don't fall in line with the traditional religious beliefs so we never were outwardly talking about any of this kind of thing.

Speaker 29 I'm Catholic and when Nina started talking about all of those things it was kind of

Speaker 38 scary.

Speaker 6 Where that come from? Where all of this come from?

Speaker 1 She's experienced Nina knowing things about Cuba and their ancestors, having never been there and never been taught them, and those things turned out to be true.

Speaker 6 Nina was telling us about a place in Cuba.

Speaker 6 It's a city, it's called Santias Dirito, or she is Holy Spirit, and where the sea meets with the river.

Speaker 29 And she talked to us about that place.

Speaker 6 When we look at the map, we saw what Nina was talking about.

Speaker 29 We never talked to her about that.

Speaker 6 It was not in my life, in my mind.

Speaker 29 Nothing. I didn't know anything about that.
She knows more about her roots than I do.

Speaker 1 And And you've talked about Nina having other gifts too. And so what are some of those?

Speaker 13 Telepathy, dream work, going to people in their dreaming, precognition and being able to tell when things happen before they happen.

Speaker 13 Remote viewing, being able to see things from afar that there's no way she would be able to see any other way.

Speaker 13 So she's gone to people in their dreams and is able to speak to them and give them messages and show them different things.

Speaker 1 As Nina's family explains, remote viewing, which is the ability to see a location even though you're not there, might explain how Nina is able to know so much about her ancestry and about plants and herbs that she's never been exposed to.

Speaker 6 After we investigate what Nina says about herbs and

Speaker 29 ancestors and the map, after we investigate everything she said,

Speaker 24 it happens that it was true.

Speaker 6 It is true.

Speaker 53 What's going on? I'm Arch Manning, Veori athlete and college quarterback. Whether I'm running, training, traveling, or just unlining at home, I love doing it in my core shorts from Viori.

Speaker 53 With a breathable box or briefliner, they're quick to dry, super versatile, and stand up to even my most intense training sessions. Plus, they come in three inseams and a ton of colors.

Speaker 1 Ready to try a pair?

Speaker 53 Go to Veori.com slash Arch and get 20% off at checkout. I think you're going to love them as much as I do.
That's vuri.com/slash A-R-C-H and get 20% off your first order. Exclusions apply.

Speaker 53 Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any U.S.
orders over $75 and free returns. Have a great day.

Speaker 54 If your eyes are the windows to your soul and your glasses are the windows to your eyes, then it's pretty important to find your perfect frames.

Speaker 54 That's why at Warby Parker, we've made shopping for eyewear as easy and fun as can be.

Speaker 54 Peruse endless styles in our stores, or use our app to virtually try on frames and get personalized recommendations.

Speaker 54 To find your next favorite pair of glasses, sunglasses, or contact lenses, or to locate your nearest Warby Parker store, head over to WarbyParker.com.

Speaker 6 That's WarbyParker.com.

Speaker 6 Time.

Speaker 19 It's always vanishing.

Speaker 1 The commute, the errands, the work functions, the meetings, selling your car?

Speaker 27 Unless you sell your car with Carvana. Get a real offer in minutes.
Get it picked up from your door.

Speaker 1 Get paid on the spot. So fast you'll wonder what it catches.

Speaker 6 There isn't one.

Speaker 27 We just respect you and your time.

Speaker 24 Oh, you're still here.

Speaker 6 Move along now.

Speaker 1 Enjoy your day. Sell your car today.

Speaker 22 Car, Vana.

Speaker 1 Pickup fees may apply.

Speaker 1 Nina's understanding of plants seems to reach beyond biology into ancestral memory. which of course makes you wonder what our ancestors may have known that we have since forgotten.

Speaker 1 Across cultures, Indigenous people have understood that plants aren't just resources, they're living relatives and teachers, and communion with the natural world and that those who came before us wasn't unusual or strange, it was just woven into life itself.

Speaker 1 To explore this deeper, we turn to the Kuntanawa people who say they've used telepathy to connect with plants and ancestors for as long as they can remember.

Speaker 1 This is Haru Kuntanawa of the Kuntanawa nation in the Amazon forest in Brazil.

Speaker 55 So primarily the people of the forest have their own way of connecting with the forest, their technology, which is this connection that they have with nature and with the forest.

Speaker 1 And this is Ruda, who will be translating for Haru.

Speaker 1 Haru is describing what the Kuntanawa nation call their technology, which is how they refer to their telepathic ability to communicate with plants, nature, animals, and each other.

Speaker 55 And this biological connection that we have with nature, the people with the forest, allows us to also connect with the spiritual realms.

Speaker 55 It is a telepathic connection because when you're connecting with these plants, it allows you to step into a realm where you can be in the present, but you can also be with the ancestors in the past.

Speaker 55 And as well as stepping into the future, there's the energy with...

Speaker 55 everything and that could manifest in what we eat what we consume and those energies then transform into frequencies and through the frequencies that we understand like the more subtle but the deeper connections with the vibrations the frequencies that come from the energies that we get from nature and this is something that has been passed on from generation to generation from the ancestors and it's something that you develop and when you start to understand that it starts to become more of a flow what haru describes is not an isolated worldview from the amazon to the northern plains indigenous people have always understood that the natural world is alive and conscious and in conversation with us the lakota hold their own teaching about this and their language itself is shaped shaped by wind, water, animals, and the spirits moving throughout the land.

Speaker 6 I believe that some of the oldest words and some of the oldest language does come out of the environment and nature itself.

Speaker 56 Using the sounds that the nature makes, we developed our language.

Speaker 1 This is Ion Quigley. She's an elder of the Lakota tribe, a Native American tribe indigenous to the Great Plains.

Speaker 6 But I believe that nature itself has a language language that we Lakota know it's there. We know it's there.

Speaker 1 The Lakota have a deep relationship with nature. They believe all things, plants, animals, elements, and the land itself, are connected and share a sacred bond.

Speaker 3 We believe that everything has a spirit. There's no such thing as an inanimate object to us.
Everything is alive.

Speaker 1 And this is Rick Two Dogs, also a Lakota leader.

Speaker 3 There's some medicines that are passed down through what we call the Teospae, the extended family. A lot of the traditional healers get their own through fasting, through dreams.

Speaker 1 Teospae, like Rick said, is the Lakota concept of family that extends beyond blood relations to every member within the tribal clan and community, even those who've passed on.

Speaker 1 And just like Nina gets information and gifts from her ancestors, this is how knowledge and spirituality is passed down in the Lakobota tribe.

Speaker 1 And the close relationship with their environment also allows them to communicate with and gain wisdom from the plants, animals, and elements of their surroundings.

Speaker 1 Ione herself had a personal experience of this.

Speaker 1 She and her brother went with an elder from their tribe to harvest a plant from the forest, but when they found the plant they needed, it was surrounded by poison ivy.

Speaker 1 Ione and her brother thought their journey was for nothing until the medicine man said something incredible.

Speaker 56 He told my brother, he said, never mind all the poison ivy. They're just here to protect that plant.

Speaker 6 So they won't hurt you.

Speaker 56 They won't do anything to you because you're here for that plant. And so he went up with him.
They did the prayers.

Speaker 56 We make an offering to the plant before we harvest it and then they dug the plant up and when we got home my brother well there was no poison ivy on him although he was in the middle of it but that grandpa had asked the poison ivy to let him make his way to the plant so he did rick two dogs shares a story from black elk a revered medicine man of the lakota born in 1863.

Speaker 3 If you read and do research into Black Elk, in his vision, they show him this plant that he's supposed to find. So this man goes with him who is a thunderdreamer, what we call a hioka.

Speaker 3 So they sat on this hill and they sang hioka songs and this red-tailed hawk was circling down in the valley there. And so he told his friend, he said, that is where the medicine is growing.

Speaker 3 So they went down and sure enough they found the medicine. So he made a prayer before he dug the medicine and offered the tobacco.
A lot of these plants even have their own songs.

Speaker 3 So you sing that song before you harvest the plant. And in his prayer, he said, now we're going to go among the weak and the sick, and there will be happy days among them.

Speaker 1 As mentioned earlier, making an offering such as singing a song or leaving a gift like tobacco is paramount to the communication between the Lakota and the natural world, especially when they're asking or looking for information about plant medicinal use.

Speaker 1 Here's Nina explaining her own process when she's communing with plants.

Speaker 26 Honorable harvest methods are important like introducing yourself, asking for permission, and giving an offering. Plant stewardship is a sacred art form.
Each plant has their own energy and character.

Speaker 26 Plants are sentient beings. They want to help us, to heal us, to guide and nourish us.
They see us for who we really are and accept us, exactly where we're at.

Speaker 1 The Lakota call it intuition, Nina calls it telepathy. Whatever the name, the experience seems the same.
Communication does not just happen through speech.

Speaker 1 It happens through sensing and knowing and feeling. And here's herbalist David Winston again.

Speaker 25 There is what we'll call the language of plants, and it seems like most indigenous people, most cultures, have a language of plants.

Speaker 44 Sometimes it has been forgotten, and sometimes it has been subsumed.

Speaker 1 After researching this episode, it was clear that the language of plants was once spoken everywhere in prayer, in ceremonies, in medicine.

Speaker 1 But the rise of materialism and colonization and modern technology taught us to value what we could measure and doubt what we could feel.

Speaker 42 Most people who grew up in this culture were not trained from a young age to understand intuition and things like that.

Speaker 1 And our greatest error may be believing that there's only one right way to know.

Speaker 37 Science is a way of learning.

Speaker 44 Intuition is a way of learning.

Speaker 41 Dreams are a way of learning.

Speaker 34 Communicating with plants or other parts of nature is a way of learning.

Speaker 43 Observing patients is a way of learning.

Speaker 35 Reading books is a way of learning. And none of them are better than the other.

Speaker 37 And I think they especially work really well when you combine them and you don't shut yourself off to any avenue of learning.

Speaker 3 In modern day Western medicine, I've never read where the nogi, the spirit, is really addressed.

Speaker 1 Here's Rick Two Dogs and Naoni Quigley of the Lakota again.

Speaker 26 They compartmentalize everything.

Speaker 56 They don't see the whole holistic spectrum of things, and that we're just kind of a minute particle of it all.

Speaker 3 And so that they're missing a big part because our belief is that the spirit is the core or the root of our being.

Speaker 1 And Nina sees the holistic spectrum as essential to understanding our place in this world.

Speaker 26 Humans wouldn't exist without plant support. They regulate Earth's body.
They regulate your body and mine. They are not to be seen as dead matter.
They are animate, alive, and ever-loving.

Speaker 1 Nina has talked about how she gets gets information and knowledge directly from communing with plants. But she also absorbs energy from plants and nature.

Speaker 1 And now that Nina can spell, she can often advocate for her own well-being and give her family tools to better support her.

Speaker 1 A big part of her healing process and recovering from not being able to have a voice for so many years has been through nourishing herself with the plants in all types of forms, whether that's through food or through teas or through through being outside in nature those are things are all really important to her and really regulating for her and I witnessed this myself Nina will be featured in the upcoming telepathy tapes documentary and when we were filming her one day she became extremely dysregulated and I wasn't sure if we could or should continue so the crew and I went outside to hold calming space for Nina while we waited for guidance from the family on what to do next and

Speaker 9 asked her what she needed in that moment and she said, I need to go to the forest.

Speaker 22 And so Kai and all the camera people packed up, and we went to the forest.

Speaker 17 And she said, This is gonna help me regulate my nervous system.

Speaker 7 And she took her shoes off and was walking barefoot through the forest.

Speaker 18 And it was amazing because she went from this really heightened state to this super relaxed state where she almost fell asleep in the leaves and was looking up at the trees.

Speaker 15 And so, it can be a really beautiful thing to even engage with the plants through our natural environments and being outside and connecting with them that way too.

Speaker 1 And this powerful process of gaining grounding and calming energy isn't specific to NINA. In Japan, doctors still prescribe forest bathing for stress and hypertension and anxiety and immune support.

Speaker 1 The Japanese government has even designated official therapy forests across the country.

Speaker 1 And taking in healing from plants by being in nature, absorbing their frequencies, is also, again, a way of life for many indigenous cultures around the world.

Speaker 1 And for some cultures, it goes even further. They don't just feel plants or forests or heal with them.

Speaker 1 They consume them ceremonially as a way to link into the greater web of spirit, ancestral knowledge, and consciousness.

Speaker 1 And that brings us to one of the most powerful plant teachers on the earth, ayahuasca.

Speaker 1 And the reason we're going to end the episode with ayahuasca is because we'll be turning to psychedelic medicine next week.

Speaker 1 Here's Haru of the Kuntanawa nation in the Amazon forest in Brazil, being translated by Bruta.

Speaker 55 Ayahuasca not only has a spiritual piece, but it also holds

Speaker 1 Haru goes on to explain how ayahuasca enhances the tribe's telepathy, or as they call it, their natural technology.

Speaker 55 Ayahuasca, the sacred plant, is much greater and more powerful than the technologies of today, for example, like the internet.

Speaker 55 It's sort of like a library of plants and it's very central to the ancestrality and bringing on the teachings.

Speaker 1 They say that ayahuasca, a plant that they consume like tea, opens a doorway into a wider field of consciousness, revealing information they could have never known on their own.

Speaker 1 And next week, we begin with a story that gives real weight to that possibility.

Speaker 55 When you realize that we are a family, we'll be able to connect and be wherever we are on the planet. We'll be connected.

Speaker 55 The indigenous peoples also have this, and that knowledge and that wisdom goes back to the ancestors, all of those that came before us.

Speaker 31 Do we doubt the integrity of Indigenous wisdom?

Speaker 2 Do we say that's just fanciful and it's not based on real world experience?

Speaker 33 I think the hubris of science just take a back seat to this.

Speaker 1 Here's Paul Stamis again.

Speaker 31 I think we're at a time for a paradigm shift.

Speaker 33 in our revolutionary understanding of the universe and the definition of what consciousness is.

Speaker 33 We want to explore and rejoice our biodiversity, not only culturally, but also the biodiversity of ideas.

Speaker 32 That which was thought to be preposterous years ago are not preposterous today.

Speaker 31 There's a lesson here in the evolution of science.

Speaker 32 I'm pushing the envelope of change and understanding.

Speaker 32 But at my back, I got tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of ancestors of Earth people that are supporting me in this effort.

Speaker 32 It's important that we do not marginalize people who pushes the envelopes of science just because it doesn't conform to your conventional wisdom.

Speaker 1 And this is the paradigm shift that Paul points to, the possibility that plants and fungi are not just resources, but partners in our evolution.

Speaker 1 They may hold ways of knowing what we've forgotten and ways of healing that we are only now rediscovering. So if plants can share their wisdom, what happens when human beings ingest them?

Speaker 1 What opens in us when we allow these ancient teachers inside our bodies, into our dreams, and into our neural pathways?

Speaker 1 In our next episode, we follow that question into the world of psychedelics, from indigenous ceremony to modern neuroscience, from centuries of secrecy to decades of stigma to the cutting edge of clinical research.

Speaker 1 We ask what these substances change in the brain, what they unlock in the mind, and what they might reconnect us to in the larger web of life.

Speaker 1 Because if consciousness is shared and if nature itself itself is speaking, then psychedelics may be one of the oldest ways human beings learn to listen.

Speaker 1 This podcast shared personal stories, indigenous, and historical practices, and interviews with guests. It is not medical advice and does not replace care from a qualified clinician.

Speaker 1 Do not start or stop any treatment, herb, or supplement because of this show. Statements about herbs and supplements have not been evaluated by the FDA.

Speaker 1 Nothing in this episode is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. If you have a health concern or medical emergency, contact your doctor or local emergency services.

Speaker 1 If you want to go deeper, ask me anything, or get ad-free episodes, subscribe at thetelepathytapes.supercast.com or tap the supercast link in the show notes.

Speaker 1 It takes a village to make this podcast, and I want to thank our producers, Jesse Steed, Jill Pachesnik, and Katherine Ellis, consulting producer Natalia Meehan, and field producer George McCullough.

Speaker 1 Original music is by Rachel Cantu. Mixed mastering and additional music is by Michael Urbino.
Our associate producer is Selena Kennedy. Original artwork is by Ben Kendora Design.

Speaker 1 And I'm Kai Dickens, your executive producer, writer, and host.