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Foreword Reviews
Blackthorn’s Botanical Shadow Work

1. You describe the shadow as “the stain that remains from all the unpleasant, mournful, or even traumatic things that we encounter in our lives; the things that happen to us; and how they affect our behavior unconsciously ” Just to ground this conversation, on the journey to wellness, can the botanical shadow work tools you teach in the book be used to complement more conventional approaches to mental and physical health, such as psychiatry, talk therapy, and conventional meds?

Oh, absolutely! It’s very important that these things be taken into consideration, because they’re complementary practices. Wellness isn’t just one thing, one modality, one way, because every person is not only different but even siblings growing up in the same home don’t have the same experience, therefore you can’t expect every person to have successes with a single polarizing treatment. Some people have complex trauma, some have chemical imbalances, some have both, or neither. Talk therapy, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Electro-conducive Therapy (ECT), clinical support from medications, and even research into psychedelic drugs are all showing incredible results. 

We can no longer afford to hammer all of our square pegs into round holes. People are individual, their experiences, traumas and needs are too. 

The stain metaphor refers to the fall sidewalk in my neck of the woods. Oak leaves turn brown in the fall after they’ve called from the trees and when left to lie on the sidewalk, they stain the concrete. By the end of the season, sidewalks are littered with the ghosts of oak leaves past, reminding us that they were here just a moment, but their impact lasts so much longer. Just like trauma. 

2. How does “integrating our shadow” work?

Though “shadow” as a word seems dark, the work we are doing is anything but. Integrating our shadow means rather than indulging in drugs, sex, alcohol, gambling and other vices to distract from the pain of trauma, we are sitting with our shadow, the trauma of the past in order to make peace with ourselves.  This isn’t about forgiving our abusers, their forgiveness is between them and their faith, or non-faith. It is not our job to heal our abusers. Our responsibility is to the you that was harmed, to nurture the 7-year-old the 13-year-old or the 30-year-old who Experienced the pain, trauma and loss.  To sit with them in their pain and grief and let your inner you know that you did nothing wrong.  That you are going to sit here with them while the both of you heal.  Our shadow self is not an enemy to conquer, but a child that needs soothing, an adult who needs an ear to listen. Integrating the shadow is the way that we show up, not for the abuser, but for ourselves.

3. Are there any reasons you might discourage people to begin a practice of botanical shadow work?

I’d discourage anyone who thinks that shadow work is an easy, magic pill that will magically make their lives “all better.” Botanical shadow work is the gentle introduction to plants that want to go with you into the dark, so that you don’t have to face that darkness alone.  There is nothing in the dark that you haven’t already faced, conquered and beaten. All that lies in that darkness is fear. The plant spirits are there to act as lifeguards. No one can do this work for you, but at least you can have a hand to hold while you face the dark together. 

4. Can you explain to us how plants—the spiritual allies of the botanical realm, as you say—help us? The metaphor I find myself reaching for more often than not, is that of Catholicism. Note, I wasn’t raised Catholic, but my mother was. As intercessors in spirit, plant spirits are more aligned with saints, they are helping to act on our behalf. To stick with that metaphor, the difference between the rosemary in your garden versus the over-arching spirit of Rosemary would be the difference between a local parish priest versus the pope.  The rosemary in your garden is going to have the knowledge of your area, climate and goings-on.  But the spirit of Rosemary is going to carry the magic of all rosemary. 

How do they do their work? One of my favorite maxims is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed.  In magic we are working in concert with the natural world, to create desired outcomes. Magic is a system, not a religion. So it can work alongside any faith-path. We are only changing the shape of that energy to accomplish our goal.

If you have two oak trees, where one is grown on an organic farm in Denver, and one is grown in a swamp outside Baltimore, they’re going to have two different life experiences, but they will both carry the same magical associations of the spirit of Oak. You might collect fallen leaves from the Denver oak to facilitate strength and new beginnings, while the swampy oak can give you the strength to let go of that which no longer serves.  They’re both still oak. They are still ready and willing to help you with the associations we understand from oak, but they can be called upon to 

Why did they develop the power to help human beings? Did they always have this ability or did they evolve alongside us? 

I don’t think that they developed the power so much as the shape of that power changed alongside evolution. When humans (and porto-humans) started paying attention, they wrote it down.  There are records of magical attributes of plants, seeds, flowers and resins as long as recorded history. 

Is it really true that “the plants we seek offer everything we need,” as you write? 

That’s a definitive yes. Because humans and plants all underwent evolutionary change through the same process of millions of years, we have always depended on plants and other animals to feed, clothe and nurture us.  Medicinal plants didn’t suddenly become medicinal in one day, we as humans relied on trial and error to understand our plant and fungi allies.  “This one tastes good, this one killed Bob, and that one made Bob see God before he died.” We rely on the work of the infinite humans who came before us to understand the world around us, just as all science is built upon the work of scientists that came before then.  We are simply refining the process of the scientific method. 

5. Intuition, an inner narrator or “little voice,” smell, sight, hearing, touch, taste. What mode of communication do our spiritual allies and plants use to communicate?

If you’re seeking plants with vitamin A, perhaps your body needs help with cell turnover. If you’re craving perfumes with patchouli, perhaps your spirit needs a bit of grounding.  The hard part in modern society is standing still long enough to listen for the messages our body and the environment around us is/are communicating.

The little voice is conscious, consciousness, and very gentle signals, just like hunger, thirst and longing, they take years to understand from infancy, but we do get there. One day it may be a new plant appears in your garden that you never noticed before.  It’s not that the plant magically appeared, it’s that the outer noise lowered the volume enough to notice that plant, and it’s in the noticing that we can begin to understand why it chose that moment.  Whether ‘it’ is your consciousness or the spirit of the plant is for the observer to understand.  

6. Just to give readers a sense of how you personally engage in shadow work using your toolkit, can you walk us through a recent occasion (or two) when you felt the need for a boost and what exactly you did?

A few years ago I was doing a regular energetic cleansing of my home. Good spiritual hygiene and all that. During this process I noticed a stand (stand is the collective noun for plants) of poke plants (Phytolacca americana) suddenly appeared.  Did they appear overnight? Certainly not. But I hadn’t seen or noticed them prior, and they were certainly tall enough to have been noticed earlier.  I started to think what the message could be.  Poke is poisonous, and poisons are a protective measure. If it can protect itself, it can protect you.  So if the poke is in my back yard (therefore behind me) and it’s a protective plant, what do I need protection from, that I can’t see? After some work, I realized I had a stalker and Poke was warning me. I was able to be on my guard, and escaped a potentially deadly encounter.  I firmly believe if Poke hadn’t warned me, I wouldn’t be here, giving this interview. 

7. It feels important to stress that throughout the book, you encourage readers to improvise: if one approach doesn’t resonate—”if florals aren’t your jam”—take a different approach. At one point, in a discussion of altars, you write: “Take a look at the buffet of options in front of you and remember there isn’t a wrong way to try to engage the shadow aspect of ourselves, so jump in and try your hand. See what happens.” Can you speak to the idea of taking ownership of shadow work? 

The work of being human means having ownership over our choices, and the decision paralysis that can come with trauma. I want to make sure everyone who picks up this book that you know yourselves better than I ever could. I can give you all the tools I have, but you have to be the one to employ them. One of the issues with approaching something as difficult as facing our ‘demons’ is that feeling that if everything isn’t just so, the work won’t work. This leads to a paralysis of another kind.  I’ll start tomorrow when I have a new journal.  I’ll start tomorrow when I have the right candle. I’ll start next full moon for the right vibe.  Done is better than perfect. 

8. You offer guided trance journeys in the book, where adventurers use an inner start screen and head off to parts unknown to meet botanical allies. These journeys seem to incorporate some visualization techniques. Please talk about trance work, what it offers, how to develop it, the places you can go? 

Trance work sounds so formal. What Botanical Shadow Work provides is the tools, frame work, and most importantly the permission to set out on your own and meet yourself where you are, instead of waiting for the perfect time to be that idealized version of yourself.  Trance work offers you the sense of safety within your own head that life and trauma can take away from us. It gives us the certainty of safety that not everyone was raised with, or experienced in childhood. Because you can use it to go anywhere.  Literally. Trance work can take you to parts of the world you have never seen, to places no one has ever seen, including times, eras or epochs that no human has ever seen. This isn’t just imagination. 

How can you tell the difference between a true journey, and a projection? The element of surprise.  If you are planning a journey back to a prior / past life, and you see a friend of yours there, you recognize their soul, even if they look different then, but you KNOW THEIR SOUL, that genuine moment of surprise is what tells you this is really happening, even if it is taking place inside your head.  On the other hand, if you “were a princess in a tower, and everyone loved you and you lived happily-ever-after-the-end” it’s a projection.  There is no unexpected moment, no detail that made you go, “hrmm” and nothing to shock you out of the narrative you have in your head, it’s just a nice story you’re telling yourself. You have to give yourself permission to be. To feel. To experience. 

9. Early in the book, you write: “The plants we have a relationship with can be incorporated to help deal with our shadow or overindulged to mask it. As a society we experience botanicals allies on a daily basis, but overindulging in them because we are ignoring our own shadow can have real world consequences.” Can you help us understand that statement a bit further, please? 

Just as anything in our physical plane can be indulged in or over-indulged in, so can they be incorporated to the determinant of our shadow self.  You can ask the sprit of Poppy to help you sleep, that help is needed because we need our rest to recover from the daily wear and tear on our bodies.  We can be prescribed medicines that are based on the poppy plant to help after a surgery or injury, but that same poppy-based medicine can become an addiction that dulls our senses to the pain of the past to the point of losing ourself, our families, our loved ones, or even our lives. 

10. You write, “Witches, magicians, Pagans, and all of us varied magical people, as well as many others, are fighting to break the generational curses wrought by the generations that came before us. We take the poisons that were fed to our parents and our parents’ parents, and we turn it into magic.” 

What is the current state of witchcraft? When the history of Paganism and witchcraft is written, how will scholars look back on this early-twenty-first century era, with all its technology and connectedness? 

That history is being written today.  We live in a time where we have never had more access to information, to connection and to each other, and yet we are increasingly lonely. We are using our access to record the experiences of the world, and the history being written daily, because every day is a new “unprecedented time.’ Because we are taking so many steps to be historians, we are losing touch with our neighbors. We are making sure that the world understands what is happening, while locked behind our own doors out of fear of the unknown, and fear of the hatred that has been inflicted on minorities, seemingly since the beginning of time. The only people talking about the ‘good old days’ are vastly misunderstanding what life is like for women, People of Color, LGBTQIA+ people and the disabled. I am a member of 3 out of 4 and can only talk about my own experiences, but even within communities that hope to bring light to the disenfranchised, there is still room to grow.  

11. We live in trying times. What attitude, what fighting spirit, what mindset do we all need to embrace to make the universe a better place? 

To ensure we continue to endure, to fight and succeed, we have to be willing to fight for those that have less than we do.  Period.  “A rising tide lifts your boats.” -JFK

The rise of political hate follows a lull, making prejudice, racism, bigotry and the like feel emboldened to act, but rights are not pie. There are not fewer rights for you, because your neighbor has gained rights. Lesbians being able to marry takes away nothing from your marriage.  Disabled people gaining access to buildings takes away nothing from able-bodied visitors. Equity and Justice should be what we are fighting for, not getting the first spot in line so no one can take something from you.  

The continued rise of white nationalism targets everyone ’other,’ POC, minority religions, the disabled, Two-Spirit and third gender people.  It is our job as compassionate humans to make sure that we see our neighbors. We are looking over their fence to make sure they have enough, not to make sure they don’t have more than us. Lead with kindness and curiosity, but don’t be afraid to fight for what’s right, even if it costs you.

12. The author of eight books, a deeply knowledgeable practitioner of British Traditional Witchcraft,  horticulturist, certified aromatherapist, medium, and trance witchcraft instructor—what’s next for you? May we humbly ask to hear a little bit about your life and what you’re working on now?

I have always been a creative person.  I wanted a book with my name on it before I could write my name. I’ve been going non-stop for ten years at this point, so it’s time to refill my bucket, so to speak.  

I’m painting more. I’m photographing botanical portraits again. I have a collection of watercolor botanicals I’ve worked on for years. I’m writing a novel.   It’s time to have surgery on my shoulder, by the time you read this, I’ll be recovering nicely, but I had to cancel my book tour to recover, so I’m getting to know my fans through Skool and have put up a number of classes that are ‘on demand style’ classes you can take any time, day or night.  No waiting for a reply email, with a special code, just fun topics, expansive ideas and safety for the fans I care so much about.

https://www.skool.com/amy-blacktorn-school-of-magic-7076

I can tell you, that I hope my next project to be released, has a little bit of all of me, a peek into the future of Amy, as a whole.