Dear one,
This is a love letter.
It’s a confession of deep truths that I’m not sure I could say to you out loud. Like all love letters, it’s personal, though I know it may not seem that way since it’s not exclusive or private. Every word of this letter is for you if we have ever met together for a session — even if it’s been many years. It’s for you if I’m your herbalist right now, and if we remain strangers until I have the honor of serving you in the future. I’m writing it now because the time has come for me to talk about essentials, and there’s nothing more essential to this work than love.
Healing flows from relationships, not from “healers.” My most sacred duty is to love you, by which I mean that the essence of my calling is to set myself aside and align my will with what’s truly good for you. There are times when I fall short. Sometimes I get caught up in careerist thinking, imagine grandiose things like “changing the world” with herbal medicine, or worry about making enough money. But as best I can, I call myself home to the fact that my most important work is the work of love. Deep encounter and authentic relationship aren’t the main focus of herbal training, but they’re the ground from which the best herbal practices can grow.
I want you to know what it’s like for me to love you.
It’s a practice, not a feeling. It’s sacred. Wonderful.
Above all, when we’re spending time together in service of your healing, I have the feeling of being on sacred ground. A sense of reverence comes over me, something akin to the urge to make my voice and movements small when standing before ancient art or stepping into the sanctuary of a cathedral.
The image of the cathedral is just right. When I’m doing my job well, I perceive you as you are: a dwelling place for God. You are irreplaceable, precious, unique. You are not reducible to your dis-ease, nor can your value be explained in terms of a series of biochemical reactions and mechanistic responses. You are not a constellation of problems to be solved. You are a gift! The more I practice love, the more I see you as you really are.
The deepest heart of another person is too sacred to touch directly for anyone who didn’t fashion that heart from clay and love it into life. (You and God are the only ones who have full access; even God won’t enter into your heart uninvited.) There’s an art to drawing close enough to your heart so that I can hear the whisper-silent movements of your soul and speak them back to you in a voice that you can hear with your outer ears. Once you can hear your own heart again, this midwifery of mine becomes unnecessary.
It’s hard to describe what it’s like to listen to your heart during our sessions. Beautiful, compelling, reverent, amazing…all of those words apply. It’s a little bit like making my mind still and clear and cool as an underground lake, then sensing the movement of the waters as you speak, as you breathe in the silences between words.
The most important work I do during a session is this rapt attention, this waiting. I keep myself wide and open, spreading out my soul like fabric.
I listen to your mind, too. It’s not just the content of what you say that matters, but the way your mind connects one thought to another. Did you ever try to walk in a parent’s footprints in the snow when you were little? Do you remember how your movements changed when you matched your stride to hers, when you got the angle of your toes to point just the way hers did? Tracking along with your mind is a little bit like that… delightful, joyous, a challenge that stretches me a little. As I note the facts and stories you tell me, I let myself land in the footprints of your thinking, and notice what it’s like to get from one thought to the next. Beginning to understand how you think takes more than a session or two, and I’m sure I’ll never fully grasp it. But the effort it takes to listen this way creates another layer of intimacy, and makes it easier for us to talk about things that could be hard to hear or understand.
By themselves, the impressions I get of your heart, mind, and soul are inconclusive. They’re not psychic downloads or hidden knowledge — just the sensations of what it feels like to receive you in a particular moment. The bedrock of my work as an herbalist isn’t so much mysterious as it is logical, rational, and informed by science and tradition. Deep relationship isn’t a method of assessment or healing for an herbalist, but it’s the only thing that can hold us securely when everything else seems to fall short. If we ever hit a tough spot where the best of my training and thinking can go no further, that’s the time when it’s most likely that your soul will stretch out her hands and toss us a key across the seemingly insurmountable distance.
It’s the call to love that helps me persevere in all of these disciplines. And it’s practicing these disciplines that makes it possible to see you as you really are — and that’s when loving you becomes irresistible, joyous.
This isn’t romantic love (or even friendship-love) that’s packed full of its own desires, but a movement of the soul that wants nothing more than to serve your good because of how very good you are. It flows like water after water; goodness follows goodness.
The danger in making all of this visible, dear friend, is that it might sound all wrong. I could imagine someone worrying about my boundaries (love sounds inappropriate!), or mistaking my approach to herbal medicine for something vaguely mystical instead of understanding that love and reason can walk hand-in-hand. Using the word God instead of The Divine or Higher Power or The Universe (the last one is the only one that can’t replace the word I chose. The universe isn’t God …. It’s the universe!) might alienate some of my readers, even though I hope it won’t.
Like most love letters, this one invites your response. Whatever you think or feel after reading it, I’m open to hear it. Above all, I hope it shows you just how much you mean to me, and how profound it is to have the honor of accompanying you on your healing journey. Thank you for letting me witness your inherent goodness and for the privilege of serving you. It means more to me than I can express, even in a long letter like this.
With love,
Melanie
