The Yoga of Nature:
Nature, Herbalism and Gardening as Yoga
by Lauren Priestap
In the year 2020, I began to surrender…
I was tired of trying to create moments, build my own ideals into my children, train for half marathons, control the dirt-to-Windex ratio in my kitchen. I had two children under 4, arthritic hips from running and mindless high intensity workouts, and a pointlessly clean house.
I began to feel like I went through the motions of the day robotically, while the Self inside of me had excused itself, sat in a chair in the corner, and patiently waited for me to come looking for it.
And one day, I did.
In the Spring of 2020, I looked at a plant in my woods, and I wanted to know what kind of plant it was. Never before in my life had I cared about plants, but for some reason, on this day, with this particular plant, I wanted to know. Looking back on this moment, it was almost as if my Self had wandered up next to me, leaned over, and whispered, “Wonder what that is.”
And from that moment, I looked up every plant that I saw. I spent the summer with my kids tagging along behind, walking through our forests and tramping down into the rivers, gathering plants, cross referencing nature guides, clicking photos. Plantain, bloodroot, coltsfoot, blue cohosh, trout lily, usnea.
Then, I learned that plants can heal. I befriended herbalists and began taking in information, reading books about tinctures and teas, drying herbs and plants to create medicine, gathering leaves and roots for poultices.
It felt, for the first time in a decade, as though I could breathe. As though there was purpose. And when I stepped back and looked at my days, I began to see patterns of continuous surrender beginning to appear.
I forgot to wash my floors for weeks, and I didn’t feel anxious. I sat by the river and played with my kids for hours at a time, and stopped feeling unproductive and uncomfortable as the time melted away. Instead of devoting hours to running and working out, I was in the forest pulling stubborn roots and hiking miles to get to a patch of wild leeks. I felt connection. I felt my Self stand up out of its chair in the corner and slip back inside of my soul.
Near the end of that summer, I went to my first Yin yoga class in a beautiful outdoor pavilion with a strong, intuitive teacher. I’d been practicing yoga for some time, but had never tried Yin practice before, because my old mindset had convinced me that it wasn't purposeful. I’d been using my yoga practice as a workout instead of a life change. After one Yin class, I felt another Self and soul change begin to occur. The same surrender that the plants had brought on began to evolve as I continued to practice Yin yoga. I started to understand that yoga was surrender in the same way that devotion to the plants was surrender.
I decided to practice towards a 200 hour teacher training because I knew that I needed to continue this same surrender through the winter. The plants would be buried under three feet of snow, nature would be still and sleeping, but I couldn’t allow my Self to be dormant.
As I began to deepen my yoga practice, the ties between the principles and practices of yoga and those of nature began to knot in my mind. Primarily, I became drawn to the practice of Bakhti yoga, that of devotion and recognition of higher Being.
I found myself naturally falling into Bakhti practices, waking early to practice hatha yoga, reading various devotionals throughout the day, and observing higher Being (for me, God, but there are many other names and deities recognized as well!), in every element around me, whether it be the unique personalities of my children, the snow falling off the pine trees, the chickadees on the porch railing.
I found that all of these practices not only elevated my existence and enlightened my mind, but particularly ishvara pranidhana (recognition of higher Being and surrendering to simply being), allowed me to move out of my own head space and allow a higher Being to establish control. Through continuous recognition and surrender, less became less and less about me and more about seeking beauty, going with the flow, and making space for more life.
This spring, I see the fruit of the svadhyaya work that I’ve done in my Bakhti practice. Beyond more ability in my hatha practice, I find myself in constant commune with a higher Being. The plants emerging and blooming, patience and devotion to my kitchen garden, researching new herbs and medicines, solitary walks through the woods to feel the Spirit.
Nature presents lessons and antidotes as the Source sees need. Good example, my daughter scraping her knee right next to a patch of healing plantain. During a particularly tough day this spring, I stumbled across a patch of bloodroot, a plant that I’d searched for but never had found. Nature presented me with joy and encouragement. There is a lesson in every plant and in every moment.
I am immensely grateful for the journey that I continue to travel in my practice. I know for certain that without the natural world, my path would have been far different. I am grateful to the plants for teaching me patience, curiosity, and surrender. I am grateful to my higher Being for breathing life into every piece of nature and communicating through the Earth. I find purpose beyond myself. I feel connection with the immense Consciousness, the vast Purpose.