Plant Spirit Medicine Ceremony Guidelines

Priestesses dancing in a Plant Spirit Medicine Ceremony

Gnothi Seauton – Know Thyself." are the words inscribed above the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, the temple of the famous Oracles of Delphi.” The Oracles of Delphi were high priestesses who used plant spirit medicines to connect with the divine.

“Gnothi Seauton – Know Thyself.”

These ancient words—inscribed above the Temple of Apollo at Delphi—whisper through the veils of time like a prayer. Within those hallowed marble halls walked the Oracles of Delphi: high priestesses, seers of the invisible, who entered trance states with the aid of sacred plants, merging with divine intelligence to offer visions to the world.

Goddess of Medicine Hygieia

This is the lineage we remember. This is the thread we weave into our ceremonies today.

When we invoke the sacred spirit of a plant medicine, we are not merely ingesting a substance. We are entering into holy communion with a living consciousness—one that exists beyond the physical realm, one that hears our prayers, sees into our soul, and holds ancestral memories deep within its green heart.

Modern science now echoes what ancient medicine keepers have always known: that our dis-ease, whether of body, mind, or spirit, often carries an unseen root. Entheogenic plants offer us the gift of insight, unveiling the energetic imprints behind our suffering, and gently guiding us back to wholeness. This is the art of spiritual intervention—the medicine of remembrance.

For nearly three decades, I have walked the ceremonial path with plant teachers. I have wept in their presence, danced under their stars, and listened to their sacred songs. And one of the most profound teachings they continue to offer is this:

Gratitude is the key that unlocks the temple.

When we approach the spirit of a plant with reverence—when we bow in gratitude, honor its lineage, and call upon it not as a tool but as a teacher—the plant responds in kind. It opens. It blesses. It heals.

Priestess Prepares for her Ceremony

Preparation for Sacred Communion

Before we enter the sacred circle of communion with plant spirit medicine, it is wise to prepare not only the body, but also the heart, the mind, and the soul. Preparation is a ritual in itself—a way of stepping out of the mundane and into the realm of the sacred. The way we approach the altar of nature determines the clarity of the blessings we receive.

Dieta: A Ritual of Purification

In the traditions of many medicine keepers across the Earth, the dieta is a time-honored rite—a way of attuning the body and spirit to receive the voice of the plant. It is both a physical and energetic cleansing, a gentle act of devotion.

One to three days before your ceremony (or longer if you feel called), begin to simplify. Allow your body to become a clean vessel. Avoid processed foods, stimulants, excessive sugar, alcohol, and substances that cloud perception. Choose pure, whole foods gifted by the Earth—light, nourishing, and easy to digest. Let water be your elixir.

Yet dieta is not only of the body—it is also of the spirit.

You may feel called to step away from draining environments, electronic noise, or people who do not meet you with respect and love. You are not being selfish—you are remembering how to protect your energy. This sacred separation allows the veils to thin, making it easier for your spirit to commune with the Green Ones. Follow your intuition. Each plant medicine may request a slightly different preparation, and your inner knowing will guide you if you listen deeply.

Intention: The Heart of the Ritual

Before you journey, take time to enter your heart and ask: Why am I being called to commune with this plant? What is my soul longing to know, release, or remember?

Your intention is a prayer. It is the beacon that guides the spirit of the medicine as it weaves through the layers of your being. Whether it is clarity, healing, ancestral connection, creative inspiration, or spiritual awakening—speak your truth. Write it down. Whisper it to the wind. Sing it into the earth. There is no right or wrong way, only your way.

Even if your intention is simply to connect with the sacred, that is more than enough. The medicines respond not only to words, but to the purity of our longing.

As the mystic Eckhart Tolle once wrote:

“It is our purpose and destiny to bring a new dimension into this world by living in conscious oneness with the totality and conscious alignment with universal intelligence.”

Let your intention be a doorway into that divine alignment.

Ceremony Checklist: Tools of the Temple

As you prepare your sacred space, gather the tools that will support your comfort, safety, and the unfolding of the ritual. Here is a list you may adapt according to your unique ceremony:

• Fresh spring water or high-quality drinking water

• Nourishing food for grounding afterward

• Comfortable, loose clothing

• Warm layers or shawls for temperature changes

• Blanket, pillows, yoga mat or soft resting surface

• Music library or curated ceremonial playlist

• Sacred scents: sage, incense, essential oils

• Candles to honor the flame

• Kleenex or soft cloths for tears or release

• A bucket lined with a bag (for potential purging)

• Journal and pen to capture messages or dreams

• An altar (see below) to anchor your intentions

• A trusted friend or designated contact for safety

Even if you are journeying alone, consider letting someone you trust know in advance. They can act as a guardian or space-holder from afar, ready to support if needed.

You are creating a sanctuary—an inner temple mirrored in the outer world. Let your preparation be infused with grace and intention, like the drawing of a sacred circle under the moon.

Priestess preparing for her ceremony

 Tips for Ceremony: Creating a Sacred Container

When entering into ceremony, we are not merely taking a journey—we are stepping between worlds. The preparation of your space and the care of your energy are both acts of sacred weaving. They ensure that the gateway opens gently, and that what enters is of the highest light.

Set & Setting: Tending the Inner and Outer Temple

“Set” refers to your inner landscape—your mindset, emotions, and intentions. “Setting” refers to the environment in which you journey—the space that holds you.

Together, they form the vessel in which the alchemy of your experience unfolds.

If you are journeying in the company of others, choose companions whose presence feels nourishing, gentle, and grounded. Ideally, appoint someone as a guardian—a luminous soul who remains sober and devoted to holding the energy of the circle. If no one person fills this role, you may choose to rotate guardianship in shifts. The role of the guardian is ancient and sacred: to hold the container, to offer water or blankets, and to anchor the vibration of safety.

If your path leads you inward in solitude, let a trusted friend know of your plans. Ask them to hold space from afar, available should you need gentle grounding or reassurance.

Your setting—the physical space—should be clean, uncluttered, and energetically clear. The more beauty and intentionality you pour into your environment, the more the spirit of the medicine will recognize your devotion and respond.

Whether beneath the canopy of trees, beside the sacred ocean, or within the sanctuary of your home, let your ceremony be cradled in care.

Your Altar: A Portal Between Worlds

An altar is more than decoration. It is a bridge. A living prayer. A sacred focal point that aligns your spirit with the unseen realms.

Creating an altar before your ceremony opens the channels to divine guidance. It invites the elements, ancestors, angels, and devas to surround you in protection and grace.

To honor the elements, you may choose:

• 🜁 Air – Feathers, bells, incense

• 🜃 Earth – Crystals, stones, flowers, seeds

• 🜄 Water – A bowl of spring or river water, shells, sacred tears

• 🜂 Fire – Candles, smudge bundles, charcoals and resins

Add any personal sacred objects—photos of loved ones, deity statues, meaningful talismans, or representations of the plant spirit you’re communing with.

Let your altar reflect your soul’s deepest longings and serve as an anchor of protection and remembrance throughout the journey.

Opening Your Ceremony: Calling in the Sacred

Before you partake in the sacred medicine, create a ritual of opening—an intentional moment that marks your passage from the mundane into the mystical.

Begin by centering yourself. You might light a candle, smudge your space with sacred smoke, and take a few deep, conscious breaths. Speak aloud your intentions and call upon:

• Your higher self, the wise and eternal aspect of your soul

• Your spirit guides, angels, and ancestors of love and light

• The guardian spirit of the plant, inviting it to walk with you as teacher and healer

• The Great Mother, the Earth, the Divine—however She appears to you

This is your sacred covenant. A whispered agreement between your soul and the spirit of the medicine.

Let your words be spoken with sincerity, not perfection. The plant spirit hears the voice of the heart more clearly than any rehearsed invocation.

You may wish to sing, drum, or sit in silence. You may wish to place your hands upon the earth. However you choose to open, do so with reverence and presence. The journey begins here.

Shall we continue into the next section: Food & Water, Keeping Warm, and Release? Or would you like to pause and reflect on this offering first? 🌾🔥🌕

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Priestess preparing her holy water

Nourishment, Comfort & Sacred Release

Food & Water: Nourishing the Vessel of Spirit

Water is the first medicine. The ancient memory of the womb, the keeper of life, the bridge between worlds.

As you prepare for your journey, drink pure water to cleanse and attune your body. During the ceremony itself, water will serve as a gentle ally, cooling the fire of intense emotions, hydrating your sacred vessel, and anchoring you in presence.

After your journey,

Nourishing food becomes a sacred offering to your body—a gesture of grounding, gratitude, and return. Choose food that is alive with energy: fruits, root vegetables, healing broths, or sacred grains. Let each bite be a prayer of integration.

Be mindful of timing. Eating too soon during the journey can signal the body to begin closing the portals that were just opened. If your ceremony feels complete, food can help anchor you back into the Earth. But until then, allow spaciousness. Allow the medicine to speak.

A wise medicine man once shared with me that refined sugar and processed food can create holes in the energy field, diminishing the sacred transmission received in ceremony. For this reason, I often stay in a state of gentle dieta for at least three days before and after, to remain open, clear, and aligned.

Let food and water be companions on your path—never distractions, but bridges between the earthly and the divine.

Keep Warm: Tending the Flame Within

As the spirit moves through you, you may feel heat rise in waves, or you may be touched by sacred chills. These shifts are part of the energetic unfolding—clearing, healing, rebalancing.

Prepare for these changes by wrapping yourself in layers of softness and warmth. Keep blankets nearby, shawls that feel like the embrace of a grandmother, socks or sacred clothing that comfort your body and calm your spirit.

Your body is the temple through which spirit speaks. Tending to it with love is part of the prayer.

Release: The Sacred Art of Letting Go

In the realm of sacred medicine, release is not a side effect. It is a blessing. A divine unburdening. A return to wholeness.

Sometimes, release comes as tears. Sometimes as deep laughter. Sometimes as words spoken to no one and everyone. And sometimes, it comes as purging—a physical expulsion of that which no longer belongs.

If the body asks to purge, do not resist it. Surrender. Honor what is being transmuted. Thank the medicine for revealing and clearing the weight you’ve carried.

Keep a bucket nearby—lined for ease and comfort. Have tissues or cloths to cleanse your face and mouth. Afterward, rinse with fresh water, gargle if you wish, and breathe deeply into your renewed self.

This, too, is medicine.

You may even ask the plant as you purge:What am I releasing? What is leaving me now?Let it speak. Then let it go.

Your altar, your breath, your surrender—these are the tools that help transform discomfort into liberation. The old leaves like smoke, and your spirit rises lighter, clearer, freer.

Three Priestesses in a Medicine Ceremony

Sacred Embodiment: Rest, Movement, and the Dance of Integration

Rest: Surrendering to the Great Mother

There may come a time in ceremony when your spirit asks to journey deep within, and the most healing act is to simply rest.

Lie down upon the Earth or your sacred space. Close your eyes. Let your breath become your prayer.

If you feel overwhelmed, anxious, or emotionally saturated, know this is natural. You are not broken. You are breaking open.

In such moments, the most powerful medicine is surrender—not to the intensity, but to the sacred intelligence of the plant. Trust that she knows what to do. That she is working in your field, rewiring, realigning, releasing.

Let the ground hold you. Let your exhales soften you. Feel yourself returning to the breath of the Earth.

If you can, lie flat and still. Imagine your roots sinking deep, deep into the soil. With every breath, let go of what does not belong. Let the spirit of the plant integrate into your being like golden light weaving through your nervous system.

You are safe. You are guided. You are loved.

Stretching: Opening the Channels of Flow

There may also arise a moment when energy begins to move through you like a river needing to flow. In such moments, stretching is sacred.

Allow your body to guide you—there is no wrong movement. This is not performance, but listening.

Perhaps your spine wishes to undulate like a serpent. Perhaps your hands reach skyward to call down light. Perhaps your hips long to sway with the song of the Earth.

These are the body’s prayers. Movements of release. Invitations for stuck energy to dissolve, for stagnant emotions to soften and be freed.

As you stretch, breathe. Inhale light. Exhale tension. Feel your spirit expanding within your body temple.

Let this be a somatic offering, a way of bowing to the sacred in form.

Dancing: The Ecstatic Prayer of the Priestess

And then, perhaps, the drums rise. The pulse builds. And your body, animated by the medicine, begins to dance.

This, too, is ceremony.

Dance to release the old. Dance to call in the new. Dance to awaken the wild and holy parts of you that have been waiting to be remembered.

Your dance may be fierce or gentle, primal or celestial. Let the plant spirit move you. Let your soul guide the rhythm. Shake, spiral, leap, weep, laugh, twirl, or simply sway.

There is no choreography here. Only liberation.

Let your breath flow freely. Sip water as needed. Rest when your body asks. Trust that your inner dance knows the medicine’s song better than your thinking mind ever could.

When we dance in ceremony, we rewrite our story through movement. We clear ancestral cords. We awaken the priestess within.

Let your dance be a love letter to the Earth. A celebration of your aliveness. A resurrection of joy.

Priestess singing & drumming

 The Sacred Voice: Sound, Silence, and Sonic Communion

Singing & Playing Instruments: The Voice of the Soul

In many ancient traditions, it is taught that the universe was sung into being. The Vedic sages called this Nada Brahma—the world is sound.

When you sing during ceremony, you are not merely expressing yourself—you are weaving spells, offering prayers, and opening gateways.

Whether your voice rises in melody, chant, or hum, know that your sound is sacred. Even if no words come, even if the sound is raw or trembling, let it rise from your belly and your heart.

You may call upon your spirit guides, your ancestors, the plant deva, or the Goddess Herself through your song. You may even feel the medicine singing through you—this is a most holy moment, when you become an instrument of the divine.

If you are called, keep simple instruments nearby: a drum, a rattle, a flute, or chimes. Let them awaken the medicine. Let them clear your field. Let them carry your prayers into the stars.

And if you are journeying with others, there may be moments of shared song—voices rising in spontaneous harmony, as if remembering a language older than words. This is ceremony. This is soul remembering.

Music Playlist: Weaving the Sonic Tapestry

If you are not singing yourself, or even if you are, music can be a powerful ally to guide the currents of your journey.

Create a playlist that feels intentional, spacious, and attuned to the plant you are communing with. Avoid songs with overly distracting lyrics or heavy rhythms, unless they serve a specific purpose (such as helping to release stagnant energy or shift a dense moment).

Instead, seek music that invites you deeper. Songs that feel like temple bells, forest winds, desert prayers, ocean hymns. Music that remembers.

You may wish to include:

• Medicine songs or icaros from your lineage or tradition

• Instrumental soundscapes that evoke sacred space

• Chants in languages you don’t know but feel deep in your bones

• Silence between songs—so your own inner voice may rise

Let the playlist be a sonic temple that supports your becoming.

Meditation: Stillness as Portal

While sound is a sacred tool, silence is equally powerful. Meditation invites us to listen—not with our ears, but with our soul.

During ceremony, moments of stillness can be profound. You may sit in meditation to integrate a vision, to breathe through intensity, or simply to ground and center.

Let your breath be your guide:Inhale light.Exhale all that is no longer needed.Feel your spine lengthen like a tree.Feel your roots anchoring deep into the Earth.Let the plant speak. Let your spirit receive.

If the mind becomes busy, return gently to the breath. Even a few minutes of meditation can create space for miracles to unfold.

You are not meditating to escape the experience, but to anchor into it more deeply. In that stillness, the voice of the Divine may whisper through the veil.

Priestess closing her ceremony in gratitude

Closing the Ceremony & Integration: Returning to Earth with Grace

Closing Your Ceremony: Sealing the Temple

Just as we begin with intention, we must also close with gratitude and grace. The ceremony is not over when the visions fade—it is complete when we consciously release the space and bow in thanks to the allies who walked with us.

Begin your closing ritual with reverence. Light a candle anew or extinguish the one that has burned throughout. Speak your gratitude aloud:

• To the spirit of the plant medicine

• To your guides, ancestors, and protectors

• To the elements, your body, and your breath

• To the Earth, who holds all healing within Her womb

You might wish to offer a prayer, a song, or a small token—such as herbs or flower petals—returned to the Earth in thanks.

If you created an altar, gently dismantle it with love. If you were in silence, begin to speak. If you were in a group, take time to share or sit quietly in each other’s presence.

This ritual of closing brings the energy back into balance and tells your spirit: We are home now. We are whole. The work is done for today.

And yet… the ceremony never truly ends. It begins to unfold within you in subtle and sacred ways.

Final Words of Advice: Walking the Beauty Way

The plant spirits are intelligent, ancient allies who respond to love, respect, and devotion. The more you treat them as sacred beings—not tools or escapes—the more they will offer you their deepest teachings.

A wise gardener knows that when the garden is well-tended, the flowers bloom in abundance—and the gardener, too, is nourished.

So too with the plants. When you approach them in humility, they meet you in kindness. When you listen deeply, they speak in wisdom.

Do not rush to understand all that you experienced. Integration takes time. Let the insights breathe. Journal, dream, walk in nature, create art. Be gentle with yourself.

If you received a vision, ask: What action am I being called to take?If you received a release, ask: What truth has now made space to grow within me?

And remember—magic is real. Healing is possible. You are not alone.

A Blessing for Integration

May your heart remain openMay your roots reach deepMay the wisdom of the plants echo in your bonesAnd may your spirit walk gently between the worlds

May you carry the medicine in your breathMay your body become a temple of remembranceAnd may your life be a living altar of beauty, truth, and love

Go forth in grace, beloved.The Green Ones are with you always.

Written by Renee Boje, with Love Gratitude and In devotion to the Green Ones, the Earth Mother, and the sacred allies of the unseen realms...

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