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Jaye: Welcome back to the Inspired Action Alchemy Podcast. This is Pod 147, and I’m Jaye, and I’m here with my co-host,

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Jaye: Leta Herman, and today we have a very special guest on the podcast. I don’t know,

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Jaye: Leta, what do you say?

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Leta: I guess you say “on the podcast.”

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Jaye: On the podcast. Who’s our guest today, Leta?

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Leta: Brittney Chowning.

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Jaye: So on the last podcast, 146, that was part two of our conversation on the Firehorse Year —

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Jaye: Double Fire, Double Fun, we had a good old time with that. And you know, 2026 is crazy.

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Jaye: Some people think it’s a dumpster fire, some people think it’s a great crazy year. So I don’t know,

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Jaye: just go listen and have your own thoughts. Right, Leta?

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Leta: Yes. And we already have listeners talking about how this year’s been for them, and how it’s been so much —

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Leta: and now they’re finding ways to utilize the good aspects of the Firehorse year, not just the dumpster-fire side of it.

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Jaye: I mean, not everyone is having a dumpster fire. It might seem that way, but not everyone is.

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Jaye: Maybe just a little small campfire somewhere.

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Leta: And today, we’re very excited to bring you an interview with Brittney Chowning, who is doing a workshop with us,

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Leta: and we’re going to be talking today about Alchemy Plant Spirit Connection, which is going to be very informative,

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Leta: very inspiring, especially for those of you interested in the plant-spirit world.

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Jaye: Yes, we’re going to be doing an Alchemy Lab workshop series, and this one is called —

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Jaye: Alchemy Plant Spirit Connection: The Magic of the Plant Spirit, Moxibustion, and Alchemical Treatments, featuring Artemisia vulgaris.

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Jaye: That is a long topic, but it’s a big topic in a big workshop. And we have Brittney here with us today,

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Jaye: so I guess we can start talking to Brittney. What do you think, Leta?

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Leta: Yes, yes. So wait, before we start — I just want to say that the workshop is July 25th,

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Leta: from noon to four.

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Jaye: Important to let people know when — so if you’re listening to this before July 21st,

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Jaye: please come check it out live. And at the end of the podcast we’ll share a promo code,

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Jaye: so you can get a really good deal on that. And if you’re listening to this after July 25th,

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Jaye: go check out AlchemyLearningCenter.com — the workshop will be posted there and you can check it out then.

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Leta: That’s a great idea. And so we’re joined today by Brittney Chowning. Yay — welcome!

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Brittney: Yay! Thank you! Hi, guys!

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Jaye: Hi! Why don’t you tell us — we know about you, but why don’t you tell our listeners about your amazing life and experience,

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Jaye: and all the cool things that you do.

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Brittney: Yeah, definitely. I’m an acupuncturist — I’ve been practicing since 2019, and I came upon Plant Spirit Connection in 2020,

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Brittney: you know, when there really were big dumpster fires — everything was on fire.

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Jaye: See, this is not the first year.

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Brittney: Right, right. They happen. We put the fires out and then they come back, but it’s okay —

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Brittney: it’s cyclical. It’s kind of nature, right? Things grow, they die, they grow again.

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Leta: That’s great.

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Jaye: It’s like the circle of life, right.

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Brittney: Yeah, I had a — I felt a way about learning herbs in Chinese medicine school,

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Brittney: where they just gave us these little tiny packets of dried herbs, and there was really no life in it.

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Brittney: I felt a very intense separation from the plants themselves, and I just went down this really deep rabbit hole of wanting to know the plants on a more deep level.

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Brittney: I came across Eliot Cowan’s work, Plant Spirit Medicine, and I read that, and I ended up finding someone in his cohort who actually studied with the Huichols with him down in Mexico —

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Brittney: Suzanne Burnell, she lives in Boulder — so I ended up getting some treatments from her and studying with her a little bit.

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Brittney: And then I just kept deepening my relationship with the natural world.

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Leta: Which is so cool, because I studied with Eliot Cowan in 1999! So it’s great that we come out of that same tradition in plant-spirit connection.

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Leta: So we were going to open up with this idea — what is plant-spirit connection? For someone who’s maybe never heard those words put together before.

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Jaye: I would say, Brittney, you take that. So what is plant spirit connection?

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Brittney: Yeah, it is a whole other way of working with plants. As herbalists work with plants,

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Brittney: they take the physical material and macerate it, make a tincture, make a tea, or whatever —

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Brittney: but this is on a much more subtle level. We’re dropping down into the spirit level of the plants.

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Brittney: We’re opening our perceptions, traveling interdimensionally to meet the spirit of the plants, and that’s how we can get direct communication from them on what their medicine is,

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Brittney: what they do, and how they want to work with us and through us. It is the way indigenous practitioners,

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Brittney: thousands of years ago, before there was Western medicine — they learned the medicine of the plants directly from the plants themselves.

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Brittney: So in this way, when you’re doing plant-spirit connection, you’re learning directly from the plant itself,

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Brittney: cultivating a relationship with it, and then you and the plant work together to create transformation —

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Brittney: whatever way you want, in a treatment room, for self-cultivation, or however you want to work with the spirit of the plant.

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Jaye: That sounds great — and multidimensional travel is my favorite way to travel. You get triple frequent flyer miles,

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Jaye: for sure. No, that was great, Brittney. I also think, with stone medicine — for the people out there who like stone medicine —

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Jaye: it’s similar. You can go on plant spirit journeys, you can go on stone medicine journeys.

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Jaye: I think with stone medicine it’s a much slower process, the slowest form of medicine in Chinese medicine.

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Jaye: How would you rate that compared to plant spirit medicine, as far as speed goes?

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Brittney: Yes, plant spirit medicine is definitely much slower than how we live our normal lives. I’d say it’s a little bit faster than the stones —

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Brittney: a stone isn’t going anywhere, or maybe it’s being pressured. The stones came first, so they have an immense amount of knowledge,

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Brittney: and then there were the plants, and they have seeds, and they spread — so it’s just a little bit faster,

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Brittney: but still a much slower pace than we’re used to, especially in this time period.

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Jaye: I remember one of my first experiences with herbs — my friend made me this tea with marshmallow and all these ingredients,

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Jaye: and she said, “take this every afternoon.” I said okay, and she goes, “we’ll talk in a year.” I’m like,

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Jaye: what — take this for a year? That was crazy, but it became a nice daily ritual for me,

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Jaye: and I did do it for a year. But yeah, I definitely get the speed thing —

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Jaye: it’s not like take a pill and everything’s great.

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Leta: We’ve also put this concept into the alchemy perspective. So not only are we talking about plant-spirit connection,

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Leta: but also how that relates to alchemy — that’s what we’re going to be talking about today with Brittney.

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Leta: And this is work that can be for anyone, not just practitioners. Brittney and I have been working with plants for a long time as practitioners,

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Leta: but really, this is so enriching for your own self-cultivation. Brittney, do you want to say something about the plants themselves —

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Leta: their generosity to humans, as the elders?

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Brittney: Yeah, it’s so true. We are the baby species on this planet — the humans have come last.

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Brittney: So we are here as a bridge between heaven and earth, working on our evolutionary path,

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Brittney: and plants have already been doing that for quite some time. Every living being on the planet is evolving —

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Brittney: we’re all evolving together. And what’s really cool about working with the plants is they hold this ancient wisdom.

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Brittney: They have so much to teach us about the nature of the world, the nature of being alive,

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Brittney: medicine, healing — and they are so stoked to help us out. We used to be so interwoven,

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Brittney: so interconnected with nature. And we’ve had this period of time, since the Industrial Revolution, where there’s been a big separation between us and the natural world —

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Brittney: our homes are heated and cooled, our cars are heated and cooled, some people don’t spend very much time outside at all.

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Brittney: So when we approach the plants and say, “hey, I really want to get to know you,

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Brittney: I want to spend time with you, I want to learn about you” — it’s like meeting a person at a party: “oh my gosh,

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Brittney: hi, it’s so nice to meet you, let’s share our experiences.” And they want to help us just as much as we want to be connected to them.

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Brittney: It’s mutually beneficial, I believe.

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Leta: It’s so cool, because we’ve had so much disconnect in our society, so much loneliness. In a way,

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Leta: this is like going back to a time when we were not only connected with each other,

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Leta: but with the world around us.

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Jaye: That’s really cool — because if you’re lonely out there, go out in the backyard or the park and have a conversation with a plant.

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Jaye: Today, Artemisia vulgaris — she’s waiting for you. I do think ordinary people can have this relationship.

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Jaye: I’ve been doing this about ten years now, but before that I just loved plants and nature,

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Jaye: and had my own kind of connection — but this put it in a perspective that made a little more sense,

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Jaye: and let you take that connection deeper. I love that, because we all just want to be loved,

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Jaye: right? Even the plants — especially the plants.

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Leta: And they want to be our friends too, right, Brittney? You talk a lot about how they want to communicate with us.

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Brittney: A lot of them are actively trying. There’s an old Iroquois saying that if there’s a plant that wants to talk to you,

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Brittney: it will literally stand up in the field and wave at you.

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Jaye: Oh, I’ve seen that — sunflowers waving, a whole field of them.

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Leta: Well, I actually have a story about that. When I graduated from Eliot Cowan’s class many years ago,

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Leta: I was going to have my first treatment outside of class, and I needed a specific kind of plant,

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Leta: but I didn’t know what plant it would be. I was literally driving to the treatment,

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Leta: and this plant waved at me from the side of the road. I had plenty of time,

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Leta: so I pulled over, did my plant spirit journey, and it told me so many things.

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Leta: Then I went to the treatment, and the woman said exactly all that stuff that was said to me in the journey.

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Leta: It was jaw-dropping — I could not believe it. If I wasn’t a believer before that,

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Leta: I was then, because it was insane — literally everything. She was going through a divorce,

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Leta: and it was a fire plant — she was fire. Everything was really amazing. So I do think it’s really powerful when they reach out to you.

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Jaye: I think that’s really great, because everyone has their story of when they realize the connection is real.

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Jaye: I wanted to talk a little bit about reality — we’re talking multidimensional, my favorite way of traveling,

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Jaye: connecting and listening to the plants. So let’s talk about this question I always ask: what is reality,

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Jaye: actually? Does that even exist?

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Leta: Well, we wanted to talk today — a bit of a side topic — about this idea that we have multiple dimensions.

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Leta: In Taoist alchemy, we say there are seven dimensions, of which the humans are in the middle dimension,

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Leta: number four. The plants are the first dimension — that dimension is plant spirits, nature spirits,

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Leta: animal spirits. We call it, in shamanism, the lower world. Brittney, do you want to say more about that?

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Brittney: Yeah, it’s kind of like the matrix, or the building blocks of reality. When we slow down our mental minds and drop our brainwaves into a different state,

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Brittney: we can connect with this more subtle building block of reality. It’s almost like a dream state,

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Brittney: because the brainwave state you want when you’re journeying is similar to right before you fall asleep.

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Brittney: A lot of indigenous cultures say that we are dreaming our reality. So when we slow down those brainwaves and get into contact with those plant spirits,

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Brittney: we are co-creating reality together.

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Leta: Yeah, I love that. And the other thing I wanted to bring in is that plants are evolving like humans —

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Leta: they’re cultivating too, and so they love helping us. Some are a little cranky and maybe don’t want to help everyone,

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Leta: because humans haven’t been that great to some plants — but overall, they’re doing their alchemy as well.

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Leta: Alchemy is really this striving to move between dimensions. Plants are evolving to higher levels, and so are humans,

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Leta: animals, and stones. When we say a human is evolving, we’re basically evolving into the fifth dimension,

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Leta: the dimension of the immortals and the sages, and the sixth dimension is like angels —

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Leta: places humans don’t really hang out. But the plant spirits, stone spirits, and animal spirits are also going through their own evolutionary process.

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Brittney: And what’s really cool about doing the work together is that we get to do it together —

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Brittney: as we evolve, they evolve too. So again, it’s mutually beneficial for everybody.

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Jaye: I think that’s really cool. So give me — both of you, each one — what do you think the multidimensional healing journey would be?

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Brittney: There are different ways to access these different dimensions. One is slowing the brainwaves — the Sufis would spin in circles to slow the brainwaves and open up to connection,

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Brittney: changing their state of consciousness to move into different dimensions. The way I really love and appreciate is through drumming —

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Brittney: drumming at 120 beats per minute, for a consistent amount of time, slows the brainwaves so we can access these other dimensions intentionally.

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Brittney: It’s like going to sleep — we’re not usually thinking about traveling interdimensionally, unless you’re astral traveling intentionally.

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Brittney: But if we can have intention and conscious awareness around this slower brain state, we can travel intentionally to meet other spirit beings,

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Brittney: guides, grandfather fire, the plants, the stones — so much bigger than us.

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Jaye: I’d love that — and we’re going to do some of that in the workshop on the 25th,

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Jaye: correct?

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Leta: Yes, correct.

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Jaye: Leta, what’s your take on multidimensional?

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Leta: My take is that we can use drumming, spinning, and also work with pre- and post-sleep states,

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Leta: or the dream world of sleep itself. There are many ways — in alchemy, what we teach at the Alchemy Learning Center sometimes draws on shamanic techniques within the Taoist tradition,

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Leta: and a lot of it is also meditation — alchemical meditation. As you advance, at a very high level,

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Leta: you are also accessing other dimensions. Ge Hong was one of the famous alchemists who started the tradition we’re working with,

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Leta: and supposedly he vanished in thin air — his clothes dropped to the ground. At that point,

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Leta: he physically transitioned to another dimension. So that’s kind of how I see it — there are a lot of ways to work with that multidimensionality.

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Jaye: That makes me think of something — when we went to China, to Ge Hong’s mountain,

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Jaye: his wife, who also vanished and dropped her clothes (we didn’t see that), had a beautiful moxa garden —

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Jaye: a garden of Artemisia vulgaris. She was an herbalist, and there are different varieties. I took some pictures —

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Jaye: maybe we’ll put a couple in the show notes. She was really into Artemisia vulgaris and its different varieties.

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Leta: Which is the plant we’re focusing on—

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Jaye: In the workshop. That was my segue.

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Leta: That was a great segue. Artemisia is an amazing, beloved friend to humans. She grows on nearly every continent because she’s here to heal the whole world —

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Leta: and a good friend to Brittney, too, right, Brittney?

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Brittney: Mm-hm.

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Leta: The nature of Artemisia, to me, is really gentle but also really powerful — really wanting to help.

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Leta: That’s why we picked this plant to talk about — it’s such a big part of Chinese medicine.

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Leta: Mugwort is a very well-known plant around the world, and there are many species within the genus Artemisia.

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Leta: But what would you say about your relationship with it, Brittney?

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Brittney: She shows up as a “she” to me. I understand spirit doesn’t necessarily have gender, but sometimes in this work,

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Brittney: when the spirits appear to you, they may take on some kind of gendered presence. For me,

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Brittney: she was very approachable, very gentle, very loving — like grandma energy, almost — just wanting to help show you the way: here’s what we can do,

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Brittney: here’s what I help with, here’s how you can work with me. None of the crankiness I’ve experienced with other plants.

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Brittney: It’s a beautiful relationship. And what I’ve found really powerful about her is that I don’t have to do anything.

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Brittney: When you call in the spirit of the plant, we’re like the transmitter, holding that space in between as a human —

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Brittney: we call in the spirit of the plant because we’ve cultivated a relationship with it, and then the plant works with the person on the table,

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Brittney: or with ourselves. What’s awesome is that we don’t have to effort — it’s not hard.

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Jaye: I like that — we can be lazy and she’ll do a lot of the heavy lifting,

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Jaye: right?

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Brittney: We just have to hold up our end of the bargain of being in the relationship.

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Jaye: There’s always a little asterisk — she’ll do everything, asterisk, but you have to do your part.

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Jaye: So — one plant who loves the whole world. Do all plants love the whole world,

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Jaye: or is that special to this particular plant?

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Brittney: That’s really interesting. In my experience working across different indigenous traditions, I know for sure in Peru they talk about how there are some trees and plants used particularly by the bruja —

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Brittney: the witch doctors. So I guess it’s about intention. There are some plants that tend to have more of a quote-unquote negative or shadow side —

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Brittney: but that’s true for all plants, and it’s true for us too. That’s why we’re helping each other evolve,

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Brittney: because we can heal that in each other when we do deeper work.

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Jaye: I love that. For me, my connection has been through the healing side — if you burn the Artemisia,

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Jaye: the mugwort, and put it on the points, that can be quite amazing. So much moxa is used in the clinic at the Alchemy Healing Center —

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Jaye: that’s you, Leta, burning it up like crazy, with your own recipe of combining different varieties.

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Jaye: You might want to talk about that, or save it for the workshop.

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Leta: Yeah, that’s true.

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Jaye: I don’t want to give it all away today — you want people to get interested for the 25th.

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Leta: Well, I would like to say, for the acupuncturists — I know a lot of our listeners are acupuncturists —

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Leta: the reason this is so important, this idea of plant-spirit connection in terms of moxibustion, is there are many cases where you can’t do moxibustion.

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Leta: Either the person has sensitivities to the smell, or you’re in a shared office, or the office doesn’t allow burning any kind of incense.

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Leta: So what are you going to do? Because people do need moxa, they need moxibustion —

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Leta: it’s good for blood deficiency, for moving the qi, it’s invaluable in so many ways. So what Brittney and I are doing is helping other practitioners learn how to do this so they’re not reliant on the physical herb.

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Leta: You were just saying the other day you forgot your moxa while traveling and really needed it —

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Leta: and there you go, you have plant spirit moxa.

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Jaye: We’re going to go over that in the workshop too, right? How someone can do that,

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Jaye: or someone who doesn’t really know how but has some kind of attraction to the plant world.

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Leta / Brittney: Yes.

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Jaye: That sounds great — plant spirit connection sounds like nature’s dating system. Just make a connection.

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Leta: One more thought before we end — I think a lot of people, if they’ve never done anything like this,

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Leta: might wonder: what’s an example, for you, of when you’ve done a journey and a plant tells you something?

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Leta: For me, I always feel like I know it’s not coming from me, because I never would have had that thought.

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Leta: Do you have a personal story — I know you’ve done a lot of work with tobacco —

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Leta: something you want to share, just so people get a sense of what that connection is about?

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Brittney: Yeah, I’m trying to narrow down to one experience. The first story that comes to mind is when I was working with tobacco,

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Brittney: really being in a place of deep respect and cultivation, wanting to grow the plant inside of me —

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Brittney: which is a whole other way of working with plants. The spirit of the plant would bring me visions and dreams,

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Brittney: and these were things that for sure weren’t just coming from my subconscious — they were direct messages,

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Brittney: and also songs, or lyrics, or things like that. In journey work, with Artemisia vulgaris, or mullein,

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Brittney: or cottonwood, it’s almost like you can’t make it up. Sometimes you want to trick yourself: “did that really just happen?” But there’s also this inner knowing —

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Brittney: this deep knowing that you’ve had a connection with something outside of yourself. It’s kind of like what you were saying,

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Brittney: Leta — there’s just this knowing that I didn’t make that up, that I received some kind of information or download.

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Brittney: Depending on people’s psychic abilities, it could be visual, a felt sense, something you hear, maybe something you dream.

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Brittney: Because spirit isn’t contained in this temporal reality — so once we start cultivating these relationships,

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Brittney: they weave in and out of our daily experience, in our dream world, and all of those fun things.

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Leta: That’s perfect. Thank you — very inspiring.

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Jaye: Okay, so that’s why we call it Alchemy Plant Spirit Connection: The Magic of Plant Spirit,

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Jaye: Moxibustion, and Alchemical Treatments featuring Artemisia Vulgaris — because it’s so big! Brittney, that was so much.

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Jaye: If anyone’s thinking, “I really love that, you’re speaking my language, I want to learn more” —

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Jaye: the workshop is July 25th, noon to four. We’re going to do journey work, meditations, drumming.

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Jaye: You’ll get to meet Artemisia vulgaris yourself, hopefully, and we’ll talk about how to incorporate more moxa in the clinic.

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Jaye: There’ll be a replay later. Did I miss anything, Leta?

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Leta: I think that’s perfect.

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Jaye: Brittney, any last thoughts — for someone who’s really new to this, what would be your reason to tell them to come to this workshop,

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Jaye: to spend four hours with us?

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Brittney: I think one of the most beautiful things about this kind of work is that we cannot separate ourselves from nature.

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Brittney: No matter how much we might think we can, or want to, it is literally everywhere.

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Brittney: This kind of work is sort of like a coming home — reopening our hearts and our bodies and our minds to something we’ve forgotten.

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Brittney: It’s almost like the plants speak a language our hearts know, but our minds have forgotten.

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Brittney: It’s a really beautiful way to engage in deep connection, in a way we’ve been doing for thousands of years,

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Brittney: and we’ve just forgotten.

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Jaye: Wow, I can’t mic-drop on that — I can’t do any better. What about you, Leta?

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Leta: Perfect!

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Jaye: That was just perfect. So that’s it right there, Brittney — it’s part of us, it’s part of who we all are.

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Jaye: So again, July 25th, come check it out — we’ll be there all four hours talking about this great stuff,

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Jaye: and we hope to see you soon. If you’re hearing this afterward, AlchemyLearningCenter.com — you can catch the workshop there.

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Jaye: Thank you, Brittney.

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Leta: Thank you, Brittney.

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Jaye: We loved having you on the podcast, and hopefully everyone’s going to really dig what you’re talking about,

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Jaye: because it was great.

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Brittney: Thank you so much, I’m so excited.

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Jaye: So maybe today, instead of hugging the dog, go hug a plant or a tree —

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Jaye: give it a little squeeze. All right, thank you everyone — bye.

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Leta: Bye!