How to receive the medicine of the trees around you - Jason Grechanik
Episode 557, released 15th July 2026.
Lian is joined by Jason Grechanik, a master tabaquero with nearly a decade of Amazonian immersion and over a thousand people guided through plant ceremony, to explore what it looks like to do a plant dieta with the trees of Celtic and Northern European tradition, why these trees are subtler to work with than Amazonian plants, and what people have healed through that extended relationship.
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Jason Grechanik trained in the Mamankunawa tradition under curandero Don Ernesto Garcia Torres. He spent many years working at the renowned Shipibo healing center Temple of the Way of Light in Peru. He is the host of The Universe Within Podcast (180+ episodes, 20,000+ monthly listeners) and co-founder of the Nicotiana Rustica Project, a living practice that bridges Amazonian sacred tobacco traditions with Celtic tree wisdom. His background spans Ashtanga yoga, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, and herbalism.
In this episode, Lian and Jason explore what a Celtic tree dieta looks like in practice, from the diagnosis and the period of isolation, to the role of tobacco as amplifier, to the moment towards the end when the dieter finally learns the name of the tree they have been working with.
They look at why these trees are subtle to receive, what opens a person enough to hear them, and how the physical medicine of a tree and its emotional and spiritual medicine turn out to be expressions of the same thing. Jason walks through the willow in some depth, its connection to grief, to water, to the lungs, to the underworld, and to what can begin to shift in a person when they spend extended time in relationship with it.
From there the conversation opens into what people have healed through this work, from Lyme disease and ovarian cysts to heartbreak and stagnation, and into Jason's sense of what these trees are ultimately offering, which is perhaps a felt sense of being at home in oneself, the way an oak or a willow simply is.
Listen if you've always felt drawn to a particular tree and wondered whether that pull means something, or if you've done plant medicine work before and found yourself curious about what's available closer to home.
We’d love to know what YOU think about this week’s show. Let’s carry on the conversation… please leave a comment below.
What you’ll learn from this episode:
Why the Celtic trees are worked with through the medium of tobacco, and what that amplification makes possible that the tree alone might not
How the physical properties of a tree, what it grows near, how it moves, what it heals in the body, are a map of its emotional and spiritual medicine
What happens in a dieta when the guide doesn't tell the dieter the name of the tree until the very end, and why that changes what gets received
Resources and stuff that we spoke about:
Join UNIO, The Community for Wild Sovereign Souls: This is for the old souls in this new world… Discover your kin & unite with your soul’s calling to truly live your myth.
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Thank you!
Lian & Jonathan
Episode Transcript:
Please note: We are a small team and not able to check through the transcript our software provides. So you may find some words are out of place and a few sentences don’t make complete sense. If you do see something utterly ridiculous we’d love you to let us know so we can correct it. Please email any howlers with the time stamp to team@wildsovereignsoul.com.
Lian (00:00)
How might the oldest healing traditions of the European land still be alive in the oak at the end of your lane or the willow by the water? This week I'm back once again with Jason Gretanik, a master tabacero with nearly a decade of Amazonian immersion and over a thousand people guided through plant ceremony. We explore how the technology of plant dieta is now being brought to the trees of the Celtic and Northern European tradition.
This is a topic very close to my own heart. If you know me at all, you'll know that trees are one of my favourite and best things in the entire world. And particularly the oak has been just so well vital to my own path. So this is a conversation I've been very much looking forward to. And it's part two of our previous conversation. If you haven't heard that one yet, perhaps it's worth going back and listening to that one first.
We laid a lot of ground there about what a plant dieta is, how Jason came to this work, and when he found himself standing on a porch looking out at oak and elder and hawthorn, and felt grief that all of that medicine had been forgotten. So in this episode, we explore what a Celtic tree dieta looks like in practice.
From the initial diagnosis, the period of isolation, the role of tobacco as amplifier, and that moment near the end when the person in the dieta finally learns the name of the tree they have been in relationship with all along. We look at why trees can be subtler to receive than, say, Amazonian plants. What opens a person enough to hear them?
And how the physical medicine of a tree and its emotional and spiritual medicine turn out to be expressions of the same thing.
We also look at what people have healed through this work from limes to heartbreak and what Jason feels these trees are ultimately offering us perhaps something close to a felt sense of being at home in oneself in the way that an oak or willow simply is.
So listen if you've always felt drawn to a particular tree and wondered whether that pool means something more, or if perhaps you've done plant medicine work before, perhaps with something like ayahuasca, and found yourself curious about what might be available closer to home. If you're new here, this is a show about a deeper, truer life, the one your soul is calling you towards. And if you've been here before, you already know that. And that calling is exactly why UNIO exists. UNIO is the living community of the wild sovereign soul path, where Jonathan and I meet with members twice each month in our guidance circles to sit with you with whatever is alive in your life. Could be relationships, health, your soul path, the places you feel stuck or called or both. And we bring everything we are and everything we know to meet you exactly where you are. We've also made UNIO tiered so that money is never what keeps someone from walking this path. You can find out more and join us at wildsovereignsoul.com/unio And now back to this week's episode. Let's dive in.
Lian Brook-Tyler (03:34)
Hello Jason, welcome back to the show.
Jason (03:37)
Hi, thank you so much again for having me back on.
Lian Brook-Tyler (03:41)
really my pleasure. As I said before we started recording, this is one of those episodes where it's a little bit of a kind of indulgence for me personally. I could talk about the trees of this land all day long, four years actually on end. So this is a real treat for me personally. So it made complete sense to me for us to come back and do a part two completely focused on this topic. But before we begin, Of course, this is a part two where we went really into not just your own story, but the tradition of the dieta and how that had you come to starting to work with Celtic trees in this way. So rather than because again, we did go deep rather than recap fully on that, perhaps we could just start off with a little bit of a dieta 101. and then dive into what that might look like working with the trees of this land. I say this land because here I am in England, but it doesn't necessarily have to be this exact land, of course.
Jason (04:49)
Yeah. Yeah, like you said, I think we went into more detail into the last episode if people are curious. But dieta it’s a very ubiquitous term that's often used in South America, especially in the Amazon, where I spent a long time studying. And it generally I think loosely could be described as a very intentional specific process where you're learning and and very often healing experientially from one plant. for example, I spent many years living with a group of people called the Shipibo Kanibo people. And I can't remember if I mentioned this on the last episode, but it was often very interesting because many times guests would come and they'd ask them some question along the lines of like, what plant is good for curing this ailment or what plant is good for curing this? And very often the response was something like dieta and it kind of went against the more kind of rational Western mind of wanting to isolate and reduce. And but for me what I think was important about that was this idea that this way, this system even when we talk about maybe working with plants or Power plants or psychedelics and maybe a more Western framework. I think a lot of people are aware of this idea that the set and setting are very important. And so I think that's one way you could look at that. That if you took one of these plants outside of a good set and setting, maybe it wouldn't be medicine at all. It could actually maybe even be traumatic or or or not have much of an effect. So on a deeper level, this idea of dieta
Lian Brook-Tyler (06:32)
Mm.
Jason (06:42)
Is seen as something that really amplifies the healing benefits of a plant. If you are coming to a plant specifically for healing, which is one of the one of the ways you can come to a dieta, is maybe you have a very acute physical ailment, you have gastritis or heart disease or you know any any number of of ailments, and you're you're looking to heal that. Even that is is maybe a Bit more of a Western mind-oriented system of this allopathic system of simply treating a symptom. So in these more traditional practices, it's seen that the root of that physical ailment, and what we're usually referring to, are chronic ailments and not acute ailments. But that the root of those chronic ailments all have a psychological component, which could be seen as the level of the mind, the emotional level. But even deeper than that, they have a spiritual component. And so that spiritual component, in essence, is a very deep journey into ourselves and seeing what's out of alignment, where our pains are coming from, where our traumas are coming from, w what are our worldviews, what are the patterns, the the things that maybe the pieces in our lives that we've lost that are keeping our mind in a state of dysbiosis, which eventually, if left in a dysbiosis for too long, will result in a physical ailment. So the dieta is a very intentional period. It involves some amount of time, anywhere from a few days to a year, or usually you're isolated, you're fasting or very severely restricting your food intake. You're working with one specific plant to heal from that plant. In the same way, if you went to a doctor for a certain physical ailment, you would usually be prescribed one one medication or maybe a series of medications for that ailment. So you would be working with one plant and usually that plant would be administered via another plant, which would maybe archetypally be considered a master plant or a gateway plant or portal plant. Those plants could usually in the Amazon it was one of two plants or both plants, one being tobacco and the other being ayahuasca. So those are seen as kind of gateways or portals that allow you to experience the healing benefits of the plant you're dieting in a much deeper way. And that whole dieta would be kind of run or guided, orchestrated by a physical teacher, a physical human teacher that helps to amplify, to connect. Much like a doctor who knows how to diagnose, to dose, when to give the medicine, how much, for how long, but more so in this traditional sense, how to really connect you very deeply and and and and acutely to the medicine of that plant. and also to help to translate the language of that plant, because in the dieta, it's seen that there is a relationship that's formed, and that relationship, implies a certain language that begins to be communicated through and to to be understood. And so the guide or the teacher also really helps you to understand the language of that plant so that you can understand yourself on a deeper level. So that's maybe in a smaller way or a more general sense what the diet is. But again, I think to summarize it it's a very specific time in your life where you isolate yourself from everything, from people, from family, from work, from everything, from phones, from books, from music, from everything. It it's a completely solitary practice where either every day or or every few days you're ingesting this plant under the guidance of a guide so that you can really heal and learn directly from that plant.
Lian Brook-Tyler (10:57)
Thank you. I do love someone who can do a really good 101 like that. It's a skill in itself. Actually one question, more general question before we really dive in. How often, how many times might someone do a diet of this kind with a particular plant or more than one plant over the course of their lifetime?
Jason (11:25)
Yeah, it's a good question. It would vary immensely. if you're coming specifically for healing, it could be one time. maybe that's that's a few weeks or a month, but basically until you're you're healed of of that disease. So that would be considered more loosely a healing dieta. but you could also look at is it a learning dieta? And so, you know, much like How often would you learn in your life? I mean, we're usually always learning. So if it's a path, if it's a way that resonates for that person, it could be something that they do all of their lives. Also, the dieta is traditionally the way in which loosely worded a plant medicine practitioner, a guide, a doctor, a teacher, a shaman would learn to do their work was specifically through dieta.
And so that would entail doing many dietas or very long dietas to really forge these very strong relationships with these plants that would then become, as they would say, their doctors. So usually the person themselves, in a way, wouldn't call themselves a doctor. They would call all of the plants that they've dieted doctors. And so then when that person is working on their patients, they're calling upon these kind of doctor spirits to do the healing.
Lian Brook-Tyler (12:53)
Mm. Yeah, that really makes sense. Thank you. So going back to our first conversation, I recall you describing, if I have this right, sitting on a porch in Virginia and feeling a kind of grief looking out of these trees that were indigenous to the land there and realizing that they hadn't been connected with, worked with, honored in the same way as what you had been experiencing in your time, you know, working with ayahuasca and tobacco. And so when you had that realization and then first had that notion of doing a diet with one of them, would you just describe that first time? Like what happened? What did you discover? What was the tree?
Jason (13:53)
Yeah. so it was actually in New York, but you're right in that I I grew up in Virginia and essentially it's the same flora. And yes, you know I think it was interesting because going back to the first episode, i if if people listen to that, we we spoke because I I spent a long time living in the the Peruvian Amazon. And I really learned and was gifted what I would describe as a very particular technology, a very particular way of connecting with the spirits with the essence of plants. And predominantly the plants that we really work with are trees. So when I was saying this idea of sitting on this porch and kind of feeling this sadness, part was an internal sadness. Because it's not that these trees hadn't been worked with. They had been worked with, I think, for millennia. I mean, that the Native American populations had.
Lian Brook-Tyler (14:59)
Mm.
Jason (15:00)
Had a very deep knowledge of these trees. even before we started recording, we were speaking about your name and how in Chinese it refers to willow. And willow is a very interesting tree in that you do find it all over the world. You find it in Peru and the Andes. It's called Sausa. And you find it in China and Asia, Japan, that there's a lot of legends and lores around it. And you find it in Europe. It's a very sacred tree. And It's also part of this,which I'll I'm sure we'll talk about in this Celtic system. it's it's one of the trees in the Ogum language, it's sale. And that's where the Latin name or the scientific name, salicin, comes from. And salicylic acid, and salicin is the active alkaloid, and what some people would say was the very first pharmaceutical, which was aspirin.
But that knowledge wasn't discovered by the pharmaceutical companies. It was known by Native Americans, it was known by the indigenous European communities, the Celts, and and I'm sure even people before them, to have all sorts of pharmacological benefits, muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatory, good for circulation. And so the pharmaceutical companies took that knowledge and then they they isolated the alkaloid, the the salicin, and began to make a pharmaceutical medication from it. so kind of getting back to your question, there was a sadness for me that I felt a lot of that knowledge had been lost. I mean, obviously in the US, the the Native American populations are almost like a ghost, I think of what they were at one point and even where you are in Europe, I mean that indigenous way of I think of knowledge of connection is also a ghost of what it used to be. And really all over the world. I mean, all of the world you could almost argue is a Western culture to some degree right now, minus, you know, a few pockets here and there, like in the Amazon where where that knowledge really was able to to maintain itself.
Lian Brook-Tyler (17:12)
Hmm.
Jason (17:28)
So the sadness was really this loss of the connection, the the loss of the stories, of the knowledge, of the technology of working with these plants. And so it was, it was also kind of sitting in New York and this realization that we were working with this beautiful technology, we were working with all of these Amazonian trees that we had knowledge of and familiarity with. But also we were working with them very far away from their native environment. And we were surrounded by all of these beautiful, majestic trees and trees that I also had a knowledge of, but a knowledge of my former way of maybe looking at the world or or understanding medicine. And so this you could call it idea or intuition, I think more of a somatic felt sense or or intuitive sense of really beginning to remember or rediscover through this technology, through this way of cor connecting more deeply through trees, reconnecting to to the trees of of the land that I was indigenous to, or where where most of the people who we work with who are coming from European based cultures, the the trees of their land. So that's kind of how it arose.
Lian Brook-Tyler (18:52)
Hmm. And then specifically, what was that first tree for you of those lands? And how was that? What did you notice that was different to what you'd experienced with the previous plants you'd been working with?
Jason (19:10)
The first tree was interestingly oak because one of the people who we were working with felt a very strong connection to that tree. And so we helped to bridge that connection. So it was a it was a discovery process for ourselves and also for for him. it was interestingly very foreign in a way. It was like learning a new language. I thought it would be maybe more familial or familiar, but it was very foreign. It was very much like learning a new language. And then the first tree that I I kind of chose for myself was actually Hawthorn. And Hawthorn was a tree that I had had a connection to for a long time. It's something that I work with on a fairly daily basis. I work with the tincture. I have a lot of love and reverence and appreciation and also interestingly Hawthorn is a bridge to the spirit world, which there's a lot of a lot of folklore around, a lot of the world view. I think I use this word a lot, the cosmovision of that tree. And then, you know, kind of each tree after that was a natural progression. I I ended up, I think after that, working with Elder, which was another tree I had a very long relationship with, and and then Alder, which was a a very surprising tree for me because I I actually didn't know much about it. And that was actually quite an amazing experience in in that you know, in this is where i it's interesting, and and again, this could probably be a many, many hour long conversation, but when we're speaking about this idea between the connection of the the mind, body, and spirit, all of these things are connected and we we we tend to kind of separate them. But even when you look at the physical characteristics of a tree, for example, the alder tree is what's called a pioneer tree. So it's very often going into land or soil that's been depleted or a forest that's maybe been burned and so there's no life. And it's very good at pioneering of moving into that land that's that's been desolated or desecrated. And then it grows very quickly. It comes in like a forest of alders will come in. And in more maybe Western terms, it will fix the nitrogen of the soil. So to create an environment that then allows other plants and trees to begin to grow. So even physically, that's part of the energy you could say, or the medicine of alder. And then that always correlates to how it's working on the mental emotional level and also the spiritual medicine of alder. So a lot of what people would describe when they're they're dieting or working with alder is a sense of, for example,
Lian Brook-Tyler (21:53)
Mmm.
Jason (22:22)
A big sense of reflection in their lives, of going into the past, going into places where things are stagnant, to where things aren't moving, they're not growing. And that tree helps to begin to bring a healing, to bring a symbiosis to that. And to then begin to open us to new paths, to new paths embodied by the medicine of that tree. It was very interesting in my case. Because I at that point in my life I felt this deep calling to have a child. and interestingly, the the the day I closed my my dieta with Alder, I I received a phone call from my then girlfriend, because again part of the dieta is is separation, that she was pregnant. and so that very much opened a very new and very big pathway for me. and you know, each of these trees kind of began to flow in in a somewhat organic way. And this is also always part of the medicine of the tree is finding that balance between the rational mind of what things are good for, why I should work with something, how I should work with it in this more reductionist way. And also this more intuitive or or empathic sense, that sometimes we can't even put into words. And willow was also one of those trees that I worked with after that. So that's maybe again kind of a a long answer to your question, but yes, that's the fascinating thing about these trees is they all have their medicine and they all have their language. And part of that process is learning that language. and we're also very lucky in the West because we have a lot of that language still there. We have maybe I mentioned this in the last podcast, but I think it's always something very important that we don't forget. And I think it was Isaac Newton who said very beautifully that if I've seen further than others, it's only because I've stood on the shoulders of giants. And so we never have to reinvent the wheel. There's a lot of knowledge out there from the Celts or the Druids or herbalists or practitioners. And so there's already a language of these plants. you know, we know to some degree what their medicinal benefits are, how they're worked with, some of the rites, the rituals, and I think to always to take that, to study it, and then to begin to build upon that and to always add our own interpretation of it. And this is part of the medicine and the art of this is that You could work with a plant or a tree, and I could work with a plant and a tree, and we could heal very different things, and yet all of that is still part of the medicine of that tree. But because of your understanding or your relationship with that tree, you're able to look at it in a certain way that maybe another practitioner wouldn't be able to see it in that way.
Lian Brook-Tyler (25:20)
Hmm.
Jason (25:35)
But having that direct experiential relationship of what you've really learned through your practice and the lens, the worldview that you see it through. you know, and this is where the art and the intuition comes in. So, you know, take for example, let's take for example Hawthorn. That's right, yeah, yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
Lian Brook-Tyler (25:56)
Actually, I'll jump in here because you've ventured into something I wanted to ask you, but we'll come back there. What I would like to ask first, I don't want this to be missed, is I'm asking this, I guess, slightly as devil's advocate, not exactly. So because so much of my own practice and work personally, and then also we do with others has been working with plants indigenous to this land. So personally, that's been the oak, the rose, silver birch, primarily. I know how profound that can be. And so you're already preaching to the converted and yet there's something I'd love to get your sense on. I've noticed that And I think this probably depends on kind of where people are on their journey. Sometimes people need the kind of like oomph of, guess, a more, like psychedelic, teacher plant almost to like break through because they've kind of like built up so many layers of closure and kind of not being able to open to these kinds of relationships. They need that kind of like cut through of something with that type of power. And wouldn't be able to receive it from something like the oak. And so again, I really understand what you're talking about, what's available here, but I still feel like I'd love to hear your sense. Having worked with and learned from, plants like ayahuasca and then now as you're describing, let's say, the older. What would you say you noticed in terms of, guess you could say like the power or the profundity, although it's different, would you say it's, you know, it's not that it's lesser or would you say, yes, it's lesser, it's more subtle, but it also provides this. I'd love, love as much as you can. I appreciate these things are hard to compare. I just wonder whether listeners are wondering kind of like, is this almost like, um, a lesser version? than working with, say for example, I ayahuasca
Jason (28:21)
Yeah, it's a very good question. Part of the answer to that is what I was saying earlier in the process of dieta, which is that when you're working with one of these plants like oak or alder, traditionally it was given via the medium of one of these master plants, which helps to amplify that connection. Because yes, usually when we're working with these trees, it is a very subtle energy. It can be very difficult to perceive on its own. And so when you're working with one of these master plants or these portal plants like ayahuasca or tobacco, that very much helps to amplify that connection so those that subtle information becomes more dense. Also, we become much more open. Also, that's part of the framework of the dieta is to really weaken us, to open us, to cut out all of the dense, heavy noise so that we're much more in tune with that very subtle and fine energy.
And then on top of that, working with the master plant like tobacco or ayahuasca, that really helps to amplify that connection. So yes, that's why plants like ayahuasca or tobacco are worked with. You know, also there's people's constitutions. Some people are much more open and sensitive to more subtle information, other people less so. And it's not a judgment in the same way that some people are better at basketball and other people aren't. It's not that being good at basketball makes you a better person or a worse person. If you're eight foot tall, you're gonna have an advantage over someone who's four foot tall. That's reality, that's life. and it's not about good or bad or right or wrong, that's reality. In the same way, and this may be a unpopular opinion, but it it's something I found to be very true, you know
Lian Brook-Tyler (30:05)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (30:25)
Archetypally women tend to be much more open and much more sensitive to information. You know, many of these practices, for example, in the Amazon, what's kind of been extrapolated or exported tended to be more male oriented practices, like working with really big doses of ayahuasca, really big doses of tobacco or big doses of something. Because in general, as men, we tend to need that. We tend to need something that's going to break us through more, to to break us down, to to break through that natural resistance. which again is neither good or bad. It's just what it is. And that's why always you have to work with a person as an individual. Who are they? are they a man or a woman? Are they older? Are they younger? Are they more open? Are they less open?
Lian Brook-Tyler (31:03)
Hmm.
Jason (31:26)
You know, being more open isn't inherently better also. Like if I'm super open, that's great, and that I can receive very subtle information. It has a downside in that I'm very open, which means everything is coming in, which means I naturally need to bring balance to that to work on my strength, to work on my protection, to work on my boundaries. And vice versa, if I'm super strong and super grounded and nothing comes in, that's great. Very difficult to hurt me. Not so great in that it's very difficult to perceive. It's very difficult to understand others and ailments and to diagnose and to see. So, you know, there's always a balance to all of these things. but in general, yes, all plants are going to have more subtle information. And so you're creating an environment via the dieta and that's why usually through the amplification through these master plants to deepen that connection, to make that information more accessible.
Lian Brook-Tyler (32:31)
Okay, that's really interesting. So if you're working with someone and guiding them to diet with again, like a Celtic tree, you would usually also include one of those master plants.
Jason (32:47)
Yeah, so we actually don't work with ayahuasca. I think in the last podcast we were speaking that I worked in an ayahuasca center for a long time, but in my work, we use tobacco as the amplifier, as the connector. So yes, if someone is dieting oak or hawthorn or any of these trees or plants, we're doing it through the medium of tobacco. Almost everyone can connect through the medium of tobacco in the dose that's correct for them.
Lian Brook-Tyler (32:51)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jason (33:16)
And some people can't for for various reasons. It's it's contraindicated to them. very often in those cases, it's because they're already very open and sensitive and so they actually don't need something to amplify that connection even further. So the constitution of that person is already very, very open and sensitive and so the plant can be worked with by itself.
Lian Brook-Tyler (33:30)
Hmm.
Mm, that really makes sense. Could one work with the mushroom as that amplifier given again, that's like indigenous to this land. Have you had experience of that or does that theoretically that makes sense?
Jason (33:56)
I think theoretically it makes sense. I think historically it makes sense. I think more modern science probably will begin to show that as well. Tobacco is an interesting plant, and in that it's part of the Solanaceo family or the nightshade family. And nightshade is also very interesting. I mean, we were mentioning willow, for example, you find the nightshade family you find all over the world. Tobacco itself, you most likely wasn't indigenous to Europe, but many solenaceous plants are. you have black nightshade and hemlock and henbane and mandrake. Actually hemlock I'm not sure, but henbane, mandrake, these are all solenaceous plants. And I would imagine, you know because even in European myth, those were considered plants of the witches. And, you know, the witches in cultures all over the world were also synonymous with healers. It just depends on kind of your worldview. but there's a lot of evidence that old European healers, very often women, were working with these plants. And I would imagine it was in the same way. I think mushrooms are another very strong possibility of of how things used to be worked with. And I would also imagine Detorah or Angel's Trumpets, Brugmancia. You can look at a lot of old European artwork of kind of people in these almost semi altered states or dream states. And very often they're under a brugmancia or a dutora tree. And this in the Amazon is also considered one of the master plants alongside tobacco and ayahuasca. So, you know, again, these traditions aren't isolated. You know, truth is one. There's many paths and technologies, but I think all over the world you found very similar mechanisms or technologies to connect in a very similar way. So yes, I think mushrooms are very much one of those possibilities.
Lian Brook-Tyler (35:52)
Hmm. Mm. Yeah, that really makes sense to me. So you've touched on this. just, I think is there something so important in this? I'd love to know if there's anything more you'd like to add. course, working as you did in that, in the Amazon learning, the traditions, the songs, you know, every, prayers, everything that went with the context of that plant and the tradition of working that plant isn't what we have here. You know, we have the trees here, we've largely forgotten that equivalent. And as you say, it's not completely lost. There are, there is some folk memory, there are alphabets, songs, poems, all of these things. But I would just love to know, is there anything else you'd like to add in terms of how do we work
within a tradition that largely we have forgotten? Certainly in comparison to what you trained within.
Jason (37:26)
Yeah, it's another very good question and point. Even within the Amazon, you have a lot of different traditions and you have a lot of different worldviews, a lot of different cosmovisions, a lot of different ways of working. So for example, I think the last episode I used these two examples. So one of the groups of people who I worked with, Shibibo Kanibo, they do dieta.
It's always difficult to speak of people in very broad terms. so all of these are kind of generalizations. But from my experience and I think many, many other people's, in general, the Shpibo tend to be people who, when they're working, they're not speaking a lot. It is not such an oral tradition in the sense of like it's your teacher as a human being who's teaching you how to do the work. It's very much seen that they're a bridge, they're a guide.
But it's that the plants themselves are teaching you how to do the work. Now, obviously that there's a lot of physical teaching that the teacher imparts upon you, but the majority of the teaching they would say is coming directly from the plant. So they're creating the container, the space to allow you to connect to the plant. So even the song, they would say that the strongest songs are coming directly from the plant. So it's something that you learn from the plant. Now there are also songs that are taught to you from your teacher, but in other traditions, like the other one I think I mentioned, this guy Amika, who comes from the Tubu, the Tubu have a lot of stories. And they would say that there's all sorts of in English healing codes that are built into those stories.
And so by listening to those stories, by learning those stories, by sitting with someone who's telling those stories, by eventually repeating those stories yourself, there are healing codes that are built into those stories that begin to teach you. So, and I think both are important or both are true. So, yes, when we lose the tradition, when we lose techniques and practitioners, we lose a lot. We lose libraries of information. Which is bad. It's devastating in a way. And at the same time, that's also why they say that these plants were given to people to help them remember. I think in the last episode I even recounted this story of how theTubu say that even eons ago humans were suffering. So at some point in our collective past, a long, long time ago, I think far longer than we probably think or realize. Humans had also forgotten. They'd forgotten their stories. They'd forgotten their myths. They'd forgotten their origins. And so, interestingly, these star beings from the star system Sirius transcended the 12 dimensions of time and space on this primordial Anaconda canoe. And on this canoe, they brought with them all of these plant teachers. And they would say that the original suffering of humans was that we had forgotten who we are and where we come from. And these plants, their goal was to help us to remember, to rekindle that spark. And so always that's a possibility. And so as we go back to our own traditions, all of that information is there. It's there in the plants, it's there inside of ourselves, and it's there in that liminal space and that space that's the meeting point between these polarities. And so we always have access to that. And you know, for me, there's always a dance to that. It's super important to remember that to know that we have access to that, at the same time to honour tradition and and and not to because it's very it can be very easy to get lost in our ego and to say, well, I have access to everything, therefore I don't need anything, or I don't need teachers, or I can do everything on my own. And and while that may be true in an ultimate sense, in general I found people who have that worldview to end up In Amazonian cosmovision, that's kind of the path of the bruho, the witch, the one who ends up doing harm. because it's very important to to honour our ancestors, to to always have humility, to to reach out to others for help. Because if not, we can in that language we can get mediado, we can get dizzy, we can get lost in the dizziness of life, of our ego, of all of the ways that we see the world that actually separate ourselves from the world.
Lian Brook-Tyler (42:06)
Hmm. Yeah. So we are coming up on time and I feel like there's a million other things I'd love to explore. but I feel I'd love to have you share a little bit about, if, and feel free to pick a tree. I mean, it could be, I'm just looking at the ones in my local land, the silver birch, hazelnut, walnut, oak.
Jason (42:11)
So we don't
Lian Brook-Tyler (42:37)
what might it be like for someone like a kind of, I'm not expecting you to kind of do the whole curriculum, but just to touch on some of the practical aspects of what might that look like for someone to choose into a dieta with one of those trees. Would you just be able to touch on the arc of what that might look like just to bring it to life for everyone listening?
Jason (43:06)
Yeah. well, usually when when someone comes to us, or before someone comes to us, we're we're doing a medical questionnaire with them, a psychological questionnaire just to see where they're at, how we can best work with them. And then we begin to do a diagnosis. So usually that's speaking with them, energetic diagnosis, pulse diagnosis. Because we work with tobacco, we're very connected to our pipe. Our pipe is one of our main instruments. So we're using that also in the dream space or the liminal space to best understand how to work with them. And then in the dieta, that person is going into isolation. Usually we're working in seven, fourteen, or twenty-one day periods. So people have an option of different amounts of time. And the plant is chosen again, some is from the rational component. You know, if someone is coming for a very particular ailment, then there's going to be plants that are good for that. and then there's more of this intuitive sense, which may not somehow rationally make sense in the beginning, but usually over the course of the dieta it's seen, okay, that's what this tree is bringing up.
Lian Brook-Tyler (44:31)
Might that be partly informed by the person's own sense, as in they've already been feeling called to, let's say, the oak.
Jason (44:45)
It very well can be, that's certainly a factor we take into consideration. You know, very often, whether we realize it or not, something if a tree has been coming to us, there's a very particular reason why it's been coming to us. Now again, there can always be a balance between like I really want to die at this for some maybe not even like gross egotistical reason, but even something very subtle.
Lian Brook-Tyler (45:02)
Mmm.
Jason (45:14)
which may or not be be a benefit. Like there may actually be another tree that's more beneficial that but very much, you know, usually I think especially the more people begin to do this work, they do develop an intuitive sense of what tree is good for them. And that also begins very much to arise in the dream space where a very particular tree will come to them.
Lian Brook-Tyler (45:17)
Mmm.
Jason (45:40)
And then the dieta begins, the period of isolation, of removing oneself from all stimuli. So really just a solitary process of them themselves and ingesting the tree, usually via the medium of tobacco. And then very much in the dream space is where a lot of the teaching comes from. And so that's our role is to help them to be able to understand that language.
You know, if you took maybe one tree, we can take the tree of your name, willow. You know, in a lot of traditions around the world, you have this idea thatthe willow is called like the tree of immortality, of enchantment. Many of the bards would use willow and they would say that the the the the willow would whisper, they they could hear, you know, and and I think anyone, if you sit under a willow tree, that there's something very melodic, something very meditative, very peaceful and if you are in this very open space, you can hear something from it. On the physical level, willow is a tree that already like it's not debatable that that's why people take aspirin or that's why people take salicin in in different forms, because it's a very strong anti-inflammatory, it's an antiseptic, it's a painkiller, very good for viruses. It's an astringent, which means it's very tightening, it's tonifying for the body. very good for inflammatory ailments, things like arthritis. people take it for enhancing the immune system. when taken in the correct dose, it actually tends to be very good for the the digestion. Digestive problems for women for things like cramping. also that tonifying aspect, it's very good for the blood. And in traditional medicine, we often say like very, very strong medicine is a blood purifier and a blood tonifier. it's also very good for the lungs. and this is where then the physical things also begin to have an energetic or an emotional component. So, you know, it's interesting because even one of the varieties of willow is called weeping willow. And so there's this aspect of grief. this is very much correlated to the lungs, and that's why willow tends to be a very strong purifier, tonifier of the lungs. And in traditional medicine, it's said that the lungs are where we hold grief, it's where we hold this.
Excess of damp or cold energy. And so usually the process of when one begins to work with willow is there's going to be some aspect of going into some probably grief of their life. That's why it's also said that willow, kind of in a similar way to Alder, is really about renewal and regeneration, about bringing harmony into our life. So we have to go into these dark aspects. It's why in some traditions the willow was the gateway to the underworld. So and I think we spoke about this in the last episode, these three archetypal realms, the underworld, the lived world, and the spirit world. So much like the hero's journey, we have to venture into the underworld to go into these aspects of death, of the grief, of our subconscious. And really work on things of ourselves that may come up: the grief, heartbreak, mourning, sadness, these very deep emotions that may be buried. And so in the dieta, those things most likely will naturally begin to arise. And from that place, you know, I could probably talk so much about this, but, even the physical properties of the tree. So, for example, many people are probably familiar with the idea that very often where you find willow trees growing is by the water. So they're very strongly connected to the water. And in medicine, the water is is probably the strongest element of the medicine. It's also very much connected to the emotions, to these very deep buried emotions. And so all of these things are connected. So This potentially can be one of the main processes of of going into a dieta with Willow is that these these deep emotions begin to arise and through a process of working with that, very often on relational aspects of mm, because that's often where a lot of these things originate from, the the grief of familial relationships, of love relationships, of
Lian Brook-Tyler (50:45)
Thank
Jason (50:55)
Things in my past that didn't work out, and maybe opportunities that I didn't take, we begin to overcome those, to work through them, to bring balance and harmony and ease into those. And then we begin to emerge in the archetypal ending phase of the dieta, which is opening to a new path, the branching out of the tree. And then we begin to embody the archetypal qualities of
Of something like willow, which in this case would be enchantment and equanimity and peace and tranquility, all of these things that, as I was saying, if you even just sit under the willow tree, you can really feel these things. And then through this process of the dieta, we really begin to emerge with a connection and an embodied sense of the medicine of that tree. So It's healing us on the physical level, it's working on the mental emotional level. And then as we begin to emerge from the dieta, we have this connection to the essence, to the spirit of the tree.
Lian Brook-Tyler (51:59)
Mm, beautiful. feel like I've been enchanted just listening to you talk about that. Thank you so much.
Jason (52:09)
And again, just one note with this. You know, these are very archetypal ways of speaking. And it's one of the things we actually do in dieta is we actually don't tell people the name of the tree until towards the end of the dieta. Yeah. And we do that precisely so that we don't fill our minds with all sorts of expectations. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Because everyone's process is going to be very, very different.
Lian Brook-Tyler (52:21)
Really? surprise.
Yes, with ideas of, that's so interesting. And then it's also.
Jason (52:37)
And even what I was kind of alluding to before, that's where understanding the language of the tree is so important and the essence of it, because the way it's going to work with you is on the surface going to seemingly be very different from how it's working with me, because it's always working through through us, our lens, our cosmovisions, our fears, our desires. But at its essence, it has a very universal medicine. But to really be able to to see that and to understand that.
Lian Brook-Tyler (52:57)
Hmm.
Jason (53:08)
Like that we can, we can proceed.
Lian Brook-Tyler (53:11)
Yeah, it really makes sense. thank you for adding that last point. That's a, yeah, it must be so magical watching that unfold for someone. And then you start to see, it's, clearly, you know, they are creating that relationship. The tree is speaking to them because you know, what you're noticing showing up, shows you that it's really, really wonderful. And so would you enclosing perhaps share, obviously in confidence, But some of the, some of the healing, some of the shifts that you've seen in people having worked in this way with, with the Celtic trees.
Jason (53:53)
Yeah, so much is going to be very dependent on what that person is coming from or coming with, coming for. It can be everything from physical healing. w we've had people who've healed Lyme's disease or ovarian cysts or you know, even things that are considered more or less incurable by Western medicine. To more energetic things like heartbreak or depression or anxiety or a lack of life's purpose or feeling stuck or stagnant. And ultimately I think all of this work is a is again much like these the Tubu are saying it's it's this deeper essence of helping us to remember who we are, where we come from. And I think this is where sense the disembodied nature of the trees.
You know, I could be wrong, but I think most people If you were to look at a willow tree or you were to look at an oak tree, you wouldn't get the sense that that oak feels uncomfortable in its own skin, or that the willow is somehow not meant to be there. Like there's usually a very deep embodied sense of peace, of being, of rootedness, of expansion, of all of how a tree archetypally is represented. And then beginning to embody that. So I think the greatest gifts that people receive, of course, the physical healing is tremendous if you're dealing with a chronic or an acute ailment and then you're not anymore. That can be a huge relief. But even that I think is more of a byproduct of ultimately this sense of an embodied nature, of feeling good. You know, s sometimes we we we take that for granted so much or we're we're looking for things that that maybe can't be put in simple terms and simply like feeling good, feeling happy, feeling whole, feeling connected, feeling inspired, feeling love, feeling connection, feeling inspiration. That for me is I think the highest things that we can aspire for. And and ultimately this deep appreciation, this deep longing and and and loving sense of the gift of being alive. And I think these trees are beautiful teachers to help us to reconnect to that.
Lian Brook-Tyler (56:44)
Mmm, amen. Yeah. wonderful. Thank you so much. And of course, must ask, where can listeners find out more about you and the wonderful work you do, which I'm sure some of them will very much feel called to do that. So where can they find out all of that?
Jason (57:03)
For the plant work, my website nicotiana rustica.org, it's the the Latin name for a tobacco. that's probably the best place. It has all the information. we have an Instagram, which luckily I have an assistant who does, I think, a really good job of keeping that updated. That's just my name at Jason Grichanik. And then also a podcast, which is called The Universe Within. So if people are interested in maybe more deep dives of some is me, but also I interview a lot of people in these fields, so there's some really interesting conversations there. And that you can find on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, all of the big ones.
Lian Brook-Tyler (57:45)
Gorgeous. thank you so much. This has been such a beautiful part two from our original conversation. I'm so glad we've come back together to do this. Thank you so much.
Jason (57:56)
Yeah, thank you. And again, apologies maybe for some of my my long winded answers, but I find it just such a big field and to to try and put it in some sort of context is always for me quite important. So hopefully people were able to to to gain something from that, some some little bit of clarity.
Lian Brook-Tyler (58:17)
So I, uh, no need to apologise for it. I loved your nuance and depth. Um, I think when we're talking about something like this, it's needed. think we're too trained in this modern world to want kind of like the short answers, the shallow answers, the convenient answers. So yeah, certainly from my perspective, everything you shared was exactly needed. So thank you so much for the work you do. It feels exactly right for these times.
Jason (58:44)
Well, thank you. And thank you again for just a beautiful interview and presence and all the work you're doing. I can't remember if I mentioned this on the last one, but this this guy who I mentioned, Amika, the Tubu, they have this beautiful prophecy that we're in the time of the Dirdo Amasa, the children of the New Dawn, as they would translate it. of the people who really bridge the medicine of the four directions to create a new earth. And so I think people like yourself are really helping to do that and just the curiosity and the sharing of information, it's beautiful.
Lian Brook-Tyler (59:18)
thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.
Jason (59:22)
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Lian (59:26)
Goodness me, that was an episode I could have happily had go on for so much longer, again, one of my favourite, favourite topics of conversation. Here were three things that stayed with me. The physical properties of a tree, what it grows near, how it moves, what ailments it addresses in the body, aren't separate from its emotional and spiritual medicine. They are the same medicine arriving through different doors.
When a guide such as Jason doesn't reveal the name of the tree until the very end of the dieta, what comes through is the tree's own language in relationship to that particular person rather than the person's expectation. The name, when it arrives, tends to confirm what the body had already received. It's so magical. The trees of the Celtic and Northern European tradition have not lost their medicine.
What has been mostly lost is that technology of listening, of being in relationship, which requires isolation, slowing down, and really being willing to be in the depth of relationship that allows the medicine to be received.
If this conversation has stirred something in you, maybe something you can't quite answer alone, something that keeps returning. That's exactly what our Unio guidance circle is for. Twice each month, Jonathan and I meet with UNIO community members to sit with whatever is alive for them, not to give advice, but to meet you exactly where you are. People tell us they feel so seen, so grateful. It really is a gift to have a way of coming together and community in this way. So if you're ready for that kind of kinship on this path, come find us at wildsovereignsoul.com/unio. We've also made the way to join us tiered so that money is never what stands in the way between you and this path.
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