Two years ago, I signed up to an online course to study sacred plant medicine. This type of medicine maintains that plants are intelligent and conscious beings, able to fully communicate with us, with the power to teach and heal.

It was completely out of character for me, a cynical disillusioned journalist who had never even lit a stick of incense until I moved to LA in 2018. But I had grown bored during lockdown and had begun dabbling in aromatherapy. As a child I’d always enjoyed mixing potions out of my mum’s beauty creams and sprays, and this didn’t feel much different. Except, I got really into it, and found myself becoming increasingly curious about the healing nature of plants. My mum’s childhood friend – Carole Guyett – happens to be a world-renowned and highly respected medicine woman and herbalist. I had signed up to her newsletter at some point, and along came the opportunity to take an online course she was running called Sacred Plant Medicine.

I’m not sure what drove me to apply. I think some desire to find purpose in life. I was becoming jaded with journalism – it didn’t feel as fulfilling as it used to. I had reached a point where I was unable to deal with stress and anxiety. I follow the usual British prescription of bottling it all up and carrying on. But the past two years had been among the most stressful periods of my life – and my body was not coping.

“How talking to plants radically transformed my mental health”