In this meditation you will again attune with a plant, with attention toward that plant's unique intelligence.

Choose a plant in your garden to chat with, perhaps your favorite plant or a crop that is doing especially well right now. You might even choose a particularly abundant weed, which also contributes its energy to the signature of your garden. Any plant growing right now in your yard or garden will teach you something about your unique plot of earth while giving you an opportunity to open to the realm of the nature spirits. This can be done any time of year; you may also work with a houseplant, but I recommend going outside if possible.

Sit before this plant, ground and center, and ask the plant permission to attune with it. Sense the answer in your own style. Soften your boundaries and reach out to the plant, entering into its vibration. It will reach out to you in turn.

Introduce yourself to the plant and thank it for being in your garden. Even if you work with a weed, thank it for contributing its unique gift to this land, for even weeds provide gifts. Bindweed, for instance, helps to connect and bind disturbed earth. Dandelions exhale ethylene gas, which helps orchard fruit to ripen quickly. Each of the vegetables, herbs, and flowers in your garden beds contributes their own unique energies and magical qualities. What will grow in your climate, and what you choose to grow based on your own tastes, reflects and shapes the energy of your garden and your home.

As you attune with this plant, sense what it gives to the land. The way it vibrates, the taste it leaves on your psychic tongue, tells you something about its properties and gifts. Notice how this plant vibrates with the land, making one thread in the tapestry of this unique plot of land.

If you have any questions about your garden—such as where to put a fruit tree, how to contour the space to more effectively use water, or what nutrients the soil currently lacks—ask this plant. Its answer may be different than the answer you would get from another plant, or from asking the garden deva spirit of your garden, but the plant will offer useful suggestions based on its own perspective.

Ask the plant if it needs anything to better express its unique gifts. Be prepared to carry out these requests after your meditation.

Now, if you want to open to another level, ask to speak with the deva of this plant. You will see or feel a slightly different consciousness when you open to the plant's deva. Speak with the deva as you did the individual plant.

Thank the plant and its deva for working with you. Draw your energy back into yourself and ground and anchor to your core. Carry out any requests as you are able. Record your experience in your journal.

Excerpted from Voices of the Earth: The Path of Green Spirituality, by Clea Danaan