Shadow work, dealing with personal trauma on a spiritual level, demands self-reflection and looking at the less favorable or even shameful aspects of one’s life. Blackthorn’s Botanical Shadow Work provides a framework for doing this shadow work with the aid of plant allies.
Botanical Shadow work connects the person seeking healing with the spirit of helper plants though guided visualizations to introduce plant spirit guides and work through trauma as well as using aromatherapy. Stepping out of the botanical theme, a few more techniques presented include Tarot techniques for shadow work, attachment styles regarding trauma and how one connects with others, and a ritual for regaining bodily autonomy when one has been demeaned, harassed or excluded or suffered from sexual traumas. People who want to process their traumas and heal their shadow self through guided visualizations, journaling, and aromatherapy, are the intended audience.
The basic idea of plant allies is that plants have a collective spirit which can be interacted with through visualization or trance. The visualization passages are very literary descriptions, more detailed than a guided meditation guide needs to be so this may be geared for beginners, to make sure they have some idea of what to expect. The first trance journey introduces a guardian who will later introduce the seeker to various plant allies. Each plant ally is associated with an element, fire, air, water, earth, and spirit rather than with a specific deity or spiritual path. Readers are asked to connect to plant allies and request information or guidance by following the provided script and filling in the responses of the plant ally. Many of these plants are poisonous and you wouldn’t want to come into physical contact with them.
Blackthorn’s aromatherapy requires a treasure trove of essential oils and scents. If you have the means to buy a lot of scents to make the recipes, no doubt they smell good. Stocking all supplies will cost a pretty penny. Aromatherapy recipes are assigned for different purposes. For example, Time to Talk is used when you are ready to open up to talk therapy while Liminality Oil is for seeking the diving in yourself or others and opening yourself to trust the process. Scents have an incredible impact on our psyche as they speak to our olfactory system and the underlying ancient instinctual mind. Scent can unlock memories and transform our state of mind and calm one down. Readers with budgets may want to narrow down what kind of issue they are working on and limit their buying of essential oils to the specific recipes that meet your needs. The recipes can be repetitive reading as the instructions are often repeated.
The author says that she wrote this book because she didn’t have a guide for her own shadow work. She doesn’t burden the reader with her own trauma story but you get a sense of the topics that concern her. She presents as a politically progressive and LGBTQIA friendly. The book is not intended to replace therapy or needed medical assistance. As a supplement for someone working through deep grief, trauma, PTSD, anxiety and other troublesome emotions, botanical allies may allow the reader the space to really face their own shadow, if willing to do the work and interested in plants.
Recommended for adults seeking emotional/spiritual healing through plant allies and aromatherapy
~review by Larissa Carlson
Author: Amy Blackthorn
Red Wheel Weiser, 2026
221 pages, $19.95
