Sitting with a potent psychotropic plant like Ayahuasca or Psilocybin is indeed a grand opportunity for life-changing transformation, but not everyone is called to a divine dose of psychedelic medicine. These intense cosmic adventures are not accessible to individuals dealing with a myriad of physical, emotional, or mental challenges either.

There’s another way to connect with plant consciousness that is equally (if not more so) powerful, and yet accessible and available to everyone.

I give thee: Master Plant Diets.

If you’re new to the ancient concept of a Master Plant Diet or Dieta, read my previous post about the breakdown of how and why these are my absolute favorite shamanic experiences.

I’ve completed 24 Master Plant Dietas to date, spanning almost 4 years of my life. My longest was a year-long death and rebirth adventure with the mighty White Sage; there isn’t a doubt in my mind that my commitment to convening with her for this duration was the single best decision I have ever made on this path. She transformed me from a frightened and naïve girl with a big ole “all dark energies come here” sign, into a sovereign, empowered, and fiercely protective jaguar-woman who knows how to create safety for myself and others.

How did she perform such a miraculous feat? That’s the magic of a Master Plant Diet . They create internal and external alchemy, healing everything from illness to karmic ties and soul contracts. It’s a profoundly deep, impossible to truly describe process. But I’ve had the honor and privilege of working with the plants enough times now that I am doubtless of their superpowers.

I’m also wholly confident that the ancient process of discipline and commitment that creates the foundation of a Master Plant Diet is the key to manifesting our widest prayers and intentions. By taking on a challenging and restrictive diet and an all-in connection to a plant spirit, we show up for ourselves and the plants through effort, through shadow work, and through the art of listening and being, and in return, they can give us the whole multiverse.

The best part is, there’s a plant (or twenty) that honors ANY intention, and ANY human. Even those taking intense pharmaceutical drugs or folks with any diagnosis – there’s always a way to match the perfect plant to the dieter, and their heart’s desires. So this process is available to anyone who has the capacity to commit, and to in essence, marry a plant.

What Exactly Defines a Master Plant?

This is a pretty subjective question, as Plant People all have different definitions (and we’re all right!) Hardcore traditionalists from the Shipibo and Mestizo tribes only work with a few dozen Amazonian Master Plants, but I have come to embrace Masters from all over the globe. I have a very broad and intuitive definition of what creates a Master Plant – they have these things in common:

· Ancient, powerful, communicative plant spirit
· Has physical, mental, emotional or spiritual medicine to share
· GIVES PERMISSION to use humans to work with them in partnership

How do we know a plant is ancient, has definable medicine, and actually wants to hang out with us? We ask. We intuit. We listen for and trust the communications that we receive. It’s very much like the relationships we form with other people; there’s no formula to it, but it does require curiosity, humility, and the ability to listen deeply in order to determine which plants want to show up for us in this way.

What are the Most Popular Master Plant Diets?

Since discovering this incredible process, the list of plants that I want to work with, and that I intuitively feel want to work with me too, keeps growing! I’ll need at least a million more lifetimes on Earth to scratch the surface, so I’m hoping many of these Masters are waiting for me elsewhere in the cosmos, too. Hah.

By my personal estimation, there are literally thousands of Master Plants. So for whatever ails you, for whatever you seek to understand, there is indeed a plant for that! I’ve held Master Plant Diets for people working with unusual and lesser-known plants for sure – some of my favorites have been Indian Warrior, Calamus, Rock Rose, and Chanca Piedra.

And yet there are a few plants I feel are so ubiquitous, they should be on everyone’s list. These are all appropriate for beginners and advanced dieters alike, and I have worked with each them in an intimate dieta myself. It feels as though the lessons these remarkable beings teach are fairly universal for mass consciousness at this stage of our evolution. We learn so much more from nature than we do from each other about how to live in harmony with ourselves and the world, and these 5 Masters have such incredible medicine and teachings to share. If you’re called to do a Master Plant Diet, you can’t go wrong with any of the plants below.

Master Plant #1: Bobinsana – Resilient Goddess of Self Love

Lady Bobinsana is a quintessential jungle dieta, often the first isolated diet apprentices take on in the shamanic journey. It doesn’t matter when you convene with Bobinsana on this path of healing, only that you make it a priority. She is so special, so heart-spaced, so fluid and feminine, she simply must be experienced by anyone wanting to connect with the jungle. Bobinsana is considered the most water-connected of all the Masters; she grows along the Amazon river, and when the rains come, this mighty shrub appears to get completely decimated. Within a few short days, however, new growth pops up from the swampy waters, and she’s large and in charge in no time. This illustration shows us a lot about Bobinsana’s medicine – she teaches resilience, how to go-with-the-flow, and how to treat our dynamic lives with fluidity and trust.

The reason I view her as an essential experience for anyone on the healing path, however, is rooted in her heart medicine. Bobinsana is the queen of self love. She is a masterful heart-opener and those fluffy puffy pink flowers of hers shows her cheerleader-centric vibes. She’s a champion for finding unconditional love and compassion for ourselves. But this does NOT in any way mean she’s easy peasy. She often will bring to the surface the shadows we carry around self-love – the wounds, the resistance, the stories and the judgments; always with the invitation to love that, too.

Seriously, who among us couldn’t use a little more love for our awesome selves?

Master Plant #2: Sage – Mistress of Sovereignty

Sage. Fiery, direct, no-nonsense, protective, piercing Sage. She was my first dieta, and my second. The first 9 month journey I was distracted and not wholly committed. The second year-long marriage to her completely changed my life. She took a fragile, frightened woman with zero boundaries and a deep relationship with martyrdom and transformed me into an empowered, protected, and sovereign badass. And she was honestly just getting started with me.

Sage is not an easy diet, but she is a necessary one. No matter what role we choose to take on within the shamanic path, and in the world at large, protection is utterly essential. Duality is dicey, energies are contrasting, and if we want to experience more grace and joy in our journey, than learning to protect ourselves from projections, sorcery, and judgements is non-negotiable.

Sage teaches this ancient art of how to create safety for ourselves within a dualistic world. She’s also a powerhouse purifier – so potent, in fact, that we don’t work with her around expectant mothers as she sees anything that is not ours as an intruder in our field, and can literally trigger a miscarriage. Although not a psychotropic, you’d be hard pressed to find any plant that has more direct power, more illumination, and more ability to reflect complete and absolute Truth.

I’ll admit I’m biased with Sage; because she’s my life saver, she’s my number one ally in any situation. So I highly recommend others develop an all-in bond with her. If we aren’t sovereign, we call in chaos, and that’s just not a fun way to learn.

Master Plant #3: Cacao – Earth Mother and Life Coach

Yes, it’s weird to reference a plant as a life coach, but Cacao fits the bill. During my dieta with her, I coined her a nickname: Coach Coco. Cacao can be chatty, but she’s more interested in action. She loves empowerment, movement, fulfilling destinies and goals. What she doesn’t love is excuses.

Her medicine is intrinsically linked with embodiment; she teaches us to have profound love, gratitude, and commitment to the beautiful vessels we live and walk within. She is a superfood extraordinaire with a lonnnngggg list of physical benefits, including hormone balance, heart strengthening and protection, and blood pressure + purification. She vibrates with the elements of Earth and Fire, so she is both grounding and inspiring.

Work with Cacao to heal dysfunction with the relationship between soul and body, and also to help open your heart. She is so generous, expansive, and full of love, and she helps us to feel that in the depths of our own beings. Added bonus: Cacao tastes like absolute heaven, which is not an accolade many of the plants can own!

Master Plant #4: Frankincense – The King of Holiness

Frankincense might be the wild card in this list, but to me, he’s a must for everyone to experience. And yet, I resisted his call to work with him in a dieta fiercely for a long time, mainly because he brought back painful memories of growing up Catholic, and the related misogyny, dogma, and darkness associated with those years. Frankincense is also unique in that he is a resin, not a plant, but he taught me that this part of a tree actually represents their tears.

Frankincense comes from the Boswellia tree, and he’s been held as a sacred medicine for thousands and thousands of years. These magical teardrops from nature hold the vibration of sacredness. So it turns out in my diet with Frankincense, I was able to heal the remaining sadness and anger I felt regarding my days as a good Catholic girl. Once we got past those layers of my resistance, my goodness this diet cracked me open. I felt so immaculately held by divine masculine energy that I learned a deeper meaning of safety. He taught me to completely surrender and let go, because he helped me remember how much I trust the universe – and myself – to envelope me in love.

Frankincense has this immaculate regal aura, and he reminds all of us of our sovereignty and our birthright to be kings and queens. He holds his regality as an invitation for us to remember our own. Frankincense teaches that there is no hierarchy – no better than or worse than. Just sacredness. Just holiness. And he brought me back into treating my life as a prayer, which is so healing, so magical, and so, well, everything.

Master Plant #5: Rose – The Queen of Unity

We are in a Rose Renaissance in the shamanic world, and for good reason: Rose has two of the most profound teachings our culture needs right now:

1) A reconnection with the power and unification of our hearts. She heals broken heart syndrome, teaches profound self-awareness, and is a ubiquitous symbol of love. Not the Hallmark fluffy love that is typically attachment – real, unconditional, all-in love. Which means she also has the power to bring to the surface the reasons we resist the most powerful force in the universe.

2) Her thorns have the medicine of boundaries; she helps us remember that we love ourselves enough to protect our tender hearts from people and situations that do not serve us. It’s astounding how many of us make decisions out of obligation and programming rather than our heart’s desire – Rose has no tolerance for these falsities and ignites in us the same.

This flower queen is essentially a portal into an ancient mystery school that is all about nondual awareness and the power of love. There is nothing more potent, more sacred, or more important in our conscious journeys than our relationship with love. Rose is therefore a diet I recommend to absolutely anyone, at any stage of their spiritual journeys. In fact, she’s a diet that most of us return to in the shamanic path; because who among us has had enough of learning about love?

So there you have it; my current top 5 Master Plant Diets. If you’re feeling called to any of the beauties above, or have a specific plant in mind you’d like to partner with not on this list, reach out to me and I’m happy to share the process. You can also share your core intentions for the diet, and I am happy to offer 3-4 options that fit your deepest desires and energies.

Master Plant Diets hold the highest opportunity for incredible healing and insights. The only problem with them is that they are so amazing and transformative, you’re going to want to do a million of ‘em —One. Plant. At. A. Time.

What plant is calling you to connect right now?

NEXT BLOG: Ayahuasca and Ego Deaths

About the Author

Tina “Kat” Courtney, The Afterlife Coach, has worked as an Ayahuasca shaman for almost 2 decades., and is the CEO and Co-Founder of Plant Medicine People, Inc. Kat is a vocal advocate for safe and ethical relationships with all Plant Medicines and sacred spaces, and for the proper integration of peak experiences.—so much so she authored a quintessential book on entheogens call Plant Medicine Mystery School Vol 1: The Superhero Healing Powers of Psychotropic Plants. Kat works with people confronting issues around death, fear, trauma, and shadow as an Ayahuasca Coach and Shamanic Guide. She’s absolutely adores the Master Plant Diet process, and has guided hundreds of life-changing journeys by merging the spirits of people and plants.

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The Top 5 Master Plant Diets