When a Yanomami shaman was asked how they had got from highly poisonous plant to medicinal treatment when trial and error would have been repeatedly deadly, the shaman simply replied: "The plant told me." But within our materialist 'western' perspective listening to plants is at best a metaphoric exercise in projection, rather than a simple, if challenging, craft of imagination, perseverance and of the plant's grace. This was not always so, nor is this an indigenous practice for which you need to travel far, except perhaps in one's willingness to slow down, slip down and listen carefully. In Kassabova's new book, she travels back once more to her native Bulgaria and to one particular valley, that of the Mesta river, and its surrounding mountains to pick up the traces of the traditions of herbal medicine and weaves them into a haunting picture of lives lived enfolded within community, an encompassing nature and souls' journeys after illumination. His