With over 400,000 species of plants in our world, nearly 90% flower attracting pollinators such as insects, animals as well as humans.

The rewards of this allure are numerous and profound, interconnecting all life on the planet.

This color and athese flowers are amazing.

They re-energize me to see the life you plant and to nurture it.

And it's just an amazing feeling.

Humans are part of nature we're part of the system, and so what affects the rest of the system also affects us.

So it's critical that we protect these species.

If we have a deeper relationship with what plant medicine really is, it totally changes our relationship to nature.

That can change our consciousness.

Join Refresh Quest as we explore our relationship with flowers, plants and the people who understand the importance of growing, protecting and connecting with plant power.

Refresh Quest is the search for refreshing travel experiences that aim to inspire and uplift the mind, body and human spirit.

With a team of like minded friends, Refresh Quest invites you along the journey as we explore unique destinations, meet inspiring individuals and gain empowering knowledge that will help us to create new realities and refreshing possibilities.

Welcome to Refresh Quest.

A once in a decade floral event is all we needed to know to excite us, to get us outside and search for what is called a super bloom.

So in the spring of 2019, the Refresh Quest team did not have to travel far to strike it rich in mountaintops, set ablaze by a myriad of influorescent colors and combinations.

Just south of Los Angeles, the Elsinore Mountains, part of the Santa Ana mountain range.

Blessed us with wildflowers in vivid shades of pumpkin orange, canary, yellow and mauve purple.

Masterfully arranged by nature itself.

For a scene so surreal, it feels as if you are walking in a daydream.

This awe inspiring spectacle of wildflowers attracts lovers, artists and dreamers from all over the world as they come to celebrate this explosive botanical phenomenon.

Being here and walking amongst these flowers, it was difficult to believe that such beauty was created in part by uncontrolled and widespread destruction, setting off a perfect storm of events.

Wildfires the prior year set the stage in the ground for the seeds to germinate.

and then come winter with heavy rainfall and then spring, boom!

We have ourselves a super bloom.

The super bloom only lasts for a few months, but March, April and May are prime times for seeing this breathtaking sight.

What I find so interesting about the super bloom is that it's so large that you can even see it from outer space, Incredible.

Super blooms only last for a very short period of time.

So the team and I made sure to make our time count with these beautiful, aromatic treasures before they vanished for another decade.

Spring of 2022, only three years out from the previous super bloom and I already had the itch for another floral expedition.

Headed 100 miles west of Los Angeles.

The Carrizo Plain National Monument is usually a for sure bet, but with the state of California experiencing a super drought, I was lucky to find even one small patch of desert dandelion and thistle sage.

This would not satisfy my palate for floral color I had hoped for.

I had to find greener pastures.

Northern California received a higher percentage of rainfall, giving wild plants a better chance to flower during the spring months.

But this drought is so widespread, the wildflowers were only sporadic at best.

But my intended destination was a vineyard located near the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

This is Ironstone Vineyards.

Here they use recycled water that helps keep the 14 acre property lush and green year round.

The main reason for my visit today was to see flowers with spectacular color.

We were at Ironstone Vineyards here in Murphys, California, and at this time of the year, in springtime, they put out some of their best display of the most amazing, most beautiful colored flowers that you've ever seen.

The vineyard does not disappoint.

For flower enthusiasts.

Displaying daisies, daffodils and tulips in almost every color imaginable.

This color and these flowers are amazing.

This display counting into the thousands is a team effort that takes many months of planning to become a realization.

I caught up with the master gardener of Ironstone to ask a few questions about this colorful process.

My name is Robin Redinger and we're in Murphys, California, at Ironstone Vineyards.

And it's a spectacular place year round to come and see the gardens and drink some wine.

The color parade at the beginning of the entrance is absolutely incredible.

How does all of that come together?

So in the late fall, we get the bulbs.

They come from Sweden.

We get about three tons of bulbs a year and then we have to plant them in the oak barrels.

They sit all winter, start breaking ground in the spring.

And then as they bloom, we bring them down to the tasting room.

Quite an event.

So with all of this hard work, Robin, what inspires you about this whole process?

Oh, every time someone says how beautiful it is and every time you see someone bending down to smell a flower or taking a picture, it just makes it all worth it.

Robin, you're taking care of these beautiful plants and flowers every day.

What do they do for you?

They re-energize me to see the life you plant and to nurture it.

And it's just an amazing feeling.

It's just hopeful, you know?

You know, the world's going to be okay.

And it makes me feel that way.

It makes me just re-energized and just blessed and really hopeful.

Robin's message of hope got me thinking as we turned our quest and now deepening inquiry on this subject towards Santa Barbara, California.

I began to ponder the future of our green friends that we so heavily count on for our survival, especially in a time of great environmental stressors and pressures that have been set upon our native species.

Following Mission Canyon Road, east from the Pacific Ocean and up towards the Santa Ynez Mountains, we arrived at the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden.

It is here that an experienced team of botanical pioneers would surely have further insight on this very important issue.

The Santa Barbara Botanical Garden is 78 acres containing over 1000 species of rare and indigenous plants and is sectioned into 11 distinct ecosystems dedicated to the plants and the habitat of California.

We began our journey in the serene pollinator section filled with aromatic herbs and pollinating flowers and plants.

Working our way down to the main entrance of the garden, one of the first areas you'll notice is the desert section.

Here you'll find examples of barrel, cholla, and agave and one amazing desert willow in full bloom.

The Meadow, the most iconic section of the garden.

Here we found examples of Blue-Springs penstemon in Southwestern Vervain and the California Poppy.

Just past the massive boulder, the equally impressive oak and the turtle pond.

We found ourselves in a century old forest, the redwoods of the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens.

On my pass back through the meadow.

I stopped in front of a flowering purple sage for something I haven't seen in a very long time caught my eye.

The monarch butterfly, once a very familiar sight in gardens, is now on the endangered species list because of a sharp decline due to many environmental factors.

I felt very fortunate to share this moment with the special and necessary insect before it's too late.

Hi I'm Steve Windhager, I'm the executive director here at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.

My background is in restoration ecology, so I rebuild damaged ecosystems.

The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden was founded in 1926.

So we're coming up on our centennial event here.

The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is the nation's first and oldest botanic garden dedicated exclusively to native plants.

The garden is a place where people can come and experience the incredible native plants of California, get to form a relationship with them, learn their names, go to our nursery, perhaps buy a few plants and plant them in their own backyard when they go home.

It's that first step to making a difference and a positive difference in our environment.

Okay Steve, let's talk flowers.

Flowers are incredible.

They are the billboards of plants.

Plants have evolved over millennia with insects and their pollinators.

It's critical for them to be able to make sure that they have the right sort of nectar and the right kind of flower that attracts just the right pollinator that will do its job.

Their job is to really broadcast and attract insects, birds, other wildlife and even humans to come and pay attention to them.

There's a lot of biophilic feedback or out in the natural world because this is in truth where we evolved out among nature.

We didn't evolve in concrete boxes.

This is where we feel most natural, most at home.

For humans in particular, the smells, the visions, the the scents hook into who we are makes us want to capture it and recover it.

Why is it so important to learn about and protect native plant species?

Native plants are at the basis and the foundation of all life on the planet.

They've been evolving with other species for countless millennia and everything relates to everything else.

When you take out one piece of that puzzle, whether it be the pollinator for the plants or the plants themselves or all the life that depends on it, everything else starts to crumble.

If you lose any one of these, if you lose the animal or the plant, you've lost them both in most cases.

Humans are part of nature we're part of the system.

And so what affects the rest of the system also affects us.

And so it's critical that we protect these species.

Okay Steve, what can one do to help?

We're at a very critical time right now with climate change, biodiversity loss across the planet and continued development pressure.

Humans have been part of the problem for too long.

We have to be a big part of the solution going forward and it can all start at home.

We can take native plants even into our own backyards and so that our landscapes are part of the solution.

And just that small change can start to support a broad part of biodiversity.

Our backyards can be a home for all sorts of pollinators, for native birds and other wildlife.

But you don't have to end there.

You can start on roadsides.

You can start in your parks, your landscapes, other community areas.

And the more that we all work together, the bigger the impact we're going to have.

We can create oases of healthy life on our planet, in our own communities, and that's where we have to start.

With our help, these native plants do have a very bright future and this is what the gardens can be focusing on for our next 100 years.

Protecting and restoring native plant species for a brighter future seemed like a great concept to me.

Thank you, Steve.

2 hours north of Santa Barbara, we found dramatic sea cliffs, a lighthouse and an elephant seal rookery where thousands of these odd and unusual aquatic mammals spend their days basking in the sun, the sand and the surf.

There is even a famous castle that overlooks a herd of African zebras Here along the shimmering turquoise coastline.

We arrived at the small, quaint town of Cambria, California, not far from Main Street.

We had an appointment at Fiscalini Ranch Preserve, where we met and connected with a long term resident who has over 40 years of extensive knowledge and experience working with plants and more specifically, plant medicine and its connections to the mind, body and human spirit.

We were about to take our deep dive on this subject even deeper with master herbalist, aroma therapist and acupuncturist David Crow.

Diving right in.

David sat down for our first lesson, listening to the sound of the ocean.

One of my favorite meditation practices is listening to the sound of the ocean.

This is actually a universal practice found in many cultures In the mountains.

yogis had a practice called The Flowing Water Samadhi, meaning the absorption of the mind that happens when we listen to the sound of water.

So listening is a major way of entering into a meditative state.

Because when we are in a state of deep listening then it naturally makes the mind quiet because the mind is trying to hear.

It's trying to pay attention so the mind becomes quiet as we engage the sense of hearing.

It's a very simple way to use nature to help us meditate.

One can enter into a very deep state of contemplative absorption.

That's what the word samadhi means.

It means that the mind is absorbed into a concentrated but relaxed and aware state for an extended period of time.

So the flow of the mind begins to flow into the current of sound and in nature, the sound of the ocean is very calming.

So that's one of the main things that I do out here.

I just come and listen to the sound of the ocean.

David invited us back to his home for an in-depth conversation and education on plant medicine, ecology and spirituality, and how all of this ties together to form the foundational building blocks for optimal human health and prosperity.

Is this one recording?

Yeah that's recording.

Okay, here we go.

And now, after the cameras were set and the team ready, it was time to bring all of this together.

I'm David Crow, and welcome to my home here on the Big Sur coast of California.

I am a practitioner of higher Vedic and Chinese medicine.

I was trained classically in the traditional medical systems of Asia.

I spent a lot of time in Asia.

I studied Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine and Tibetan medicine.

And because of my interest in classical Asian medicine, I'm also interested in the lineages that the medicine teachings came from as far as their spiritual culture.

So I'm very interested in the integration of plant medicine and spiritual practices.

And what I'm trying to do now is basically maintain those lineages and share those lineages in a way that kind of bring these two rivers of teachings back together again.

Herbal medicine is extremely popular now, but it's out of context.

It's out of context because people are introduced to herbal medicine, primarily through marketing and primarily through the internet.

So in a sense, we're kind of at a golden age of herbal medicine because everybody can get everything now very easily.

Teachings, classes, workshops, herb products from all over the world, from every lineage.

But people don't have a relationship with the plant.

In traditional cultures, the relationship with the plant was fundamental to the healing using plant medicine.

Every phase of herbal medicine was actually connected to ceremony and ritual meditation and prayer and detoxification.

If you grow the plant yourself or you harvested it, you go out and you pick the root and you make the medicine.

There's a very natural relationship with the plants that develops.

This gives you a whole new respect for what plants are and the power of the plants and the amount of work that goes into making the medicine.

If we have a deeper relationship with what plant medicine really is, it totally changes our relationship to nature.

And that's what our culture needs right now.

Be more integrated into the intelligence of nature that the plants give us.

David took a time out to show and tell us about a few of his rare plant treasures and their traditional uses, like the Chinese Red Ginseng or the essential oils used as aromatherapy for relaxation and to help uplift one's mood.

Palo Santo wood, an aromatic from Ecuador, used as incense therapy for purification and removal of negative energies.

Frankincense frereana from Somaliland used as an incense in fumigating preparations for religious rituals and cultural ceremonies.

David had stated that traditionally herbal medicine and spiritual practice were deeply woven together.

Here we stepped out into David's backyard, where David gave us a ceremonial demonstration using a small piece of frankincense placed on top of a hot coal.

David said the burning incense from the tree creates a bond with the user activating all of its spiritual and botanical powers.

David, do all plants have medicinal powers?

All plants have medicinal powers.

Take the pine tree because it's all around.

And the pine tree is there and is producing this essential oil, which is part of its immune system.

And then we can use that essential oil, which is part of our immune system, boosting our immune system, using it for antimicrobial purposes.

But then if we look at the bigger context, what's happening, we're breathing together with plants literally.

We inhale oxygen, that they produce, we exhale carbon dioxide, they absorb the carbon dioxide.

So we are breathing together with the plants and we are in a biological relationship with them, which is why the essential oil from the pine tree is good for us, because we have parallel physiological and anatomical kinds of systems.

It's also that the medicinal functions that happen inside the human body, when we ingest something, those functions are happening inside the plants all the time and those functions are happening therefore, throughout the entire environment.

In other words, plants are not just medicine for the human body.

Plants are medicine for the environment.

So this view is what is most important actually, because what happens in our consciousness when we begin to perceive and understand it, everything around us in nature is a medicine.

And what it does is it enhances our reverence, it enhances our appreciation of nature.

And this is fundamental to our survival at this point as a species that if we do not recognize that nature is keeping us alive, we do not recognize that the plants are feeding us and healing us, then there is no future for Homo sapiens.

When we are talking about plant medicine at this level, the best way to understand it is actually through meditation.

So that we are learning about nature through our body awareness, breathing together with the plants, for example.

That's a meditation where we are mindfully inhaling and being aware that our breath is connected to plants.

And then we exhale and being aware that our breath is connected to plants that can change our consciousness.

Wow.

And that can lead to the most profound spiritual insights into our true nature.

So what is plant medicine?

How do we bring all these things together?

What are all the different dimensions of botanical medicine?

It brings up what we call ecophysiology, which is the effect of soil and climate and environment and water and so forth on the plants and that is what we are ingesting.

Now, that's a broad definition of what herbal medicine is.

It's a broad definition of botanical medicine.

What are we ingesting?

What are we using when we use herbal medicine?

We're using the concentrated elements of the environment.

And so some plants are giving us concentrated sunlight., Some plants are giving us concentrated moonlight.

Some plants are giving us concentrated nutrients from the soil.

Some plants are giving us concentrated water element for hydration.

And if we understand that kind of larger ecological definition of what plant medicine is, that immediately gives us a spiritual connection to the plants and that gives us all kinds of opportunities then to interact with that medicine mindfully and be aware that we're actually connecting with Earth.

We're connecting with the sunlight and the moonlight and the air and so forth, and the intelligence that's inside the plants as well.

So what are we taking then?

All right, let's ask it in terms of medical language.

What is the prescription?

Well, the prescription is let's have a dose of sunlight and moonlight and floral pulsations to help our biorhythms.

Right.

That's how we can look at herbal medicine in a really deep cosmological spiritual level.

Wow.

So I hope that answers your question.

It definitely did.

Thank you, David.

Thank you for your time and thank you for sharing your home with us today.

Thankyou, my pleasure.

Thank you In 2019, the Refresh Quest team set out on a fascinating and refreshing journey and what began as a simple quest for colorful flowers, quickly developed into a profound and deep exploration, examining the whole plant and their innate plant powers.

But these plant powers that gift us with planetary life can only proceed if they continue to not only survive, but thrive.

So to reiterate, what can we do to help?

By growing, protecting and connecting with these life giving resources, we can help ensure a better and brighter future for tomorrow.

And maybe this relationship begins as simple as our quest did by walking in a field of wildflowers.

Being out here among these flowers is totally surreal.

I almost feel like I'm in a Van Gogh painting.

So much colorful eye candy.

Every mountain top is just covered with these beautiful works of art from nature.

Staring at all these flowers and starting to notice something that they're not all the same.

They're all unique.

Wow.

This is amazing.

So peaceful and beautiful out here.

Incredible.

Whatever your course of action may be, you still have time to think it over.

After all, we still have seven more years until the next super bloom.

So until then.

And in the spirit of our green friends, may we all plant with purpose, grow in wisdom, and blossom like a flower.