The Five Sovereignties: Why Five, Why Now
Your brain creates barriers. Your heart already knows.
We didn't invent the five sovereignties. We discovered them by living with the work.
Walking Through the Seasons documents lifetimes of seasonal plant knowledge, ceremony, and protocol. Work we've been carrying forward together since 2016. The book holds 67 plant profiles, three teaching stories, seasonal protocols, and transformation teachings that emerge when you actually walk with plants through the year.
In the Fall section, we name the Four Quadrants explicitly: Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual. These become four sovereignties.
Physical sovereignty: your body is nourished and you know how to nourish it.
Mental sovereignty: your mind holds the knowledge you need AND you can challenge thoughts that diminish you.
Emotional sovereignty: you can feel what you feel without being destroyed by it.
Spiritual sovereignty: you know your protocols, understand your responsibilities, walk connected to the web.
But as we've lived with this framework, something became clear.
Physical sovereignty holds two distinct capacities.
From Four to Five: The Split
You can preserve jars of berries, dry roots, know every edible plant on your territory. Food sovereignty achieved.
But if someone gets sick, if injury comes, if chronic illness shows up, you still need a pharmacy. You still need gatekeepers. You still need permission to heal.
Food sovereignty and health sovereignty are different skills. Different knowledge. Different practices.
Food Sovereignty: Can you feed yourself and your family from the land?
Health Sovereignty: Can you heal yourself and your family when illness or injury comes?
Both live in the physical domain. Both matter. Both deserve their own teaching.
This is the evolution from Book One to Book Two.
What Natural Law Teaches
These five sovereignties emerge from ʔa·knumu¢tiǂiǂ (natural law).
Water flows downhill. Seeds germinate in spring. Bodies heal when given what they need. Minds discern truth. Hearts hold wisdom. Spirit connects us to all living things.
These truths existed before contact, before institutions, before anyone needed to give us permission to know them. They continue regardless of what systems rise or fall.
When you align with natural law instead of imposed systems, you stop asking permission. You start building capacity.
Walking Through the Seasons: The Foundation
The book teaches seasonal relationship with plants, ceremony, and protocol across Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.
Spring teaches trust and renewal. Begin again. Presence over perfection.
Summer teaches discernment in abundance. Reciprocity. Keeping tools sharp.
Fall teaches permission and inventory. This is where the four sovereignties appear explicitly. Taking stock of what you've gathered physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Asking honestly: what's working? What's not? What's ready to change?
Winter teaches transformation and integration. The cocoon. Calling ourselves back. The cycles continue.
Through all four seasons, you're learning plant knowledge, making medicine, practicing ceremony, building direct relationship with the land and Creator.
Book One shows you what these capacities look like when you're living them.
Why This Matters Now
Systems fail. People lose access to food, healthcare, clear information, emotional support, spiritual connection because they depend on institutions that can't or won't serve them.
The five sovereignties aren't about rejecting help. They're about building capacity so you can stand when you need to. Support others when they need you. Pass competence to future generations, not dependency.
When you can feed yourself, heal yourself, think clearly, regulate emotions, and walk with Creator, you're not just surviving.
You're ungovernable by systems that require your dependency to maintain their power.
That's not rebellion. That's alignment with natural law.
We're Listening
We're thinking about what comes next. How to share this work beyond the pages. Who needs it. What form it should take.
Before we build anything, we want to know what actually serves.
If the Five Sovereignties framework speaks to you, we want to hear from you.
Take our short questionnaire → Five Sovereignties
Not to sell you anything. To understand. To listen.
The Path Forward
Walking Through the Seasons is available now. The foundation. The relationship building. The actual work of connecting with plants, land, and all living things.
Book Two is coming. More seasonal teachings. More recipes and preparations. The five sovereignties woven through.
We're figuring out what teaching looks like beyond the written word. What programs honor the work. What serves the people who need it.
We pass forward what serves the next generation. Not messes to clean up.
The five sovereignties are here. We're naming them. We're listening.
Join us.
Darcy & Jenny Fisher
Get Walking Through the Seasons → Book
Take the questionnaire → Questionnaire
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