Sparkling Lotus Ink

libra fullness

During the past week  I've been meditating on the sign of libra - sometimes stopping what I'm doing in order to incorporate the action and whatever it yields into the fabric of whatever I was previously less than fully engaged with.  also re-watched Pam Gregory's full moon video last night.  It's been clarifying and given me food for thoughts and actions

yet at the same time

For me Libra is always seeming to be about:

social/justice

I think of it just like that, and then visualize separating social/ from justice in order to create a pair of scales.

Libra is a cardinal (self-directed/leader) sign and thus everything that underlying energetic imperative tends to mean as it pertains to the key of mind&wind.  

other Libra-specific properties and stomping grounds:  Elegant lines in life and thought.  aficionado and lover of beauty.  balance.  iron fist in velvet glove (for years I was very close to a double Libra soul sister who deeply relished that description of her particular mojo ...) and  at a top-down humanity level:  Queen or King of any given room of whatever kind  - which librans are justly known to read with impeccable grace and skill.  All stuff I habitually think about when considering Libra qualities and specific people that I know or have known - love or have loved.

But what I forgot about, and then recalled via PG's video - is something really paramount to moon gazing:

relationship.

The libra full moon energy began to gather itself two weeks ago.  It will continue for two weeks once the full moon sets. 

In that linear time frame

all manner of inner - and inter-personal - relationship may be illuminated.  All relationship of Self-to-Thing.  self-to-Self.  s/Self-to-Other

relationship seems to be coming up for a lot of us

the way presumed givens about our established RELATIONSHIP

to impeccability got real with any number of us last month.

.

What is our relationship to our earthwalk?  Why do we feel that entire chunks of our existence leave our connection to other-relationship impermeable, but this 'can't be helped'?  How are any of the other things we imagine to be true when we kinda-sorta know we're out of balance - but most primarily hold awareness of all the various things we most definitely do NOT intend to do about it - really as important as 'getting' balanced in order to maintain and consciously/constantly re-calibrate what balance authentically means to our hearts and souls?

I guess I'm asking

what if our most authentic richly layered life

of radical self-acceptance

isn't synonymous

with some type of special occasion

we deign to allow ourselves

every now and again

?

.

When I look back on the past week and a half or so, I can see how important Relationship has been to every other component of my life's flow.  Every single thing.  Furthermore, the energy surrounding this linear awareness has been illuminated by my ever-deepening understanding that our current cosmological flow is one of sacred unity and peace.  Both universal qualities are very elevated Libra ideals, and I really love my sense of the two universal properties flooding the earth's surface by way of reflected light that's also amplified by the cosmological specifics of this Libra full moon's point in spiraling linear time.

..

For the past day and a half I've been experiencing an offputting neurological and perceptual re-alignment process of sorts.  It's very reminiscent of grace's recent experience in that, although it's playing out quite differently, it contains the same cumulative experiential quality of combined linear happenstance and Visitation.  The other glaring similarity is that I was thrown all the way out of balance in a tangibly physical and perceptual/mental way. 

(i see for myself this happening as an act of imperfect perfection as I begin shifting prep-wise to the Sixth Chakra range.)

Thursday night I was sitting very happily in lotus position at my place at the dining room table - taking some realignment time following an amazing ancillary Healing Garden workshop with Lisa Estabrook.  She is a very gifted (libra) Spiral Talker.  Think everyone who participated wound up on a higher cloud as a result. Within that period of still elevated consciousness a tick bit me.  repeatedly.   I could see the small track the creature made along my outer breast, arm pit, and underarm. 

Ticks being the reality they are around here, and me having a very compromised immune system, I know some measure of what a tick can bestow beyond Lyme.  Lyme I know through J and his cumulative experiences with it.  'Knowing' (aka my favorite human entrapment) wasn't immediately relevant.  I was tripping my brains out courtesy of the two most successful bites .  It happened really fast - by the time  I was looking at the results in the mirror.  Even in that condition I knew to mother myself effectively.  I took the tick out in one clean pull like i do it all the time because I do. 

Usually, with a tick bite, I have a lot of local discomfort for maybe twice as long as would be normal with a more robust immune system.  But I've never had consciousness altering responses to any sort of insect bite beyond yellow jackets.   In this case, I stood in front of the mirror looking at the weird trail the tick forged on my body.  And it reminded me of ritualistic body scarification in a zoomed in scale-distortion version of itself.  It also reminded me of the parasitic tracks our species makes - not just on this planet but also out in space.  And - obviously- it reminded me of racism's ongoing parasitic determination to Win.

I recall speaking about the latter topic to my reflection.  That's not really unusual at all, unfortunately - but in this case I was doing it to make ongoing note that my tongue wasn't thickening and my pulse remained steady and wtihin normal range.  It was a very weird space of time.   In which I was my own mother, medic, and disintegrating self's version of Being My Own Best Friend.

it left me open to life-changing revelations concerning what's best kept and let go as well as where personal responsibility ends. 

getting that last, very particular piece caused me laugh for an extended period of time last night and in the earliest morning hours of moon gazing.  it was so far beyond therapeutic and elevating that I'm not sure what I would call it beyond

breathing in a very different key.

**Namaste**

 

amazing daze

Today I saw three hawks - the first of the season for me though I have seen a lot of turkey buzzards.  The hawk above had a partner and the other was solo.  Their cries are a happy addition to my garden time.  I've been outside a lot - poking around in the woods, doing chores, and spending a lot of time really bonding with this new growing season as it asserts more of itself.

The white pine tree I call The Treasured Daughter is really bursting with life force.  This tree was about eight inches tall when we moved here...

Day before yesterday I was called to make a 'surprise' crown chakra remedy for the Dive people and continued life in the SLI repertory.   Below the all important act of reciprocity has been implemented.   Poured excess matrix back on the colony after returning the nine bowl flowers to the ground  with each bloom tucked into the edges of the grouping.

Every year that I co-create in this way, the process becomes deeper and more layered at the same time it gets increasingly straightforward.   By now it's a form of muscle memory as well as an ongoing prayer.  Sent the captains a text with a pic of the bowl once the mother stock had been harvested and shaken to life.  Later, in the early evening enlivened by late slanting sun, Rory dropped by and played his harmonica for the colony.

I think they liked it!  This morning every single bud had opened and the colony seemed jubilant.

Mama holds lynx aspirations ...

Today I visited the special portion of the field's rock wall to repair the stone prayer stacks and a few new layers to one of the stacks.  While I was putting stones back into stacks I happened to notice one of the rocks has grafitti'd a crossroads symbol - must be from the mineral deposits that run right alone the fissures of the rock.

I made this sun ornament during a family Summer Solstice crafting endeavor to commemorate our first Summer 'in the country' after leaving Boston.  It's hung somewhere in the garden ever since.  While living in this place, I've changed its location every year but I think it will hang on the gate from now on. I also added some miniature cowbells and a few crystals that had been a bundled gift from a friend - with each item equipped with individual hanging ribbons and rope.  Didn't get this far last year but this year there's the luxury of more time.  I plan to embellish the gate a lot more over time, providence willing.

There are three bells and three crystals.  I hung the amethyst point so it's in shade for all but the earliest morning sun part of the day.   etc.

Am getting the feeling this may be a year when the local rocks are going to vibe a lot. 

Wakey, Wakey ...

Heart of Impeccability

not completely the right color range in the blooms but this image pretty much insisted on being the lede.  assuming it will resonate with somebody.

We're on the brink of another full moon.  This one will beam down upon us saturated in Virgo energy.  Like all the zodiac signs, the sign encompasses a lot of depth and nuance.  My long-standing awareness of the energy always leaves me leaning into the keyword: impeccability.

The Virgo full moon will bring us in touch with fast moving mercury-driven energy as well as an opportunity to bathe our consciousness in Luna's radiant reflection of impeccability, analytic prowess, and an ongoing invitation to move deeper along an individual and collective path of service.  Virgo's ruled by the planet mercury and the full moon's radiance may include swiftly re-written inner programming.  Stuff that hasn't made sense may suddenly fall into place.  Things that seemed insurmountably important may become less so or fall away altogether. 

Virgo's natural home is the sixth house.  This is the house of Service.  You heart chakra is, on certain levels, Service's primary temple of manifested illumination.  Try this, just now, as you're sitting to read:

Put your arms straight out in front of you so that your shoulders are straight but your arms slope down just a little bit.  Hold your hands out straight with the palms equally straight and facing each other.  Take a few cleansing breaths and then slowly open your arms while inhaling at the same pace you're opening your arms.  See how full and far you can fill your lungs.  Let your opened heart chakra breathe as if it, too, was a lung.  

imagine the universe breathing in unison with that kind of high quality energy flowing everywhere that sentience was equally open to project and receive.

light & love

rose

deep carmine

emerald green

magenta

jade - to rest and restore central, sympathetic and electric nervous systemste

chrysoprase to soothe and remove damage.  equally effective for land healing.  The Dive members and other friends are working with a blended red clover essence and chrysoprase elixir.  to repair and restore as and where needed. 

rose quartz to heal, period

sphaerocobaltite to strengthen bonds with a true friend

rhodochrosite - especially if your heart hurts enough to curl inward towards childhood response to such pains

rhodonite for self-acceptance just as you Are.

Think of these things and others that are personally relevant.  Pay attention to anything that appears or presents itself spontaneously.

 

 breathe through your heart and work with what you have that's been working so far to open and illuminate and heal the all-important primary chakras. 

 

try doing this every day for about a week.  Maybe two or three times a day.

see if you don't feel and perceive your heart center - and how limitlessly BIG it is - a lot more clearly after that time.

keep doing it, maybe ...

Meadowsweet is my favorite heart chakra toning and clarifying agent.  I work with this essence year-round as a constitutional of sorts.

yellow flower allies .1

This month the Dive is working with the SL golden crocus essence.  I just realized (I make them up for the group and one of the captains gets them about a week ahead of distribution time) I never got around to making a bottle for myself.  This will be changed within a 24 hour window!  This is a wonderfully illuminating and protective psychic and neuro-processing incubator of inner/cosmic Source energy.  Just writing and thinking about the flower's healing signature allows me to breathe more deeply and fully. 

The remedy was selected because everyone involved had a strong arc of spiritual expectation.  Crocus essence supports new growth/first birth/re-birth/re-generation of our soul's individual connection to Spirit.  This is the context in which I'm most familiar with the essence but I'm told there seems to be a gentle emboldening agent present as well.  Think this makes sense.  Solar energy may be fine tuning its frequency to a new level of Highest Good.  Maybe the pragmatic choices we're making and our 'ordinary' creative/gardening activities are holding us at a comparably higher frequency.  This is what innumerable prophecies (especially known to me by way of the Mayan flower based prophecies...) and channeled Ascendants have long suggested. 

sidenote:  the colony above grew in the original Sparkling Lotus garden - so self-named when I committed to co-creating in my modest array of garden beds in a high traffic suburban neighborhood. 

the golden crocus essence was co-created from the colony featured above, two spring seasons into the future - '07.  It's one of my favorites of all time as well as the crown jewel of that first extra special season of co-creative learning and deepening fascination/commitment.  Sometimes I have to put the essence away for a few years because I really do lean all the way into it.  Sequestration is my ingrained comfort zone ...

Since I forgot about the golden crocus connection I've spent the past week working with a Giant Hypercium I co-created last summer.  This was an auspicious essence prepared for someone who really resonated with the idea as soon as I offered.  We are close enough intuitively that I felt the flower's ultra-protective healing energy curling filaments of relief and illumination as soon as the offer was accepted.  The plant itself grows by the base of the porch.  It tends to bloom during the hot droughty portion of the summer.  I go out early in the morning to water the plant directly at the base.  It's not what's recommended but it keeps the flowers from frying.  I ... have trouble bearing witness to that as long as water's plentiful enough to supply.

I find it interesting that a flower with a healing signature that's an across-the-board master healer-illuminator-protective agent is so delicate and swift to die so dramatically if the sun's too strong and hot.  I like working with this Giant version because I feel it at the earthstar level as well.  Think I will recommend as an Awakener for people who aren't sure if they're getting the EarthStar hook-in point.

Classic field/indigenous St. Johnswort is a staple in most established commercial and well-stocked DIY flower essence repertory.  I love that it grows wild in our field and that others have come to gather the flowers for drying/magical purposes as well as with therapeutic or energetic intentions.  Not so many this year - three.  At first I was sad.  On top of so much permanent loss - to feel distinctly deprived of casual and usually taken for granted social exchanges in the field or studio.    But then I was grateful.   Rarely did we interact directly.   I kept track of extremely care-full and light footed human traffic by monitoring the way the St Johnswort flower clusters changed from a dusk inspection to early morning to later afternoon. 

A certain truck I knew by ear and then would scamper to see what small unobtrusive carefully built rock formation I might find.   Some I didn't find until absolutely everything appeared to have died back.    Nearly everyone I know locally gathers the flowers to make therapeutic oil and most are quite upfront that they dry the flowers for ritual use as well.  I like gaining understanding of how this aspect of herbalism weaves itself rather casually person to person.  One friend confessed she didn't know why she did it.  She simply liked keeping them in a brandy snifter with other dried yellow flowers she kept there throughout the season. 

I said to her:  that's why you do it!  It's your dark months' eternal sunshine!  Now I do it too.  I also  like include yellow topaz and small unravelling scraps of yellow silk and/or coarse linen.

The most popular blend in the SL repertory is called Mellow Yellow.  This is the co-creation bowl set at the edge of my dedicated essence garden at the top of a hillside orchard.  Summer of '05.  I have written out  the first few bars of the story here.  Some seeds were sown with the explicit understanding that they'd give their flowers to an essence bowl rather than setting seed.  This was the case with the Moon and Stars melon flowers in this bowl.  For creative illumination and prolific growth.  There's also a pumpkin flower for deepening and illuminating a more intentional energetic footprint.  Lots of yellow marigolds for smoothing and adjusting electrical energy flow.  Marigolds of any kind serve as a kind of psychic and electrical recalibration tool.  Times when we don't feel like ourselves, can't get comfortable in our own skin.  understand we need to experience what we're experiencing BUT.  All of that can be eased via French Marigold's energetic signature.

There are yellow nasturtiums for revitalizing depleted/overtaxed neural passageways.  Lots of tiny yellow wood sorrel blooms for sharing quiet and prolific radiance among kindred souls and spirits.  Promotes awareness and appreciation of the small and innumerable private treasures our days can hold once we gear ourselves to noticing them.  Tomato flowers offer deep cleansing to our entire energetic system.  Like all nightshade healing signatures - the Tomato spirit confers great levels of personal agency in terms of what we consciously 'allow'.  My experiences of personal and observation natures suggest it will then take things just a couple of degrees past that point.  Enough to be noticed but not enough to automatically shut it down especially when blended and mellowed with so many other healing and illumination signatures.

Yellow snapdragons to both loosen bite-back TMJ issues and concurrently re-calibrate ingrained certainty a sharp tongue is the quickest way to getting an answer/establishing pecking order/etc.  There are also a few volunteered Evening Primrose flowers in the bottom of the bowl.  This healing signature is established as a go-to for Mother Issues in a number of repertories.  I've found it invaluable for myself and others in helping to breaking up and dissolving deeply impacted layers of unclaimed or unexamined shame. It's really good for seemingly unresolved disconnect from Mother which I tend to interpret on broader terms of the absence of direct Gaia-Mama contact in many woman's lives.

I kept meeting such women in an online context during the summer I was co-creating this essence blend

I grew these zucchinis explicitly for the flowers although, being zucchinis, I also harvested food.  Zucchini is the energetic equivalent of a self-care afternoon - whatever that might mean at an individual level.  For me it usually means time off the clock - and enough of it to authentically drift.  What the teenage version of my son used to call a non-day.  Molly Sheehan used to say the essence was the equivalent of a day home in your pajamas.  So it's really nice for people who give care or other forms of healing/leading/teaching as an ongoing part of life.  Also wonderful for parents of young children or spousal caregivers who need to get the verve for the extra miles they must travel in unusual and creative ways.

there are a lot of yellow flowers set aside for this chakra as I spent the upper part of two hours this morning going through photo archives pulling out everything I could find along the way.  So amazing  - the ongoing flower strewn path through my life ...

 

Orange Summation

    
This is a post of reflection woven with my final week's sacral themes: Synchronicity & Co-creation.

On a personal level that synchs-in well with the end-of-water-cycle song I've always intended to post as a listen only '20 remaster of Uncle John's Band.  What else could I possibly pick?  A song that gives me shivers of happiness and knew-so-many-people--from-before glad tidings each and every time I hear it.

***

We're currently abiding in the energy of a Cancerian full moon with its peak expression most likely happening today or early tomorrow depending where you live and how vibe-sensitive you are.  My feelings about water-sign full moons are mixed.   For one thing they bring up so much intensity of feeling, memory, and intuition that my various fire aspects more or less leave the building in order to the preserve their essence.  I never enjoy those times.  Without my fire/solar energy I'm never quite sure who I am.

example:  I once went into a local apothecary on a nothing-but-water day.  It was near the end of the third (solar) month of my first self-guided chakra intensive experience.  One of my biggest illuminations from that experience occurred when I realized I had no idea who I was on the inside.  I knew what I did.  I knew what I was good (and for that matter bad) at.  I knew where I'd been and where I wanted to go but I didn't know who I was at the most pivotal and entirely solar center of my own self-awareness.  I didn't have any sense of that energetic wheel at all.

[blue is the sacral center's cool-down color.  This can be hard for people who don't really "do" deep water energy work very comfortably or at all IF they happen to associate blue with Water rather than Sky.  I had that problem for a while with a strong glowing red sense of connection to my root chakra.  Red to me was fire and hence I could never seem to get 'grounded' vibes from it so much as rapaciousness.

Three different people have asked me about this blue/water /how-can-that-possibly-help-me-dry-out conundrum.  And much as I've chafed over hearing this answer myself it's the truest truth.  Just in case there are others:  You have to concentrate.  You have to be willing to accept that in the beginning your concentration might not seem to be produce anything you can recognize - or anything at all.  You have to be okay with that and remain open to nothing happening.  This "failure" is quite likely to re-assert itself as an out of the blue insight or inspiration that seems to present itself in an immediate and wholecloth way.   Be open to the appearance of  BLUE color ray energy appearing of its own accord to cool excess orangeness and/or to emphasize something that seems to emerge spontaneously at the speech and/or vision energy centers.  This may happen in synch with the Dive or at a future point - most likely when you least expect it.]

***

Montana Blue Centaurea, pictured above, makes a wonderful flower essence most usually associated with the head chakras.  But look at the feathery petals.  Imagine gently dropping the womb-center's energy into a bed of such magnificence.  I find it's really invaluable for stabilizing and clarifying the sacral energetics of intuition.  The more powerful it feels the more I seek to counterbalance that with some ongoing degree of head-based Vision clarity.  Montana Blue and Italian Alkanet are equally amazing for this kind of crystalline back-up. 

***

 At the time of my first (self and book guided) chakra intensive experience back in my late 30's I 'thought I'd done something wrong' or otherwise misguided.  So I went into the store seeking advice on how to gain a sense of who I was.  This upset the store owner who refused to accept the reality of me on a no-fire day.  (she was an aries and we related to each other in a distinctly aries kinda way...)  Just would not accept it and so there were tears profound enough to convince her - okay, this person I in no way perceive as having this type of problem is having it nonetheless.  

She went to her healer's strengths as well as her pendulum while I told her I needed something to help me know how I to get all the links in my energy chain lit and linked up as an ongoing thing.  We settled on a specific tarot deck and Sweetgrass flower essence.  Taking it led me to "suddenly" think or imagine four different ways I already was connected to my entire column as well as my full self but had simply/not-so-simply forgotten how to utilize the power/personal responsibility of turning the lights from bright to dim.  The problem had been my hyper-specific notions of how I was "supposed" to be doing and feeling things. 

[California Poppy holds so much healing for our species.  The entire plant containing all its phases of seed pods, flowers and buds, and roots can be tinctured for a very effective pain relieving agent.  I like adding three parts California Poppy to one part dried lavender buds previously whizzed through a blender.  Although I usually chop and grind to maximize surface area - the first time I work with a plant for tincturing purposes, I always ask the plant's primary/largest plant colony ahead of gathering - which would you prefer in order to help me and together help others? CaliPop always wants to remain intact for me.  At least so far.

I work with California Poppy flower essence a lot and for many reasons.  Primarily I take it in combination Green Bells of Ireland.  Year before (almost) last I was guided by both flower medicine spirits in a series of dreams and meditations.  They wanted - as in REALLY wanted - a small plot in the field garden where they could grow and commune together specifically to combine in an essence.  I promptly ordered the necessary seeds and buzzed with anticipation.  will tell the whole story - picking up at this point when we're deeper into the Solar region of Everything.

P.S.  the two flowers pictured above were part of the essence bowl's contents.]

***

A few days ago we had prodigious rainfall.  This caused several types of shifted consciousness.  For one thing the precipitation and 8 inches of snow melt runoff caused a true watershed's worth of water to barrel through the edge of our property more or less within the stream bed.  In some places it broached the bed and spring run-off grooves long established.  I stood at the glass doors in J's office and quite suddenly understood why this specific perspective leaves him at times preoccupied with flooding potential.  Always thought it was a dimensional skew based on what I see from the much higher back window in the studio.  And it is, but on my end. 

As I stood watching from the studio stairs I opened the window so I could also hear the water running while the rain pounded in the stream and everywhere else. It sounded without exaggeration as loud as the spontaneous waterfalls that formed following flash-flooding just above the tree-line in Yosemite on an afternoon in late August when my son and I were there.  Also, as I stood listening from the safety of Inside, I felt in my body the way I've felt on a trail ride when the horses go all horse-like one right after the other with a ripple of Horse Expression that could mean nothing or everything.  It was exhilarating and I took it in as a fitting end to this month of sacral challenge, deliverance, and ongoing illumination. 

J took a short film from the center of the bridge just past noon when everything was at its peak level of water-based mayhem and chaos.  I waited two more days and didn't go out to the same spot until yesterday morning.  By then the water had receded and slowed itself a good bit.  Took some pictures of the ice and water.  Walked in the woods just a little to see portions of what J describes based on his daily repetitive loop.  The path out to the field is deep muck.  I need to coordinate mental incentive with physical willingness to leave the sacral womb-feeling of my studio space because the field will be even deeper muck. 

as we get ready to move towards the yellow/solar center I'm thinking alot about cauldrons.  Fire forging a cauldron of some kind from earth-metals or very thick clay.   the cauldron holding whatever water/sacral energy we may need for continuing.

Namaste

Red Flower Essences

I wrote a post about co-creating this essence last spring.  All things considered it felt like a no-brainer for working through the Dive during November/first chakra month.  I've grown to love this particular essence a lot since its co-creation.   The maple tree waited until the full conclusion of our first decade in residence before reaching out to me in the undeniable and very warm-spirited way that it did.

Maple's flower healing signature relates to balance.  Last month's decibel and cage-rattling level was greatly soothed for me by the physical Maple tree itself as well as essence work on a daily basis.  I find working with the essence paired with meditation seems to open the door for more space in my days and evenings to simply reflect.  Not necessarily thoughts/reflection but perhaps just reflect the energy I've gathered and dispersed - reflect its overall form and purpose rather than my sole part of it.  

I really like the way that feels and how I'm able to notice my body responding with a loosening of tension.  It makes me think of the Buddha and the lesson of the bow that must be tightened neither too loose nor too tight.

the Crocosmia healing signature is crystalline and unmistakably direct to root and illuminate the energetic spine.  This often translates as a sudden uptick in energy level - a bustling spring in the step that was merely getting from one place to another prior to essence work. 

I love working with this flower in combination bowls or individual synergies prepared from separate mother stocks.  This past summer I felt a nudge to replace the SL Crocosmia mother essence. The resulting bowl was splendiforous.

Cardinal Flower essence has been chosen to root and sanctify the ongoing exploratory Dive process.  Am finding it's nice to 'finish' maple balancing endeavors with a flower so expressive of other realms of influence/reality.  The cardinal flower's healing signature relates to restoring sacred forms of dignity, illumination, and intent. 

In the mid-to-late fall I discovered small blooming cardinal flowers at the edges of the front yard's side pocket gardens.  The blossoms were exuberant in my noticing of them.  I promptly set up some bamboo stakes that I hope will survive the winter.  Otherwise I won't be sure where the plants are within the larger patch of lawn where I found them.

but maybe if i simply focus and listen ...

Flowering Quince is often associated with the crown chakra and sometimes the heart-sacral bridge.  For me the bright red blooms in my garden speak of a richly flourishing root chakra. When I work with the essence I always have the sense of individual stems rising from the petal bed at each juncture where two petals overlap.  I visualize the stems growing throughout my energetic spinal column - watching the buds form, fatten and release into blooming.  The flowers' healing and illumination range centers on timeless vibrancy and gentle resilience.

the Yarrow Flower medicine spirit is deeply protective.  In established essence work of the past 70 years or so yellow yarrow is well tested as a master shield for both gross and subtle human bodies.  This past summer I received some quiet counsel from the white yarrow plantlets that began appearing along a certain part of our enlarged field garden's new fencing.

 Have kind of mushed my initial impressions of the medicine spirit's entreaty to work, think, and cocreate with local varieties whenever possible in with Pam Gregory talking about the dissolution of the magnetic shield.  And then further mushed with common sense, survivalist thinking, and more generalized pragmatism.  It seems likely that whatever yarrow grows in a fully wild state - or very close to it - is going to be any given alchemist's best choice of a master shield. 

Welcoming a Yarrow ally as electrical and psychic back-up is a wonderful gift during times of prolonged duress.  It can also be just as lovely and well-applied for those who work in a capacity of guidance or healing - counseling, etc.  I like it for times when it seems that staying true to myself needs its own time alone in a bubble of sorts - while concurrently carrying on with life (and its attendant emotions) as close to normally as possible.  Also love spending time among flowering yarrow plants.  My sister in law has virtual groves of the deep golden yellow variety growing throughout her NoCali version of a wild garden.

the Echinacea flower healing vibration is always related to deep/bedrock level restoration of soul and spirit as well as mind and body.  This specific flower may have been included in the essence bowl.  I was really happy to see how vibrantly and fully the plant flowered in mid-summer.  Earlier in the season it developed a very obvious co-creative relationship with an enormous volunteer foxglove in the Evolving Sanctuary garden.

Have been working with a few folk who are profoundly shook by all we've been through and continue to experience throughout the globe.  I have a strong preference for offering Echinacea remedies (along with Elderberry and perhaps Lime) for the special needs of complex PTSD as well as those in occupations with a strong ongoing trauma component flagging ongoing need for self-care and ongoing restorative life choices.

i hope to write in more depth on this topic and then figure out how to get the words distributed most efficiently.  stay tuned.

Red Bee Balm is a very versatile essence.  It clears the head chakras beautifully and also shows an affinity for brain-level neuro-circutry.  This is obvious from the shape and form of the flower.  What's also obvious is the long square shaped stem that places this species in the mint family.  The sturdy stem always reminds me of the spinal column when perfectly straight.  I like to image the flower in a visualization that places the flower against the spinal column as if the blossom could move up and down - not unlike a clear class elevator on the outside of a building.  In that visual image, the flower describes the essence's capacity to travel up and down throughout the chakra system - at speed that may compromise detailed examination but not illuminated awareness.

[grace actually spoke to this but i can't remember where.  a comment and maybe it's here and I can find it to place right here.]

I find red bee balm flower essence to be a special friend to those who have chronic illness and/or pain.  The certain zap that chronic anything applies to every layer of be-ing is not to be underestimated.  Our subtle energy bodies need nourishment and the energetic equivalent of electrolyte rebalancing. 

Since this is a very solar plant I thought to work with it when I felt I was good and thoroughly caught up with crying after so many years of refusing to do as much.  A dream guided me to put a single drop of mother stock in the center of my crown.  I waited while it was absorbed and then visualized its passageway through my energy system.  Am setting aside a few scant dropper bottles with the mother stocks so there's no need to the original storage bottle more than once.  Just to be prepared in this way.  It feels important and possibly a partial refinement of rescue remedy as it's best applied in our variety of destabilizing circumstance?

a little more red and some orange up next...

let's pretend this is twitter

If only so I can say:  enjoy this emotional timeline cleanse.  The noise here in the States is getting intrusive right along with the rising Covid numbers here in the town where I live and elsewhere in MA. 

Above is a part of the front yard's side pocket area that I took to calling The Indigenous Tribute Garden.  It could also be called the result of the gate in the background being stuck shut during a time when J was putting in 70 hour weeks so it took a while to fix.  I just directed him where to stop mowing and then I had a nearby place to commune with many of the plants I wildcraft from the field much farther from human dwellings and roads. 

Think I've found the fulcrum I'll need to have a better sense of how to proceed blogging about chakras in a long haul way. My mind's been an ongoing roadblock of no consequence to anyone but me.  At the same time on that whirling mind level the consequence feels endless if entirely self-perpetuated. 

the good news is if it's something I'm doing it's something I can stop doing.  And have already begun.

this pic or something similar will show up in the next post mixing red and orange flower images with short descriptions of their essences.  The photo above was taken during the summer I kept this garden in the summer of '05.  As described in that early post, I approached a local CSA manager to see if I might have 'a bit of earth' specifically to co-create flower essences.  She didn't know what they were but she knew about Bach Rescue Remedy.  I told her were I lived (densely populated by any standards not just ex-urbs) and she immediately brought me in.

It was a magical summer that culminated with hurricane Katrina.   Thus it was a pivotal personal development summer as well.  This was borne-out in astrology, my local teaching efforts, and just time spent on the edge of a wonderful old orchard right at the summit of an equally wonderful New England hill.   As I was writing these words it seemed as if it was also a summer that - within my own mind - asked me to grow all the way up and get truly creative in terms of how I put my energy into the world as a healer. 

J takes afternoon walks around our neighborhood's roads.  Yesterday he brought in the garden bell that we both overlooked until I suddenly remembered in the middle of the night.  Knew the beautiful knotted tibetan cord probably wouldn't withstand more than another year if that so am glad to have it re-hung in its new and greatly improved winter location.

Today temps rose to the high 30's.  local road traffic has thinned considerably.  T's various electronic and building projects are kudzu-ing basement real estate.  J and I have agreed to investigate standing light garden units.  Something modest and just the equivalent of what I have now or even a bit less.  If the service bureau's work slows down for him he's likely as not to figure out how to make it - or at least the frame - himself. 

Tomorrow I'm putting on muck-boots and walking around the field for awhile...

 

Water Music for Turning a Shadow's Tide

If the sheer magnitude of the second chakra's already wiping you out (raises hand) here are ten songs to move to before all the water freezes solid.  Originally there were 11 but I sensed a particular song might not cut it for most or potentially all of my usual readers if I drew attention to that song in addition to Bad Romance. I like to post music only links but for a few of these I had to accept settling for video links. 

Under The Bridge -  The cool thing about making a mix tape is the way I like to start with something that almost makes the expectations of others presume I don't know what I'm doing. I was asked to start with this one 'for personal reasons' directly after I was asked if I'd mind spending part of my Sunday afternoon compiling this post.  Hopefully I'll make it up to those who expected things to lead off with Prince just cuz it's me.  Instead he's where he belongs on the momentum's trajectory curve instead.

I Wanna Be Sedated Remember when I copped to being a former wicked accomplished drinkah?  This was my absolute favorite song back then.  I still can't sit down for it.  "oh no oh oh oh - oh ho!"

Bad Romance   As soon as I heard this song for the first time I embraced it as retroactive 'celebration' of something that happened with a deeply scorpionic individual who inspired me, at 22, to write an entire group of poems entitled The Ides of Lust.   There's nobody like Stephanie for breaking this stuff down.  I love her.  This is a great dance-able reload.

Premonition - one of my favorite songs of its day.  I used to walk around singing to my various work friends "I must be crazy/I must seein' thangs"

The Chain -  'i can still hear you sayin'  elevated(?) break-up music vibe.  And that album cover!  total sacral shadow.  Dance it out of yourself.

[the one I took out but I'll tell you what it is - Side to Side.  Feel free to add it back if you like. Especially since Ariana was my Cancerian artist to complete the water trilogy.]

When Doves Cry - I mean when you want to get serious about either this chakra or dancing your way through it you go to the master, right?

Blood Sugar Sex Majik -   shadow-Scorpio's theme song. Also that's Anthony's sun sign.  Even I who categorically sucks at guessing such things correctly found this one impossible to get wrong.  This was the only RHCP I'd planned to include because how can I not. And still could not even once the person I'm supporting in all of this specifically asked for "the addiction song" to top the list. I like the way it mixes with the song on either end so I've broken my rule about only one song from one artist per mix.

I'll Be Missing You  I'm sure we all have somebody unique and special to think about while this one grooves its way along.

 I've Got My Mind Set On You.  Because Pisces always closes out the wheel.  Definitely a bit of yellow/third chakra bleed to the vibe but I didn't want to give this spot to any old Pisces  so ...

greetings of the season

I've been alerted that Jim Morrison is not showing up again in the post below this one.  It's just not the same without him - at ALL - so here's a look at the long fairly typical New England driveway at the house with the huge Black Lives Matter sign out by the road.  Week before last I noticed they've added a Peace Flag with a very colorful background.  A flashy relative of our more traditional rainbow Pace flag. 

I was nervous about taking this picture same as last time but equally determined.  I heard a very big sounding dog bark behind me and met a very wonderful - and quite enormous - white dog.  I tried to find the breed online by searching on 'big white dogs'.  The only pic I found of the one I saw  did NOT have a breed name to accompany it.  But that particular pup of the same unknown type was evidently named Annabelle.

The dog I actually met was friendly, covered with dry plant debris, and joyously - but perhaps not intentionally - unaccompanied.  I got in my car promptly rather than lingering.

Drove on this road twice on Wednesday because the first time I couldn't find the apple pie add-on we'd ordered.  It was difficult to accept so I checked everything four times to no avail.  When I got home I emailed to see if she'd prefer to give us credit or have me write and mail a new check in the corrected amount.  Seems her husband was helping out and put out our pie with the wrong name.  Back I went to get it.  We had two other pies but 'somehow' (side-eye at the person who declared it a somehow type of situation...) they were both more than half eaten by Wednesday mid-morning following our traditional family pre-Thanksgiving Pie Breakfast.

I am thankful for many things.

hope you are too ...

soft asylum/fire's light

today things seem to look as they should for this post.  Discovered as much after seeing grace's 'who i am' post.  This sparked the realization that my shared chakra exploration with J was beginning to yield some 'who we are' insights.  This post is definitely a placeholder for one of them. 

Here we are:  a congregation of All in the season of Sagittarius. 

brought to you by both sides of one of my favorite-ever Preachers of Fire aligned with this particular astro-sect.

I used to drink -far too easily and to outrageous excess.  This "worked" for me in a scarily easy to rationalize kind of way from my twenty fourth birthday until I was twenty six, newly married, and J wasn't having it the afternoon he came home from work to find me passed out on the bed for the third time in the work week.  Once I was up and cognizant he said to me "we aren't living this way." And I noticed he slid the we in there.  Not making it an "I" thing or a "you" thing. I saw the organism of alchohol's wholecloth and understood something very important that didn't distill into words for another few days.  In which I didn't drink.  And then just continued not drinking month after year.  And still do not.   It's one of the few accomplishments I can truly claim that I perceive worth mentioning as 'a thing I'm doing with-in my life'.  

Two different Jims told me loud and clear to knock that shit off in two completely different ways and moments of my younger life experience.  I just realized that about a month ago.  It was a major piece of life-review settled effortlessly into place within the over-arching context of a collaborative writing project I was invited to join.

I wonder what might have happened if the original Jim had been gifted with a partner or spouse as on point as my own Jim was and remains for me?