Sparkling Lotus Ink

shake rattles & sing .3

April '07 - rattling the south-facing garden beds awake at our former home.  

eta:  a very different Molly's word tincture: Molly Sheehan of Green Hope Farm Essences.

Yesterday in the later afternoon I got a text from J. who was elsewhere in the house or yard.  He said it was going to start raining in about an hour and a half and was predicted to keep going for four days.  That's how I wound up in the way-back machine of my searching for the specific lede pic today.  Am glad for the rain since we had so little snow.  The more rain inches we can soak into the ground the better it will be once micro-droughts define themselves.   But perpetual low-light will not make for compelling blog documentation.

***

Am currently putting together a super concrete - you need these things and then you do these specific steps - type of How to Make a Flower Essence post.  Once it's published this will link back to all the posts that are previously filed under that category.   The pragmatic how-to post is meant to be amplified by all those other posts in both direct content and more deep-reading between the lines.  So far as I can tell, anyone who openly shares something authentic about themselves in relation to this blog has quite an adept feeling for their organic landscape and its specific spirit(s) of place.  Not to mention a special affinity for many of the plants and trees that grow there.

All such affinity is, in effect, an integral part of how-to make/co-create an essence.  This type of high-crisis moment - at a nuts and bolts level - is an awesome time for anyone who wants to participate in healing themselves, their environments, and their own growing spaces to actively do something that crystallizes the spark in their heart's dreams and healing wishes for All That Is on our beautiful and increasingly broken-apart home here on earth.

Above is a blended-flower bowl that yielded a wonderfully comprehensive remedy called Mellow Yellow.   The essence came to life on the hillside where I kept a plot specifically devoted to raising flowers I wished to prepare as flower essence mother stocks.  If you follow the link you'll land on one of the first posts I made here. You'll see a picture of me from '05 looking equally content and determined.  Same pitchfork  but now I wear shoes with hard shells like a sensible person.  Or wait to do whatever until I am wearing them.

for the curious and knowledgeable alike - here's a thumbnail synopsis of the bowl's contents. 

Broccoli - Scours the psyche in a way that allows us to see how/when/why we interpret the actions of others as personalized victimization.  Offers psychic and emotional fortitude to deal with that skew IF we've a mind to.

Marigold - Very supportive of neural circuitry and its vibrancy level.  This essence - in whatever form of flower variety and color - has been indispensable in essence combinations that are geared to supporting integration with the larger/higher/faster frequency that so many of us tend to 'catch' even if we keep our awareness of it deliberately small or convince ourselves it's merely wish fulfillment or Nothing At All.

Nasturtium - boosts the circuitry of the electrical body.  A boon for those who tend to fade somewhere between the 6th and 8th inning stretch of any given day.

Pumpkin -  Helps support our subtle and physical bodies' need to galvanize under duress/situations focused on The Choice of No Choice.  Helps you locate whatever you need energetically to do whatever it takes mentally & physically in order to bring a necessary project to a timely conclusion.

Snapdragon - to smooth the bite in your communicative style if you've normally got one.  To help you keep from developing such bite under duress - especially when thrown into a situation where you personally have little to no control and it angers you.

Vatican Tomato -  Tomato's healing signature addresses situations in which we've actively allowed patterns of self-sabotage to become normalized behavior to you. 

Moon and Stars Watermelon - psychic birthing & midwifery to support life's expansive changes and creative hot streaks.  Times two thanks to the above contributor.

Yellow Wood Sorrel - hydrates physical and emotional burnout associated with hypersensitivity. 

Zucchini - supports kinder & gentler self-care initiation than we generally allow ourselves.

The above packets hold the remainder of the other seeds I've started under lights in the basement - rattling all the way.  Lincoln leeks and basket flowers are regular must-grows for me.  African foxgloves are fairly well known to me in their purple form.  They've grown with a gorgeously prolific branching pattern on various parts of the property but never taller than 3 - 3.5 feet. Am trying the white variety because they reach 5 -6 feet when they're happy.  Was thinking I'd inter-plant with Indigo Spires salvia here and there within the Evolving Sanctuary bed.   I really love gracefully architectural combos that intermix white and blue flowering plants - arranged in a visual chain that stays embedded in the mind's eye most vividly right before dusk.   This I learned from a wonderful garden design book called Color Echoes in the Garden.

  One day about a month ago an early morning dream spirit advised I grow Sweet Thai basil rather than my favored cinnamon variety.  The latter has been indispensable for decades as our family dinner iced beverage of choice during the summer months.  Couldn't find any on offer at any of my preferred seed sources when I finally ordered.  So that turned out to be an on-point lucid swerve from the Beyond.  Never heard of this bergamot variety before.  It's capable of reaching maturity in a single season in this hardiness zone range.  If it doesn't then I won't see what the flowers are like in relation to our bee, butterfly, hawkmoth and hummingbird contingents.  Not unless I can figure out how to successfully winter it over somewhere in the garage ...

shake rattles & sing .2

Yesterday my body felt too sore and stiff to push any yoga-related edges.  I took the day off and further took my time getting to the point of taking time outdoors.  When I did get as far as planting columbine seeds I worked with Mama's close attendance.  She startled some when I produced the rattle and commenced shaking it but ultimately held her ground there on the ledge where the rattle rests in this picture.  I pressed seeds of the two columbine varieties featured as a visual lede in yesterday's post into the chilly soil.  The predicted n'oreaster is being successively downgraded.  Had hoped for 3-4 inches of snow but now they're saying just a dusting.  That's why I reserved half the seeds in each packet.  Have strong and seemingly good ideas of where I might plant those in another three and a half weeks.  I have viable delphiunium seeds in a box in the dining room closet. I'm thinking of starting them in a whiskey barrel in the field.  See what might emerge successfully enough to transplant into pots until they're sturdy enough to plant-out with next year's garden in mind.

wellness check of the day:  Make sure you aren't adopting habits of shallow breathing patterns.  Take slow steady breaths in.  Hold for release and then exhale slowly.  Shut your eyes and breathe for five minutes - preferably standing in soft morning sunlight and just before twilight descends in the evening.

J. fixed-up a hybrid wheelbarrow from various parts of two useless versions.  We now have two that function just at the time of year we need wheelbarrows most.  It was the first day I successfully nudged myself to get back to reading something I'm glad to be absorbing first thing in the morning.  Am beginning with a re-read of a book I loved the first time through:

It should be said that I met and briefly knew Jay Leutze in the mid-90's by way of a writing class at the Boston adult education center.  He was head and shoulders talented above and beyond anyone else in the room including the instructor.  We sat next to each other and at a certain point after he'd revealed he was working on a fictional trilogy I could not control the NEED to ask if I might read the fair copy (such things still existed then ...) of the first volume.

It was brilliant and as recently as last year I recalled a particular running theme without being able to place the book it came from for upwards of a week.  Shortly after I read that novel he moved Back Home to the mountain that features as a main character in the book above.  In addition to about a dozen books that are new to me I'd also set aside a small pile of re-reads last fall for my 2020 reading goals.  For a small window of time back in January I felt this particular book might not be a good fit since there really aren't any more safety nets left to allow environmental Davids to trounce industrial Goliaths.

but this is an excellent record of the time Before.  In time people will need to study this kind of thing as a way of figuring out how to bring more balance back to the land/people dichotomy.

(also I have never forgotten the way Jay could read a sentence or two of somebody else's draft aloud and if it was yours you'd sit there thinking.  "Wow.  My words can SOUND like that.")

shake rattles & sing .1

It's a sunny new england day but still quite chilly.   I'll add long johns under my gardening trousers and then head out, pomegranate rattle in hand,  to wake up the soil a bit.  Tomorrow morning I'll press the tiny poppy-like seeds into the soil and wish them good fortune.  Word of a nor'easter coming our way with six inches of snow expected is actually perfect for columbines.  I may scatter some larkspur and poppy seeds as well.

Columbines really like it here especially in and around the evolving sanctuary garden.  These two choices have been calling to me since the 2020 Select Seeds offerings went live back in January.  Once I finally did order I dickered for awhile over the "necessity" of them but then ultimately decided new columbine varieties for my garden are definitely in the hyacinths for our souls category.

Just below the trumpet vines you can see the earth I turned and rattled-over.  The seed bed extends several feet and I'll sow two islands with plenty of room inbetween.  Aside from cutting space to stand and tend to the seedlings we needed to cut down two secondary vines that were much too close to an enormous tree-like poison ivy entity.  It never went dormant so we didn't risk cutting it down.

You can see above, the two cut vine stems still entwined in the fence wire.   There's also a stripling elm to be cut on the other side of the ivy.   Just one of the many things that got out of hand the year Jim got Lyme and I was clobbered with an eruption of Graves Disease.   Seems we are still catching up from two critical 'gap years' for both of us.  But we are glad and grateful to have a place to be outside and moving .

There's a lot I'd love to clean up right here but the retaining wall and subsequent ground above isn't very stable.  Upon reflection I'm glad there will be plenty of roosting places available for the dozens of tiny birds who live here.  I want them to stay on general principle but also because they eat the poison ivy berries and also those of a nearby poison sumac.

While we were working two neighbors walked by.  They appeared to be together yet practicing extreme distancing.  J. saw them yesterday and concluded they walk at significantly different paces.   The woman complained to me of an eyesore across the road.  She asked if I had ever complained about it or asked that it be removed.  I said uh-huh same as I'd said when she asked if I wished it wasn't there in place of how beautiful it used to be.

it's taken a decade but I've learned how to fit in. 

My pomegranate rattle is very elderly and every year the seeds inside speak more loudly....

 

today's outside time

Today on J.'s lunch hour we came out to the field to consider the garlic and ... something else not quite gelled yet... bed that he created yesterday afternoon - one pitchfork at a time.  HA!!  I have convinced the usually-has-a-better-idea sorta virgo man in my life that pitchforking rocks everything else if you're truly serious about healthy soil.  He said he saw worms everywhere as he was working.  We stood and considered his accomplishment in silence for awhile.  Silent - or nearly so - brains as well.  Studying soil we played an active part in creating.

We looked around without speaking much and eventually mulched the new bed with a generous layer of straw.   Yesterday while Jim made that bed I eradicated all the sumac trees that have begun to block light on the garden's eastern edge.  Marked places where the sumac runners should be pulled ASAP and also pulled as many as far and wide as I could.  Usually I do that for three hours and then do nothing for another two days.  But I did that for about two hours and then pulled up/cut down dead remnants of last years garden. I needed to do that in order to mentally divide it into a nine patch grid.  That will make it easier to keep track of what needs doing - where and when.

Everything in the natural landscape feels vibrant and fully perked to keep the waking process going.  In the image above the garden bench has been moved farther from the bed.  There will  be a strip of grass path there into the original square growing space.  In my head I see the whole thing dug, tilled and dug, mulched and replanted.  In my heart it blooms to sustain us. 

Later in the afternoon J. wheeled around a corner of our house quite suddenly when/where I didn't expect him but that's how he rolls so I've learned to do the same.  He told me to stay away from the news if I was already upset and so of course I asked why and he told me and then I needed another vigorous eradication sort of project in search of calm or at least some clear space.

I have plans for the space beneath the Japanese Dogwood that's part of the original landscaping and her two self-sown daughters.  I also have plans to get as much of this small corner of pachysandra outta here before everything's too grown around the plant to get to it effectively.  The soil here is SUPER rich and perfect for my intended purpose.

[thought I posted this last night.  today it's snowing but very lightly.  Was expected...]

Plant Geek Eyes: the tarot edition

Not so long ago I acquired the tarot deck pictured above by winning a runner-up lottery prize from a regional herbal collective.  Quite a bit more recently an old ethnobotany buddy who off-and-on reads here SOS'd me on the subject of the same deck.  Was asked if I'd do a visual breakdown explaining how I approach a new deck in order to become more familiar with it.  Although I'd normally be inclined to post this on my secondary blog the gorgeous plant-elevating artwork feels like it's ultimately a better fit for this space. 

 go here if you want to see a thorough (and thoroughly lovely) PROPER review of this particular deck.

 Hope my process/approach sparks ideas of how you might personalize and enhance the experience of familiarizing yourself with a previously unexplored deck or perhaps your very first.

My first move once the deck is out of the box is to liberate it from its paper ribbon.  I hold it gently in my left/receiving hand while using my right to open the deck's accompanying guidebook to a random page.  I then retrieve the card (this will be easy even if you've never done it before because a virgin deck is arranged in perfect numerical/suit order)  corresponding with the page I opened in the booklet.  In this case is was a very short search-and-find walk to The High Priestess.

I don't initially focus on the left brain/info part of this introductory gesture.  I simply look at the card.  Noticing what it feels like vibrationally and what I admire most about its visual presentation.  Making note of what ultimately resonates - or fails to. 

* If you've got a frame of reference for other decks notice how this card differs from and/or fulfills your expectations in terms of vibe, specific illustration, and color palette.

*If this is your first deck try looking at the card's imagery as if it had been created for your specific scrutiny.  Solidify some type of personal response to what you see:  note your feelings, intellectual connections swiftly made, emotional surges that defy linear definition and so forth.

The purpose of this opening gesture is to also get a feel for what the deck's guidebook has to offer.  It was a lovely surprise to see the inclusion of (wild)crafting ideas. Interactive prompts are very compatible with the hands-on world of herbcrafting. That adds a lovely layer of automatic resonance and accessibility.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My next exploration nearly always involves XVIII and XIX - the Moon and Sun cards.  The reason doesn't relate to the tarot-based meaning of these cards - it's astrological.  My natal sun sign is ruled by the moon.  My moon sign is likewise ruled the sun.  That makes the cards' natural pairing - as well as their energetic polarity - especially potent when one or both cards appear in reading.

 Unless you have a specific pairing of strong established meaning to you - I suggest you begin by doing this:

Separate the 22 (0-21) Major Arcana from the rest of the deck.   Shuffle very lightly - not so much to mix them up as to give them your touch until the cards start to hold some of your warmth.  Am aware many people interject assertive energy at this point by rapping the Majors sharply on the edge of a table or a specific sacred object sturdy enough to absorb the blows. I just like to touch them via shuffling until they hold warmth.  Tarot cards are pragmatically composed of paper which holds vestiges of sentience.  Simple warming touch seems like a much more rewarding way to wake up together, doesn't it?

Spread the cards out like I did  - a bit messily and with a great deal of overlapping among the cards.  Soften your gaze rather than studying whatever shows a focused way.  As you gaze rub your palms together briskly for a moment.  Then begin rubbing them more gently - about twice as long as you were brisk. These motions will enliven your secondary palm chakras as well as pinging your Crown and Heart chakras to begin their opening process .

Hold your hands, palms down, 4 to 6 inches above the cards.  Don't mentally watch what you're doing just allow your palms to hover until you feel a gravitational dip/pull to pick something up.  Repeat in order to select a second card. 

NOTE:  if you don't feel any kind of physical or energetic nudge simply shuffle the major arcana well.  Cut the deck twice using your non-dominant hand.  Re-stack and then use your dominant hand to deal yourself the top two cards.

Study the cards' colors, images and symbols.  Make note of what these elements already mean to your visual brain - in or out of a tarot frame.  Quiet yourself enough to notice anything the image whispers to (or from within) your soul.  When you look carefully - what does this card feel like at a purely personal level?  Is the resonation strong enough to focus on what's been evoked rather than concern over what the card is 'supposed' to mean?

If you're the type to document grab a fresh notebook and write down the cards you select.  If they resonate strongly for you at the blink/image level pay special attention to their designated meaning.   Documenting your card draws will yield a fascinating grasp of patterns to the draws you might not notice if you rely solely on your temporal memory. After the trends are noted I transform the otherwise dull/repetitive entries into art journal pages or use them for collage substrates.

*******

Next I pull my soul and personality card from the deck.*  This is a numerological thing often attributed to Mary K. Greer.  In research prep for this entry I learned the technique actually pre-dates her.  Here's an online source for all the relevant info needed to make your own calculations. 

[Note if you follow the link:  I don't know what is up with the third mentioned card of Shadow.  What's been included doesn't make sense to me.  When I consulted my copy of Tarot for Yourself I saw nothing similar but it's a very early edition.  The new re-release may have that shadow information included.  If anyone reading has that edition and the info makes the slightest bit of workable sense could you verfiy in comments, please?]

*alternatively you can simply look at the remaining major arcana and pick two more cards that appeal to you - whether you know why or not.  Sometimes it's a lot more juicy and ultimately revelatory when you don't know why but you go with it anyway.

By now I trust the imagery clarifies why I decided to publish this post here.   This morning I found a comment to a post in which grace mentioned a review she'd read of Herbcrafter's comparing artist Joanna Powell Colbert to Pliny.  It doesn't seem at all hyperbolic the longer I look at her gorgeous work.   Each card is comparably compelling and brimming with life-force as well as flawless and beautifully varied composition.

***************

I have one more habitual step before moving on to study the deck's imagery systematically.  Will begin posting the full visual review in the next post.   Hope everyone will agree this was a good choice to kick off a new blog element of sentient exploration. I want to more cohesively feature art that's inspired by ever-deepening appreciation for the green nations.  Thought to name the category Plant Geek Eyes.

As a final gesture in this portion of a Hello examination I pull a three card reading from just the Majors:  above/below/within.

Always good to see such a personally significant card riding high above.  Dandelion is an interesting choice as a Fool significator plant.  In comparison Michael Tierra's classic Herbal Tarot assigns Ginseng.   Dandelion feels a lot more on the money.    Have some intuitive opinions concerning alternative allies for 0 but they are of zero relevance to anyone but me. 

[If you have feelings or thoughts about specific cards you pull - write them down within the day's card list.]

  Was gladdened to see Strength in the below position.  Garlic is an excellent choice for a Below totem.  And an equally excellent health-full ally to cherish. 

within reflection: Garlic is pretty much everything to a faltering immune system.  Or surviving practical and situational emergency.  If you have water and some garlic you have a healing restorative broth that can help keep you lucid, aid recuperation, or promote sufficient resilience to avoid getting sick in the first place.  If those two ingredients are all you have for a little while you'll keep up enough strength to forage for additional nourishment. 

[It's good to keep a fresh vibrant head of garlic with your emergency bug-out supplies if you can - for these very reasons.]

Tower energy signifying my current within status is right on the money.  BOOM.  pluto.  BOOM.  pluto again, over and over again.  Over the last couple of weeks I've found that pretty much anything involved with my internal structure that's remotely false or outdated has been crumbling or lighting itself on fire with colossal speed and great finality.  I think it's a thing that's happening for people intent to marshal inner resilience in the face of whatever lies ahead.  We're organically shedding what we can't use no matter how inviolate such internalized structures have seemed in the past.

In some moments it also feels like the ceremony of burning a few inner temples to the ground while they hold their peak beauty.

  The thing to remember about Tower energy is it's not something you or anyone else can stop or even forestall for any successful length of time.   Tower-generated change is inevitable in nature.  As is, within literal nature, the decay on which flourishing mushrooms feed.

Usually I let my first Hello end with such quick and largely visual assessment. But this time I went back to the accompanying guidebook to read about Mushroom's relationship to the The Tower as perceived by the deck's creator.  What I read put me much in mind of what happens from a naturalist's perspective once the Tower's archetypal role is reconfigured in neopagan decks as The Blasted Oak. 

****************

When drawing your own three cards keep things loose and intuitive if the meanings aren't known to you.  really LOOK at the cards before reaching for the guidebook.  What does the featured imagery already mean to you?  If you don't hold personal associations what can you infer about the focal points from the way they're presented on the card?

light and LOVEly dreams to all!

The back of our field in later April 2012.

Valentine's Day has always been my favorite holiday. 

Beltane's second ...

and the sun said: yeah baby .13

Today I woke with sun in my eyes.  It was an extra wonderful thing after countless grey days made dismal and bleak with the ongoing roaring wind effect.   When the sun shines after a pronounced absence I especially love those times when I have an opportunity to free-float through the day on - not so much a whim as a very strong intuitive nudge.

One nudge after another I made my way to the back dooryard by mid-morning.  Paused on the deck to do a bit of intent staring at the ice-filled 'replacement' planters that were too shallow to grow truly thriving flowers.  But a few day's back I realized how they could be used quite productively. And also add new experience to my container growing repertoire: using each one as a separate container garden 'seed bed' for various biennials.  Am finalizing my seed list at the moment but need to integrate my shopping list with what's viable and on hand in my seed collection box.  Should have done it last night but was too tired from the day's activities far out-pacing my organic energy level.

I need to come down to this spot with my better camera to properly showcase the small cluster of river bushes and striplings that I love.  I don't visit them much because they need to keep their wildness there amidst the mossy rocks.  But I do move upstream a few times during no-ice phases of our brown months.  just to make sure that particular congregation isn't burdened by windfall branches.  Later I'll have to go out in clothes better suited to yard work.  Fleece isn't very compatible at all I have found.

Today I spotted my first land-based skunk cabbage of the year.  It's worrisome how early I started seeing new growth pushing out of the stream bed. Usually I don't see anything in the water for another month's time.  It's often the beginning of April before the plant's leaves unfurl in the land-based colonies.  Seeing the new life above so much sooner into the year evoked mixed feelings.  As a human who is finely tuned to green forms of life it's an automatically exuberant moment.   It's also a life-long habit.  I grew up near any number of streams and was lucky to have guided tours of a few on an ongoing basis over the years.  Heralding fresh signs of a new year's life force by searching out the earliest growths of skunk cabbage plants holds a deep experiential taproot in my soul.

One very kind and extremely good humored (yet perpetually poker faced) elder-man my family knew used to call me Little Miss Sharp Eyes.  We'd walk along that property's stream and he'd announce something he could see.  I'd locate the same thing.  But it wasn't always in the same place he'd seen it.  In which case he'd smile and tell me I'd won.

For quite awhile (seemed forever in young child terms ...) I'd accept this without a clue of what I'd won.  So I finally asked and he told me I'd won my sharp eyes a little more fully.   And he certainly did his part to show me innumerable ways eyes could See and search-out detail when outside walking.  He also taught me to address the sun as Grandfather and the moon as Grandmother.   I once asked him what he liked most in the world - expecting a wonderful nature story.  He grinned wide and spoke around it.  

"airplanes"

Years later he and his wife were on a plane that was held hostage on the runway.  It was somewhere in Europe during that window of time when such things appeared in alarming news breaks as the very worst form of terrorism.  Their involvement made it personal - a local story of great scope and ongoing conversation.  They were trapped on a plane at gunpoint in a foreign country for a significant number of hours.  When they arrived safely in NYC the press was waiting.  Local papers posted pictures of them that were taken as they left their initial government debriefing.   She looked shaken for sure but far more she looked hell bent and determined to have QUITE a word with any number of someone's Manager(s) before all was fully said and done.  He merely looked like he'd seen new things.   Undoubtedly with poker faced aplomb.   To this day I wonder if that experience dampened his enthusiastic love of planes.

The (very) gentle-man who taught me how to walk along a little stream so as to find innumerable tiny universes along the way also taught me a concept he called Power Station Bingo.  Upon reflection (and I mean in terms of the level of reflection I held around the time they'd been trapped on the runway during my early high school years) I don't think what he was talking about  ever had that name.  I think it was something he may have made up on the spot when some insatiably curious kid he was trying to teach to love the woods bedeviled him with questions he did not want to answer Just Then - for whatever combination of reasons. 

I could have been that kid because the questions I felt pressing enough to insist on immediate (and complete!!) answers never stopped at that phase of my life.  But I was just one of many who did not have a paternal presence in their life but were also lucky enough to move within his circles of community awareness. 

here's what he taught me about earth energy and how it moves:

Sometimes you go into a quiet little corner of a place and find four rocks.  Right in the center of the rocks you'll find an evergreen.   Sometimes you find the evergreen first but you'll also find rocks beneath its lowest boughs. 

All evergreens and rocks enjoy this arrangement but it becomes important to recognize with respect any time you're passing when the rocks are directly aligned with the compass points.  When they are both tree and rocks can sing but our ears don't remember how to hear them.  Other creatures do.  They are Everywhere.

the Healing Lights blend components

 life's coming at all of us pretty fast and at times furiously these days.  Amazed to find myself somehow on projected schedule with the next two posts.  The recipes I'll share in each relate to flower essence blends I co-created - in both cases in a flower led/guided manner -  last summer. 

(An essence blend is a mixed-flower remedy in which a variety of floral components are included in the same essence preparation bowl.  Making it the vibrational equivalent of a stew/blended oil or tea infusion.)

The flowers in this particular remedy are common and in most cases indigenous to my particular region. I include each flower's unique contribution to the blend so that you might consider how you could prepare something similar from flowers you have to work with where-ever you are.

  I also encourage you to investigate what other online sources have to say about the vibrational healing properties of the specific flowers I've included - as well as those you're drawn to work with where-ever you live.  Younger alchemists are organically aligned with a much higher receptive frequency.  Those who are willing to share what they know often crystallize the elemental nature of a flower's vibratory/healing signature far more elegantly.

Healing Lights

an all purpose healing & illumination remedy comprised of 7 flowers:

Elecampane

These strongly architectural flowers love an opportunity to thrive. I've been lucky to have successful colonies in two locations.  In both places the flowers have beckoned for inclusion - first as a single essence in my ever-growing collection of home-made flower essence mother stocks and then, 17 years later, within the blend bowl now being described.  Grow this plant in your own garden for a wondrous unfolding of large - at times VERY large - lime green leaves topped with sunny yellow flowers that remind me of the fringed two-circle paper flowers my mother taught me to make as young child.

The Elecampane healing signature speaks of light and lighten-ing.  Great for anything that's stuck in your belly - especially in the spiritual or metaphorical sense.  Keeps the solar plexus chakra and its associate energy centers well hydrated.  This helps prevent getting stuck in ideological despair or over-charged zealotry that can only lead to burn-out.

Calendula

Calendula is a gem of a healing herb that I believe everyone can and should grow.  Long known as Pot Marigold, it's as suited for containers as the ground.  Give it good sun and its resinous vibratory sun will give you its healing spirit.  If you have time and inclination, I invite you to watch the short (2:32) video linked in part because its human Speaker, Deb Soule fully personifies the joy and gentleness that speaks to Calendula's vibrational/communicative gifts.  In the middle she sells just a little bit but in the most understated and joy-full way imaginable. This lady is the real deal and a genuine treasure of an herbalist. Strongly strongly encourage you to bask in the 2.5 minutes of her heart's light.

Calendula's healing and illumination gifts are classically associated with communication.  It seems to me the connection goes deeper to matters of ego involvement.  The solar plexus-throat chakra bridge is central to both right thought & action.  We certainly see in today's world what happens when those in power short-circuit the bridge by running on Ego and proscribed Ignorance.

Each of us has similar yet unique power: the power of voice. Calendula's energy softens and strengthens our voice.  It makes our tone-range flexible in both speaking and thinking planes of communication to self and others.

Saint Johnswort

Pictured above at the trailing end of a long-gone summer solstice's golden hour - Saint Johnswort grows wild in my chosen home state.  I have loved getting to know the flowers' healing properties - first by way of gathering flowers in the company of two friends living on Cape Cod.  I recall our 20-something excitement and the many bees that tracked our every move until we were back in the house filling carefully sterilized recycled jam jars with flowers and apricot oil.

St. Johnswort essence is an ultra-effective auric cleanser and high-vibrational protective shield like no other.  There's a lot more that could be said but I think the true seed of its versatility and usefulness is distilled in the single sentence.  see also/in conjunction with:  red clover at the end of this flower portrait profile list.

Comfrey

Comfrey was considered an unspeakable pest by the gardeners who taught and shaped me as a child.  I didn't really understand what a glorious beautiful presence She brings and how fully she deserves some Pride of Place in any garden until I was back there in those pivotal early 20's years.  At the northern edge of my wild field garden two comfrey crowns at long last claim that rightful place.  One was transplanted from my former garden (pictured above) and another arrived in the same transplant bucket as the elecampane crown that spawned the plant giving flowers to this remedy.  Both crowns offered flowers to the bowl in equal measure.

In flower essence terms Comfrey holds a longstanding reputation as a master healer.  It's also graced with a very grounding energetic signature that helps to slow or stir the mind to greater balance/full potency as need be.  I look on its inclusion in this remedy as another source of psychic and emotional/mental hydration.  Like drinking enough water and/or regular alternate nostril breathing/brain oxygenation. With an vibrational taproot that knows what it's about as a full-service healing agent.

Prunella

Prunella is more commonly called Self-Heal but I'm partial to her formal name. I find this flower indispensable in my therapeutic skin oil infusion blends.  The flowers also hold long healing associations with the bladder and kidney.  I can attest to its restorative/constitutional property in maintaining strong kidney health following a terrible complicated summer-long experience with kidney stones and ever since.  At my last physical my doctor declared me having kidney functionality of a 25 year old. I credit this flower in its dried hot infusion form for such a strong recovery.  That and a 95% low oxalate diet.

Prunella flower essence supports self-accountability and diligent self-maintenance in all matters of healing and wellness.  Have been gathering anecdotal evidence to suggest the remedy's popularity is cycling to strong interest levels because it supports authentic self care and the mindfulness that gives rise to all forms of functional and vibrant Care moving outward.

Monarda fistulosaBeloved to bumblebees, hawkmoths, and my neighbor's honey bees my garden's thriving multi-crown colony of this regional beauty was started from seed under lights in the basement.  Last summer marked the first year I felt permission to gather flower heads for my family's herbal medicine chest.  Two full vibrant heads offered themselves to the flower-guided blend bowl.  Also prepared a shredded flower head tincture we all use for mouth rinsing and skin application for a stubborn crack or tiny abrasion that's slow to heal completely.

All Monarda/bee balm flowers hold a strong affinity for our brain/general body's electrical circuitry.  It's rather similar to the affinity all Rose flowers have for the human central nervous system.  Monarda fistulosa, in particular, speaks to our ability to assimilate and more effectively upgrade our nervous system's capacity to identify and filter the human landscape's noise-to-signal ratio as well as cosmic bombardment upticks.  Such a filtering system is permeable without being friable.  This is an invaluable differentiation to make and foster as the dreaded 2020 dystopian hellscape bingo aspects of larger (alleged ...) reality begin to pick up speed, volume, and fury.

Red Clover

Red Clover flowers became the center of my healing & wellness universe when perimenopause came calling with drenching night sweats and unsettling hot flashes.  I also paid note - given the flower essence's primary healing & illumination property -  to how abundantly red clover flowers bloomed and prospered in the spring/summer of 2002.  Some friends confirmed and further said they'd noticed the uptick in the previous season - before the 9/11 attacks as well.

Red clover's vibrational signature shields our minds and subtle bodies from the ongoing erosive impact of other peoples' fear factor(s). 

nuff sed.

a more or less impromptu field trip

Early last week I was feeling down about The Proceedings here in the US as well as far-too-much-of-everything elsewhere throughout the globe.  Decided of all my options the best was to take myself in literal hand and sally forth into a larger world of life that inherently makes sense to me.  To go somewhere for the specific purpose of personal nourishment/internalized re-focus.  So, clearly, I needed to select a place that helps me feel grounded and solidified at a taproot level as well,. 

For me the [general] place that always seems to call most loudly when I need to remember who I am, who I've been in the cumulative past, and what I'm doing here in the NOW:  the Pioneer Valley.   It's the first place I 'landed' in MA - specifically in Hadley.  Which in the late 70's was an operational farming town of individual family stakes - primarily growing either potatoes or tobacco. 

The way I felt upon my arrival there stood out powerfully for its authentic quality of timelessness.  For whatever combination of elusive and significant reasons as soon as I stepped out of the van I was driving I was there.  Instantaneously Of The Land - as if it pulled me close in a firm embrace while whispering in my ear wtf took you so long to get here? 

I was 21 at the time.  The split second of experience proved itself an invaluable touchstone once J. and I planted ourselves in the urban/unceasingly kinetic vibration of Boston and Cambridge the following winter:

I have arrived at the kind of home that never needs to second guess itself.  I am ME here.

Think we all accumulate/collage-together a number of psychic and emotional homes among the places we've visited or come to settle for however long.  Perhaps, like me, these experiences are categorized consciously into specific types/levels of home's subjective definition. Think that's becoming clear in the collage project for all of us.  In a far more extroverted situational sense the Pioneer Valley's vibration holds the specific being home of feeling deeply fused with an immediate and unquestioning sense of connection.  To self, other humans and their history, shared history, and of course the land herself.  

The specifics of my original plan for a Wellness Date were not based on mental notions or planning but swift gut instinct.  I decided what was most likely to work for my overall goal was a visit to the Eric Carle museum.  Have never been there or made it a point to keep up with museum doings.  But my certainty was so absolute (the collage effect factor.  Of whatever original work of EC's happened to be on display) that I didn't check anything on the website other than the weekend hours because by then it had occurred to me this might be a positive bonding low-fi excursion my family would enjoy sharing with me. 

Didn't actually look at the website until the family was assembling for leave-taking just prior to heading west. Then I thought to check on what was showing in the other two gallery exihibits.  Learned the smallest gallery held two pieces of work from a variety of illustrators: a piece of "first" artwork as a child or teenager and something from the present tense.  The primary/illustration guest of note featured a Maira Kalman exhibit.  Pay dirt for what ailed me across the board!  Have been admiring her New Yorker covers for years of taking the magazine.

The above image is one of her paint cloths.  It's hung on a wall as part of a giant assemblage/artist's inspiration board that runs the length of the long entrance way connecting both ends of the gallery spaces.  You can't take photographs in the galleries.  I  asked - figuring why not -  if I could take them in the entrance way.  The docent hesitated, saw the eagerness on my face and  spoke quietly.

"go ahead but very quickly".  

The paint cloth filled me with emotion as well as instinctive below-the-skin recognition and instant inspiration. I moved as quickly as possible in front of the inspiration wall searching out a few additional groupings that somehow capture the flavor of what the below looks/feels like when you're standing right in front of it.  An entire wall arranged with a highly creative person's personal inspiration artifacts and ephemera.

The interior gallery exhibit combines inter-active areas for children with a charming video, a glass topped exhibit of her sketchbooks (oh to touch and page through them!!)  and three walls plus inner panels lined with her framed artwork - primarily gouache paintings.  Wish I lived closer, had a museum membership, and could bop in and out pretty much at will to really soak in the glory of her color mixing and its assured/inspired application.

  Had noticed on the way in there were postcards in the gift shop.  Mostly of Carle's work but with some very memorable others as well. Was thrilled to find three of the Kalman paintings I'd most enjoyed studying.  It's not even close to looking at the originals but more than enough to prompt my visual memory concerning what I most enjoyed during my time with them.

Kalman's fascination with the Lincoln family delights me because I share it.   I also have a life-long love of illustrated road trip illustrations.  But my personal show-stopper OF the show - making its postcard take-along all the more happiness inducing - was the NY harbor fireworks display.  magenta-to-pink-to-orange is my inner child/crone woman's color Peak happiness zone.  And the range is so brilliant subtle in its fluidity within the actual painting.  In your face for sure but absolutely worth looking closely for a while to see what it's really going on beyond the blare. Not unlike taking in a fireworks display.

(if you'd like to see any of these three in more detail like the two below shoot me an email and I'll oblige.)

Am including two additional illustrator's art in postcard form because they fit so well with the themes of this blog.  Above is from Jerry Pinkney - an illustration for A Starlit Somesault Downhill by Nancy Willard.

This one grabbed my heart and held on tight.  In fact, when I got home I found a like-new copy of the book for less money than the postage to get it here.  Book is called The Secret River by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.  Illustration is by Leon and Diane Dillon.

currently reading etc.

Am greatly enjoying my current Morning Reading book.  The narrative is both compelling and evocative but for me the biggest pleasure is the slow rolling tone of the book.  It's a wonderful ballast for the various topics that inherently hold a strong charge: race, history both personal and collective, unconventional upbringing and, well, science.   Additionally Dr. Lantham has a love of birds so strong that I've begun to feel a persuasively described yearning connection to them I've not otherwise engaged - to know flight as a physical experience under no volition but one's own body.

Am roughly halfway through this memoir of roots and rootedness to both Place and Family.   Requested his poetry through the library loan system.

and

THIS:

The Turkish Fig usually doesn't unfurl any leaves until April.  Am crediting my new plant mister which I got at Dick Blick after reading a comment INSISTING everybody get one for their painting practice and another for their houseplants.  I got one for painting.  I mainly use it for the plants.  Over the holidays I got a second for the house/plants.   Still using the stubby little Holbein sprayer with my paints.

Have never had such happy plants at this time of year in my entire adult life. 

Look how beautiful.

viriditas