Spring is can be a hot mess around here. Snow flurries one day and the next hour day it is 80 degrees and EVERYTHING is going nuts in the garden sometimes including the humans. This GO GO GO energy is not a green light for us humans to DO everything at once a truth I can too often forget. Flowing in spring is a more complicated dance of listening, doing, restraint and surrender.

Noah Kahan wrote Stick Season about the upper Connecticut River valley where I live. He grew up just across the river from here. Stick season is real. It’s not our prettiest season, but it is a sort of calm time for introspection and rest. What comes next is a season in which every living thing wakes up at the same moment and THERE IS too much A LOT TO DO.

Spring requires mind discipline. I can only do one job at a time though I often try to do three jobs at once. I need to only think about the job at hand. If I am watering the hoop house baby plants, I have to ignore the dead plum tree that needs to be cut down and a garden bed inundated with crab grass, knowing that these are not the priorities right now. Grounding Flower Essence helps me to stay in the now.

Spring requires me to FOLLOW my guidance and trust the priorities of the Elementals. Spring is the Elemental’s season. The Spring Equinox marks the transition from a time of planning with the Angels to a time of manifesting the plan which is the Elementals’ work. This means the Elementals know best what needs to be done as they patiently remind me six zillion times a year, specifically what needs to be done immediately and what can wait. More can wait than I think.

The Elementals are strategic and have an overview about what lies ahead. Also they have a great sense of humor about me which is totally necessary. Growing things is a confusing mysterious business with factors beyond my comprehension. These unknown factors drive what grows well one season but not another. While Earth moves into unknown times for all of us, the Elementals still know much better than us humans how to manage these times and specifically manage growing things in this time. Available to all of us if we but listen, their guidance is essential.

On a personal level, following the guidance I receive has become ever more essential to me. I am no longer the spring chicken I was in 1987. Back then I built 20 raised beds because I read in some book raised beds were the way to go. Then I filled them all with composted manure and tried to grow Flowers and vegetables in these beds. No matter how much I watered or how much it rained, the winds on this hilltop dried out the soil and left these charmless beds like dioramas of the Gobi desert. This motivated me to learn how to get guidance from the Elementals as Eileen Cady and Dorothy MacLean did at Findhorn, an inspiring cocreated garden I had read so much about.

In my early conversations with my new partners from the Elemental and Angelic realms, I knew I was not talking to myself when the Elementals told me to take apart the raised beds and cover the garden with a deep layer of mulch hay. This was a BIG reverse engineering project and not something my personality would have chosen to do. However I needed this kind of fiasco experience to bring home how important the Angels and Elementals were in farming and life. This kind of “learning lesson” when you are thirty is something different when you are sixty eight.

Since the raised bed era, I have tried to listen carefully, but now I try to do exactly what I am asked to do precisely when asked versus later when I feel like it. For example, in the past I might have been told to stop and rest. This guidance would translate into me doing seventeen other tasks on my way back to the house. You know, that Daylily clump that just has to be deadheaded that moment or that section of the asparagus patch that absolutely needs weeding that instant. Now the Elementals will yell at me if I even lean over to pluck a weed saying, “How is this defined as rest?” This is the kind of harassment cajoling I need appreciate and now try harder to follow.

I want to be gardening for another couple decades, so I have to conserve my energy. If the Elementals say STOP, I really am trying very, very, very hard to stop without pulling another weed. Do you get the feeling that I am trying to make excuses to the Elementals here for my slip ups?

This flow of REALLY LISTENING and then DOING AS I AM GUIDED TO DO requires Flower Essence support. And a lot of it. Flow Free helps with surrender. I want to be the thirty year old with the stamina of a mountain goat. But I have to surrender to what is actually the situation. I am a mature mountain goat now, one that has to take breaks from hauling compost. Sometimes going with the flow is not doing anything.

Elizabeth’s wonderful Camino Flower Essence Sahagun helps when I push my body too far. She made this Essence after a day when she walked over 30 miles and came to terms with the realization even a twenty something can push it too far. Sahagun helps me both find a better flow but also forgive myself for the pushing. Sahagun is described by the Angels as THE Essence for surrender.

Solandra is good for breaking up the habit of doing too much. Maple also helps to find the middle ground with a sweetness that doesn’t involve puritanical and patriarchal judgment. Don’t Worry-Bee Happy helps with this too. It’s okay if we goof up. We can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, laugh and be happy anyways.

Spiderwort, Daffodil and To Hear the Angels Sing help with listening skills. I need this in Spring in particular because I can get going so fast that I forget I have to stop and listen first. I think these Essences help my guides break through to me better when I get in one of my spring tizzys.

Rain also helps with flow. Today it is cold and rainy. It is much easier to follow directions to do less when its cold and rainy. Rainy days in Spring are such a reminder that sometimes often our job is just to enjoy the glory of the greening world sitting by the window with a nice hot cup of chai.

Column from April 24th edition of the Marmota Times reprinted with permission from Reginald Montgomery “Chuckie” Hogbottom, Order of the Woodchuck, Recipient of the medal of honor “Marmota Monax” September 2019, Knighted as Groundhog of the Realm, May 2022, Recipient of the Order of the Garter July 2023.

My dear friends. Happy Spring! It’s been wonderful to see so many of you out and about in the Green Hope gardens after our tedious hibernation period broken only by forays to our three Michelin star restaurant Le Marmiton a.k.a. the Green Hope Farm compost heap.

I appreciate all those who made this dream of our own restaurant a reality. Compliments in particular to the several families donating to our kitchen. I love how small humans hate a bread crust. This winter, so many of our most delectable entrees used these as our core ingredient.

Yes, it is always good to catch up at Le Marmiton, even if a little tense what with the possums, raccoons, squirrels, and other interlopers who rudely expect to be seated and fed without making a reservation.

But on to the business of this article- our little Marmot against Molly skirmish and how it’s going.

It’s always worth a chuckle to see our silly human sporting her backpack sprayer of garlic spray. As you all know, this never really slows our roll. There is always some tasty morsel she’s missed….. like that tray of baby broccoli and cauliflower seedlings I found yesterday afternoon in the hoop house. Yum!

Many of you have expressed concerns that Molly has decided to get serious about our activities at the farm. I just want to calm you down and remind you how very ineffectual her efforts have been.

Let’s face it, an eight pound dog is not a concern.

And Molly’s threats to use a “Have a Heart” trap to take us across the Connecticut River to Vermont? We all know that is exactly how we get our year abroad program done. Thank goodness when it is time to return home there are many Vermonters happy to bring us back over the river to New Hampshire again.

You may ask, how did I hear of her heated discussion about trapping us? I had my cousin, a graduate of the Central Marmota Agency School of Espionage, Mauricio “Rico” Montgomery build a den/ listening station under her back deck. This was a real victory for our data collection as the den is five feet from her kitchen door. Rico likes to sunbath on the deck and will even frollick with Sheba, her dog companion, but most of the time Rico just listens for data.

Rico also reported a meeting this week in which a rebuilt vegetable garden fence was discussed with a man with a big red truck and back hoe. There was talk of using the backhoe to create a trench around the perimeter of the garden so as to pin the fence to bedrock. This kind of high tech solution which would prevent our easy tunneling under the fence is what she needs, but let’s face it, she has long been prone to more half baked deterrents that keep us in the garden and her gnashing her teeth. Let’s just hope she remains consistent in her “Never expect the Spanish Inquisition” approach, and the man in the red truck is never heard from again.

This season she has made her usual harmless moves with garlic spray everywhere and frost cloth on the spring crops. Not to worry! Peas and beans need pollinators so it’s just a waiting game for us. We’ll have our usual feast of delectable garden treats when the frost cloth has to come off for the pollinators. Thanks to the cloth, everything will be blemish free.

So my dear Marmota Monax beloveds. Carry on with your garden rampages, restaurant feasts, shameless sunbathing and tussles with the harmless humans and petite dog. We shall prevail.

Why do I recommend that Flower Essences be shared with all members of a household even when only one person or animal seems to be experiencing the challenge?

Why do I suggest spritzing around our physical bodies as a powerful way to work with Flower Essences?

Why do kids and animals know what they need when offered a selection of Flower Essences even without any other data?

Why do we get support from a Flower Essence even when we just hold the bottle?

Why don’t our kids believe us when we say we’re doing fine when we are actually upset?

I could go on all day with questions like these that all revolve around one answer. We are electrical beings with electrical fields that extend out from our bodies. We interpenetrate each other’s electrical fields to the point where we are, in truth, one global electrical field.

Our emotional, mental and etheric or memory energy bodies overlap whenever we are near each other. In fact, as the wonderful Telepathy Tapes podcast establishes, we share a field of consciousness even when we are not physically near each other.

It is no joke that we are one.

The material world appears to divide us into separate pieces but we are not separate. These ideas of separation are an illusion of the physical realm but not a truth.

Why is it a good idea to acknowledge we are part of a unified electrical field?

When we understand that we are one electrical field, we can give up our habits of dividing ourselves from each other with criticism, backbiting, hatred, slander and gossip. Ideas of better/worse and good/bad, in fact any ideas of duality, are revealed as illusions of stage set earth but not real and not worth pursuing. Yes, on this stage set, we appear divided into separate pieces but even on the set, this is only true of our physical bodies. In every other way we are part of each other. Judgment of anyone or anything is like slapping one hand with the other.

In so many ways we know this truth. Consider the classic horror movie. The heroine, “alone” in a creepy house realizes she is not alone when she walks into a dark room and knows someone is there. Somehow we all recognize the truth of her awareness even if we haven’t considered why we know it’s true. The fact is that her electrical field has bumped into some creepy dude’s electrical field. This bump wakes her up to her peril and gives her a slim chance of escape, leaving us, the audience, feeling her peril.

Interpenetrating fields are why having everyone in a family system including the animals work with Flower Essences. First of all, if one person in a household is having difficulty, the whole household is sharing in this energetic situation, and the person or animal presenting the symptoms most noticeably may or may not be the source of the problem.

However the situation appears on the surface, if everyone works with the Flower Essences then the Essences will get to the core of it. Additionally, having everyone work with the Essences is like problem solving from many directions simultaneously. Arriving at a solution is more likely and much faster. When one person or animal in the household makes a click from the healing information of the Flower Essences, it’s much easier for other members of the household to do so, and healing can snowball towards a higher vibration and more harmonious situation for all. And this happens because when we live together or work together or gather together, WE ALL SHARE AN ELECTRICAL FIELD.

The ramifications of this are endless. If we were at a meeting and there was a God realized person there, this person could sleep in the corner and everyone would still get an incredible boost towards experiencing their own Divinity. Being in a shared field of consciousness is more important than what the God realized person is saying or doing.

Our shared field makes it vital that we take responsibility for what we do with our energy. Pursuing negativity lowers the vibration of our shared field and causes energetic challenges for everyone present. Negativity is like a turd in a punch bowl. The reverse is true when we raise our vibration.

I realize my last blog about causeless cheerfulness may well have been annoying. There is a lot to be sad about. I am not trying to diminish people’s losses. We need and deserve time and space to feel and process our losses and griefs. However, as we take care of ourselves and work through our feelings our efforts to be cheerful regardless of circumstances help us and help everyone else too.

To examine this further, let’s consider young children and the animals. I love how they grasp the nature of Flower Essences. They don’t read the labels. They don’t need any explanations. Their energy fields recognize what the Flower Essences are. They appreciate how Flower Essences make them feel. They know that Flower Essences feel good and help them feel good. They know the Essences help them move through the necessary work of feeling their feelings so they can find balance and a light heart again.

Last night, as I gave one of my grandchildren a custom mix I had made for her, her dad said, “You know she is going to drink the whole bottle.” I love this about kids. They go for it. They know what they need. They do not need to promote a sense of separation by feeling superior to someone else. They just want to feel good, and they find that feel good energy when in the electrical field of Flower Essences. Their process of feeling what they feel and using Flower Essences to help them work things through is a clean process.

For us adults, it is a little more complicated because once we understand our shared field of consciousness, we have a responsibility to do our best not to dump negativity into the field, and we may well have some lifelong habits that make this difficult to do.

We sometimes dump negativity in our shared energy field when we don’t acknowledge what we feel, listen to ourselves or process what the feeling is calling us to do. Too often we churn out unrecognized feelings because we don’t stop to feel what we feel and work with it. That is what children call us to when they recognize the cognitive dissonance of us saying we are fine when we are actually angry or sad. They feel the feelings in our shared field of consciousness and call us to the integrity of owning and feeling our feelings. They have no problem with us feeling what we feel. They want us to acknowledge what we feel which then helps us let the feelings go as they have served their purpose. Children really don’t know what to make of the fact we freeze our feelings and get stuck in a lower vibration place than is necessary.

Maybe our reasons for getting stuck are we feel we don’t deserve to feel what we feel or we feel that good people don’t have negative feelings. Confusions like these keep the feelings gummed up in our field with us literally nursing our grievances. Children are such an example of feeling what they feel then letting it go. If we find this place of integrity, acknowledgement and release then we can dramatically help our unified energy field.

Any time we use our own volition to lighten our electrical systems, everyone is positively affected by this. Flower Essences offer the boost we need to release feelings when we don’t know how to do it.

Mary Queen of Scots Rose helps us move past tired old feuds and lay down the axes we grind. All the 2024 intros are to help us with forgiveness because when we forgive ourselves and others, our vibration rises up. Flower Essences help us release all sorts of emotional bottlenecks.

When we take responsibility for our electrical field to heal ourselves and get the support we need to release what needs to go whether with Flower Essences or with a good chat with a wise friend, we immeasurably help ourselves as well as others BECAUSE WE ARE ALL ONE.

Two summers ago the Angels introduced Flower Essences that would help us balance of our AIR, FIRE, EARTH & WATER inner elements. The Angels explained that balancing these elements within ourselves would improve not only our own inner landscape but the greater whole. Horehound, Bladder Campion & Bouncing Bet were offered for AIR. Horehound & Bladder Campion were suggested for FIRE. Horehound, Bladder Campion & Bouncing Bet were for EARTH and Bladder Campion for WATER. In addition, they brought forward one other Flower Essence to lift us up as we negotiated balancing of these inner elements, Japanese Anemone.

Japanese Anemone helps us rise up into causeless cheerfulness when we feel there is nothing to be cheerful about. Cheerfulness without cause is something which people choosing cheerfulness often take a lot of flack for. People choosing cheerfulness are told it is illogical to be cheerful or insensitive or naive or foolish, yet what a gift it is to choose cheerfulness or be with cheerful people.

As I think about the timing of the Angels’ introduction of this Flower Essence, I recall how they introduced Golden Armor, our dynamo for energetic protection, right after 911 when the technology of our world got infinitely more complex and invasive almost overnight. They also had us send out Be Fearless as a gift with every order in the months before the Corona virus entered the picture. So with Japanese Anemone as well as with those Essences for balancing our inner elements, the timing feels significant.

Not only is the weather extreme but pretty much everything else is too. If we want to stay of good cheer, how helpful to have a Flower Essence that helps us accomplish this.

Here is what the Angels said when introducing Japanese Anemone, “In our efforts to support you in the balancing of the elements of Air, Water, Fire and Earth, we selected Japanese Anemone to help bring a perspective, detachment and clarity of vision that support you to not dig in and get too earthbound or heavy. As the saying goes, “You are a spiritual being having a physical experience not visa versa.” We want you to be able to feel this truth and take it to heart as you navigate this time.

You each made the wonderful choice to be here during this shift in Ages. This time offers unrivaled opportunities for remembering who you are and helping others wake up to themselves as well. Go forward with brave and open hearts. You are not alone. You are loved. You are safe and you will always be. We are here for you in each instant, and you need only ask for us to give you more support.”

We have had requests for our thoughts on Flower Essences that might help us move through the dynamic astrology of this month. In this blog I offer suggestions for Flower Essences for some of the things that are going on astrologically this March. I am fortunate to be in an office with serious students of astrology. I listen and learn, however I am a toddler in my understanding so please read this blog with that in mind.

When I first looked at all that was going on in March astrologically, I took a little gulp. However my deep dive into this astrology left me feeling optimistic. We are getting support to let go of our crap, get clear about what truly matters to us and courageously walk our talk. While these transits may feel difficult when they occur, they will help us do good work. I look forward to where we will be when the dust settles ( whenever that is!).

Here is a list of some of the astrology of March:

March 1-April 12th Venus retrograde in Aries and Pisces

March 12th Saturn cazimi (22 degrees 05 in Pisces) Beginning of new cycle as Saturn exactly conjunct with the Sun (nestled in the heart of the sun as one person put it)

March 13th Lunar eclipse (23 degrees 56 Virgo)

March 14th- April 7th Mercury retrograde in Aries and Pisces

March 22th Venus cazimi (2 degrees 39 Aries) (Venus conjunct with the sun so same as Saturn, a new cycle for Venus begins)

March 24th Mercury cazimi (4 degrees Aries 24) Mercury conjunct with the sun as with Venus and Saturn, a new cycle begins for Mercury)

March 27 Venus in retrograde enters Pisces

March 27 Venus conjoins Neptune (29 degrees 53 Pisces)

March 29th Solar eclipse in Aries (9 degrees)

March 29 Mercury retrograde enters Pisces

March 30th Neptune enters Aries

April 1 Venus retrograde conjoins North Node (27 degrees Pisces)

As I went to write down the astrological activities of the month, I was a struck by how much is going on- that may well be why you all have been writing us about this! As a person known jump off cliffs without too much study, even I thought that maybe this was a month to move a bit carefully with circumspection and a bit of restraint. However, I came to feel by the end of my study, that it is not so much we should act cautiously but that we should understand where and how our actions will be supported and therefore where we should act with great confidence and purpose.

In one arena, caution does seem wise. With Mercury retrograde in Aries and Pisces, I would expect our conversations may well get fiery fast. I’ll remind myself to sit on that provocative email for a day before sending or just keep it in my head. Snapdragon and Royal Ponciana will help us rein in what we say. Calm Cool & Collected can help us keep our cool no matter who says what. Spiderwort can help us with discernment about whether something really needs to be said.

One of the staff goddesses who is a serious student of astrology pointed out that the lunar eclipse in Virgo comes at a moment when Saturn, Neptune, Venus and Mercury are in Aries and Pisces directly across from the eclipse in Virgo. If you check out the eclipse astrology chart online, it looks like a crossbow with all these planets in opposition.

Eclipses come in pairs with a lunar eclipse followed by a solar eclipse almost always on the same axis as in lunar eclipse on one side of the zodiac and the solar eclipse exactly on the other side. This pair of eclipses has two different 2 axes ( yes that is the plural of axis). The lunar eclipse is in Aries/Libra axis and solar eclipse is in Pisces/ Virgo axis.

Eclipses usually move forward transitioning around the zodiac, so the fact that the first eclipse is followed by a move backwards is unusual. One of the staff goddess noted that eclipses have a fated quality so the backward movement is significant. We may well need to step back in order to take a big leap forward later. This dynamic suggests to me that we need to be extra kind to ourselves and each other if things seem to be taking us “backwards” during this eclipse season. Going over old territory often brings a wonderful harvest in its own time ( key words being in its own time). Amor Fati with its focus on accepting what is fated to be would be a good Flower Essence to have handy. Hardhack and Meadowsweet supports us to be kind and loving to ourselves and each other. The one I feel most strongly about is the Angels’ suggestion of Omey Island, an Essence made on the holy island of Omey off the western coast of Ireland. This Essence takes us into a place of surrender and alignment with the natural course of things. There are going to be moments when the tide floods in and we must move with the tide and times when we need to not “push the river” and Omey Island helps us with this.

Venus is retrograde in Pisces and Aries this month. This feels like a call to reflect upon what really matters to us and what we deeply love. It offers us a time of reflection and support to pull back from some of things we do out of boredom or just because it is easy. I appreciate this aspect for the way it clarifies our values. Will Real Housewives of Beverly Hills make the cut of things that really matter to me? No need to beat ourselves up with a lot of puritanical judgment. Let’s just embrace this retrograde as an opportunity to sort out our priorities. Spiderwort is a good one for this discernment work. Carry Less and the Letting Go Flower help us unbind ourselves from habits that no longer serve. Vision helps us see clearly what matters.

Additionally, Neptune and Venus conjoin so we get those two planets working in alignment to power our big dreams of creativity and love. Venus in retrograde will help us be wise about what we dream and this conjunction will help us manifest it. I think of our second chakra Essences in particular as supporting us in our creative dreams.

My toddler understanding of eclipses is that they bring something to our attention to be released before a new beginning. I would look to a lunar eclipse in Virgo to bring a focus on what is not working for us in our daily lives, work/life balance and routines and a clarity about what needs to be tweaked. With so many planets in opposition, tweak may well be an understatement. It looks like pretty much everything in our daily lives is up for review. The good news about this reality check is that it does come with PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS as Virgo is an incredibly practical sign. Additionally Venus helps us implement solutions that are HEARTFELT.

My staff goddess compatriots point out that finding where this eclipse happens in your own birth chart and where in happens during the following solar eclipse two weeks later shows us much more precisely what is up for review. There are many online sites where you can get your chart to find out this information.

Spiderwort, Eyes of Mary even Through Angels Eyes all help us see our situation with more clarity and in a more objective overview. I also like Corn for helping us access our spiritual wisdom in our daily life. The astrology is going to highlight what needs to go and these Essences help us fully grasp the message. As we make the turn to choosing new ways of living our daily life, Walk in Light helps us walk our talk, Grounding helps us implement change, Corn will continue to help us by revealing concrete ways to embody our spiritual values. Mandrake from Crete helps us root ourselves in the right circumstances for change. If this process feels complex, there is always Flow Free to help things keep flowing.

With the solar eclipse in Aries, the first sign in the zodiac, we are called to courageously begin a new cycle of change involving the right use of our personal power. We are shown what can happen when we join together to bring positive change. I don’t think it is an accident that folksinger Pete Seeger is again in the public eye because of the movie A Complete Unknown. Pete used his gift of song to create community for social justice, environmental issues and political freedom. People laughed when he said he was going to clean up the Hudson River by sailing a boat up and down the river singing about how precious the Hudson was. Now he is credited with initiating the clean up of the Hudson with his actions. He also stood up to the McCarthy inquisition even as it got him blacklisted and his songs banned from the radio. Check out the PBS movie on YouTube Pete Seeger the Power of Song to be inspired by his personal courage and how he lifted so many up with his voice.

Three planets experiencing a cazimi with the Sun suggest to me that this is a time of new beginnings on many front as does the movement of Neptune into the first house of the zodiac, Aries. As I said in my last blog, on a planet of duality, where there is darkness there is a corresponding amount of light. We all have an opportunity to be this light.

Much is being striped from us right now be it by extreme weather, choices made by people in power and in other unexpected ways. The very ground may feel unstable. This circumstance calls us to go inward to the one constant, our eternal identity as one with Divinity. As we anchor in this reality, we can move out into the world with greater clarity about who we are, what we are called to do and what we must abandon. The very planets are supporting us in this work, and that heartens me.