To See the Forest Through the Trees- Thoughts from a Midwife

Many of you have reached out to share your experiences with our new set of Tree Flower Essences called To See the Forest Through the Trees. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you have shared. You have deepened my understanding of how this group of Essences helps us at this pivotal moment in our planetary evolution.

Persistence. Patience. Comfort. Discernment. Rebirth. Holding the Long View. Illumination of Truth. Courage in the face of great challenges. Feeling the palpable presence of Divinity. These are among the things you have mentioned as arenas supported by this mix.

I realize that there has been so much said already about this set and the work it brings us to that I will have to write a couple blogs. First, however, I want to share what midwife Stella Luz said when I asked her about the point in labor called transition when the birth is close but the hardest moment is upon the mother, and she must summon everything within her to get through this moment. This is where we are as a planet so this midwife’s reflections offer wisdom for us all.

Stella said, “When I think about transition in labor (and funny that people often refer to death as a transition also), I always hear these words from Psalm 23:4, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” You know, the psalm beseeching Divine protection through one’s most fearful experiences because this is freaking awful!! And I also think of the quote from The Red Tent by Anita Diamont, “Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers?…Until you are the woman on the bricks, you have no idea how death stands in the corner, ready to play his part. Until you are the woman on the bricks, you do not know the power that rises from other women.”

Stella continues, ” I think transition is the point in childbearing where everything becomes very, very real. It is relentless. A space where you have to remain at the peak of your physical strength and resilience evoking more courage than you thought you possessed. At the same time you must surrender your higher brain to mammalian instincts, dissolving away from your intellect ( which reacts to the forces and discomforts of labor with fear and protest). One must surrender to the forces that move your baby through you and into the world and in this trusting state, you, yourself, become like an infant in the hands of women and care providers who are with you. You commend your body and your baby into the (hopefully) loving hands of others. I also believe that there are innumerable hands and hearts reaching to the laboring woman from other dimensions- the kind, soothing hands of all our ancestors from the time the first proto human held the hand of a sister or a friend in childbirth. And with all this help, you weave your way through the valley of shadows where life can be very tenuous (even in a hospital birth setting) until you have safely delivered your child and sent lurking death away with the immense relief you have survived and brought a new soul through you.”

After sharing Stella’s thoughts here in the GHF office, we talked about how rare it is for women to be seen or even know their own immense bravery and strength hard earned when giving birth or when living in solidarity with each other. In owning what we learned about ourselves when we gave birth to a child, in owning how, countless times, we have contained others as they often painfully give birth to new iterations of themselves, In bearing witness as a beloved grieves what must be let go and moves forward into the complete unknown, we can RIGHT NOW, know we can give birth to this new world. We have the skills and the heart for it. As when a human birth is imminent, we have no choice but to roll up our sleeves and stay present and let the birth move through us. That is where we are.

I write this on the first day of the Chinese New Year which ushers in the powerful year of the Fire Horse. A solar eclipse also happens today. Saturn and Neptune with be conjunct at the beginning of the Zodiac at zero degree of Aries on Friday the 20th of February 2026 while Saturn is already at zero degrees Aries having moved there on Feburary 13th. Also today, Venus (our values) conjoins the North Node (soul purpose and where we are meant to go).

Let’s face it, Birth is upon us!

The Trees join a sea of Divine forces supporting us, but we humans must do the actual work in physical form to birth this new world. There is no getting around it. We must face who we have been and let it die. We must find the same resolve and strength to do what we did in all the kinds of births our lives have brought us. This birth is a big one, but in owning the truth of what we have already birthed, we can prevail here.

Let me finish with a quote from another beautifull letter sent to us about experiences with the Tree set. I hope this will further encourage you that WE WILL DO IT! We will give birth to a new planet by giving birth to a new way of living in all of our communities and in the particulars of our lives just as women have always done!

“As I sit here writing to you, I feel more at peace and secure within myself. More than I have ever felt. It just keeps growing by the second. I felt the presence and energy of this sacred set instantly. My life has transformed after the first set of drops touched my mouth. All I can say is I feel home. Confident and safe in what I am doing for lost souls and also my life. Impenetrable. A strength of oneness with God. Words are hard to describe this feeling. But it was instant where my outer world shifted to match this sacred inner being. This will help so many. So many. My cup feels overflowing with love, where before it felt like I was giving every last drop away without even knowing. With this overflowing I am now able to help in the way I’ve always known was possible. This is only day 2. I look forward to more blessings this set brings to my life. I am eternally grateful to these trees and flowers and to you. This feels like the final step needed to get me over that bridge. Finally.”

To See the Forest Through the Trees

For the many weeks your emails have eloquently considered this time and all the concerns you have about it. In response, the Angels explained that a set was coming that would offer deep support to navigate this time. Your emails were windows into what the set would address, and I felt grateful for all you shared. You were very much partners in the creation of this set.

During winter storm Fern as the eastern seaboard lay buried in snow, the Angels told me the six Tree Flower Essence in the set- Dog Almond from St. John, USVI, Plum, Autograph Tree from Coole Park, Ireland, Cedar, Cacao and Redwood. I did my best to write down how they would help. I thank all of you who reached out during this time who helped me so much to write about this set.

Visiting with you on email has brought home the truth that even as we give it different names and feel it differently, we are all experiencing the challenging reality of a major birth process on Earth. Many of you joke that you know you picked this time to be here on Earth, but you wonder what the heck you were thinking. It’s good we can keep our sense of humor as some days it feels like everything else has to go.

So much is going up in flames right now that it feels more like a death process than anything else, yet birth is what is going on here. As one midwife said, “The woman giving birth always feels she is dying. That’s normal.” However it’s quite something when you ARE that woman, and even more disorienting when ALL humanity and our WHOLE planet are giving birth.

How do we face this planetary birth moment with courage? What is our purpose in this birth process? How do we stay in our hearts, focused and strong? Moving forward, how do we keep from being entangled in things that don’t matter and that gum the works? How do we see the forest through the trees and live with that clarity?

Six ancient trees have stepped forward as a set of Flower Essences called To See the Forest Through the Trees. These trees want to bring us their love and support to find our way through this birth process. They work to lift us up to see beyond the immediate confusion to their perspective which is one of calm certainty the light will prevail. They want to sweep us into a deep knowing that even as things fall apart, we are sheltered by a loving universe. They want to help us lay down burdens we do not need to carry. They want to help us get clear on our unique purpose so we go forward with confidence and inner peace.

Yes, this seems like a lot for six trees to tackle, but these wise friends are up to the job. The synergy of the group brings an energy profoundly healing and reassuring. They are a balm for this time. As Meher Baba said, “Things that are real are given and received in silence.” These six trees offer themselves in loving silence. So as you consider whether this set is for you, trust your feeling of the group over the imperfection of my description. The love they offer is beyond words.

Dog Almond from St John– We waited a decade for this Flower Essence to step forward and explain its gifts. It brings a vibration of deep emotional clarity to help us once and for all complete processing and release trauma, especially childhood trauma. Whether the trauma is known to us or deeply buried, this tree is there with us closing the books on these wounds. All Burdens of memory dissolve in the alchemy of this tree’s love.

Plum– It is time to lay down divisions pursued by the mind. These divisions encourage tribal infighting and get us nowhere. The truth is we are everything we experience. No divisions. If we look at earth from space, there are no marked boundaries. When a healer and healee meet, there is just one field of energy. Loving your neighbor as yourself is not an injunction to be nice to others. Otherness is not real. You are your neighbor. Plum helps us know this oneness without fear. Knowing oneness does not imply a lack of sanctuary but a reality of respectful coexistence.

Autograph Tree from Coole Park, Ireland– This sheltering tree is an Angelic presence and muse of towering strength. It helps us understand that our unity as one energy field does not imply conformity or sameness. It radiates the truth that each of us is a free spirit with a unique path and purpose. It shelters us as we find our way much as the most loving mother applauds our triumphs and consoles us when we fall.

Cedar– Like cleaning a dirty window so all the light shines in, Cedar cleans our subtle bodies most especially our mental and memory bodies which often are full of obscuring ideas, misunderstandings, preoccupations and other things that keep us from self knowledge and soul clarity. Cedar calls itself the Gate of Remembrance. It ushers us forward to remember who we are ( BTW it’s good news).

CacaoCacao calls itself the Remover of Obstacles. It works to remove anything that keeps us from our path or keeps us from a direct relationship with source. It clarifies our values and grounds us in the real. Cacao Flowers spring directly from the tree’s trunk. This indivisibility translates into a Flower Essence that offers us a visceral experience of oneness with source. Just as importantly, it helps us discard anything that impedes this knowing.

Redwood– Lean on me. You always will be. You live in the eternal now. Let me help you be awake to these truths.

Reginald’s Winter Update

Reginald Montgomery “Chuckie” Hogbottom here, Order of the Woodchuck, Recipient of the medal of honor “Marmota Monax” September 2019, Groundhog Knight of the Realm, May 2022, and Recipient of the Order of the Garter July 2023.

I call to you- sleeping matriarchs of our groundhog coterie, you frisky maidens looking forward to our annual spring frolics and the many groundhog males living in the illusion that you will intrude on my hegemony. Get your rest now because our day, Groundhog Day, February 2nd, approaches swiftly. Not only will we look for our shadow on this day, but tours have been organized to check out what’s what above ground and in the Green Hope gardens we call home.

Stirring myself from a robust winter sleep, I launch this newsletter to you all as we face the biggest challenge yet to our undisputed rule. Yes, the fence is finished. A door with a latch leads into our once prized domain. Will we breech these barriers? Will a forgetful human leave the door open? What is the outlook for 2026 and our dawn to dusk daily veggie fest? Let me fill you in on the current situation and given you my prognostications for 2026.

First let me start the report with the very good news that the human is busy buying seeds for us just as she always does. She seems a bit giddy that maybe this year there will be home grown vegetables on HER table. As far as this optimism goes? I guess we should expect this. After all she did name the farm Green HOPE Farm.

Second we can expect people to be who they are. In this case, I for one count on someone leaving the door into the garden open. As with last year, all we need is one moment, and we’ll be back in summer HQ in the center of the garden. I for one can’t wait!

Third, yes I know. I’ve heard the reports from some of you fearmongers. She DOES have her children reading The Secret Garden to her grandchildren. Yes, she DOES have the grandchildren picking out the vegetables and Flowers they want to grow. Frankly this makes me LOL. Her thinking there is anything SECRET about her garden is ridiculous. We know EVERY SQUARE INCH. I also consider the involvement of grandchildren to be a boon to us as the more people using the door the more likely it will be left open. Let’s remind ourselves. She is a naive soul who always underestimates us. That’s why we call her Mollyanna. (For those of you who don’t know this reference, there is a copy of the book Pollyanna available to read at our winter HQ)

I must stop here. I need another couple weeks sleep before the Groundhog Day Love Fest. Please join me then at the usual location to celebrate our indubitable and imminent success in retaking the vegetable garden.

A Custom Flower Essence mix for Sinus Issues and the Third Eye

Here is a story shared with permission about a GHF friend and a a Custom Flower Essence mix made to support her with painful sinus pressure, related vision issues and what she experienced as pressure to open her third eye further than she wanted to open it. This GHF friend gave us the backstory on what she thought was going on and asked us to create a Custom Flower Essence mix for her. (And BTW, anyone connecting with the farm is a GHF friend!)

To given an overview of why she would link sinus pressure to her third eye, let me briefly say a few things about our chakra systems.

Incoming light energy or prana moves down through our chakras from the top of our heads to below our feet. Prana fills us with life force energy, but it ALSO supports us to raise our electrical vibration to keep in homeostasis with our swiftly evolving planet.

Our chakras are energy hubs co-exisitng within our physical body. Each chakra is responsible for moving this incoming light energy into a specific part of our energy system. The chakras are linked to spiritual and vibrational issues, but they also coexists within a specific part of our anatomy and therefore connect with physical issues as well. Symptoms in our physical body indicate spiritual issues in a specific chakra and visa versa.

Different chakras are linked to different spiritual work. For example our first chakra, located in the base of our spine, is linked to issues of survival, grounding, safety and family or tribe of origin.

Because we adapt to change in some realms of our lives better than others, sometimes a chakra will have a challenging time moving all the incoming energy through itself. I think of this as like a garden hose where kinks, blockages or weaknesses in the hose can impede the flow of water. If we know the spiritual concerns of the chakra, we can work to heal both the physical symptoms and the spiritual issues thus opening the chakra to more life force energy. Unkinking and strengthening a chakra by working to heal the issues of the chakra make it possible for more light to move through the chakra. This will improve the health of that area of the body and allow for more light to move through our whole energy system.

If you click the Find A Flower Essence tab on the Home Page then click on Topics in the bar on the left, you can scroll down to the Topic Chakras to find a discussion of each of the seven main chakras in our energy system and tabs for Flower Essences which support our work with these chakras.

In response to this GHF friend asking for a Custom Flower Essence mix for her sinus concerns, the Angels choose Flower Essences from the upper fifth, sixth and seventh chakras with an emphasis on the sixth chakra which is also called the Third Eye Chakra. The sixth chakra is all about the issues of vision, sorting truth from illusion, letting ourselves open to expand our definition of what we see and know to be true and bravely living from this truth.

I use the word bravely for a reason. When I did past life readings back in the 80’s and 90’s, on more than one occasion the person sitting with me for the reading had been mutilated on their forehead or third eye area by someone else such as a religious priest in order for them to receive higher guidance. In one case the person was mutilated then thrown off a cliff because the mutilation hadn’t worked. This was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of seeing past life reels in which people were hurt or killed because of their communities religious beliefs or because their own beliefs did not conform to the beliefs of their community. Needless to say, this trauma leaves scars in peoples’ memory/ etheric bodies ( the memory/etheric body is described in this document on our Resource page). These wounds make people hesitate in this life to live their spiritual truth.

One thing I want to add here is that in my experience, past lives are only brought to the surface when we need to see something in them that will help us heal and move on. Information is brought forward from the akashic records only to serve our eternal souls and not our personalities.

When we composed this Custom Mix for the GHF friend, she told us she was reluctant to further open her third eye to more clairvoyance. She described herself as a psychic who really didn’t want to further pursue this path as it had brought her considerable grief. However the symptom of sinus pressure would just not go away, and she felt she had to surrender to whatever was being asked of her.

Tuberose, Flow Free, Snapdragon, UCal Snapdragon (on the additional Essence list), Grapefruit, Breathe, Wound Healing, Vision, Eyes of Mary, Through Angels’ Eyes, Safe Passage, Scarlet Runner Bean, Bottle Gentian ( the Flower in the above picture) went in her mix.

Tuberose is a key Essence in this mix. It is deeply supportive of her release into her divine purpose and flow. Flow Free also concerns getting stuck energy moving. I consider it one of the most vital Flower Essences in our collection. Not surprisingly, the Vision Flower Essence focuses on issues of vision. Breathe is the standby for ear, nose and throat concerns. Grapefruit, Snapdragon and UCal Snapdragon (a Flower Essence mix of many colored Snapdragons grown at the farm) support the adjustment of the cranial plates to allow for more light to flow through these upper chakras. Symptoms in the head can be caused by stuck cranial plates which happens frequently when the vibrational energies of the planet rise as fast as they are doing right now. Snapdragon also supports us to have spiritual spine and live our complete truth. The Flower Essence friend Wound Healing helps heal the past life as well as current life wounds that create the fear of going forward on our spiritual paths whether this means further clairvoyance or something else entirely. The GHF friend requesting the mix noted that her family of origin had not taken kindly to her different kinds of experiences of reality, and this had meant an isolated childhood as well as a feeling that being true to self was a lonely thing. In addition to this concern about further isolation, sometimes clairvoyance can be unsettling because the person sees things they would rather not see. Bottle Gentian and Eyes of Mary help with this. Specifically Bottle Gentian helps us keep seeing clearly in tumultuous times (as in right now). Eyes of Mary supports us to see clearly but not process this as meaning we are responsible for everything we see. In the same vein, Through Angels’ Eyes is a Venus Garden creation that helps us hold a higher point of view which blends love with discernment about what is and isn’t our path. Scarlet Runner Bean helps us release our fears of change and supports our physical body which can experience change as an existential threat. Safe Passage is a powerful balm for this time, palpably reminding us that together we will birth a new iteration of love on this planet and this work is profoundly supported by untold spiritual beings as are we.

This mix both respects this dear GHF friend’s reluctance to open the chakra fiurther and gives support for her to trust the wisdom of letting go. This is always the dance of our spiritual journey isn’t it?

Current Astrology and the Sovereignty Set

The Staff Goddesses teach me many things. Lately we’ve had many conversation about the planetary movements from Capricorn to Aquarius officially ushering in the long heralded Aquarian Age. While I am certain I will not explain this as well as the Staff, the gist of it is that the energetic focus is moving from Capricorn to Aquarius right now with both some outer planets and inner planets on the go heading for new Aquarian territory. The next few weeks, in fact the next few days, bring some rare conjunctions and a whole new dynamic in how we experience our world and our learning lessons on stage set earth. Slow moving Pluto was the vanguard of this shift and will be in Aquarius for the next few decades.

The focus of a lot of this decade has been on building from the strengths of Capricorn. This includes mastery of form, thriving within complex structures, generally being a goat going up the mountain of structures that are perhaps not of our own creation but are something we worked hard to master. Sometimes the climbing was so consuming that we didn’t get a chance to think whether it was an expression of our soul or simply a job we were expected to do. Well that is all about to change.

The energy we move into couldn’t be more different. We move from generally navigating other people’s structures to exploring the unique purpose of our soul and ways we feel called to express this. If there has been a feeling of constriction during this Capricornian time, this is about to shift.

As Staff Goddess Elizabeth said, what lies ahead is a little bit like leaving our childhood home for the first time and realizing that we are no longer confined by parental rules. Instead we are called to go within and find our own rules. It may feel a bit disorienting, but I expect it will feel exhilarating too. The planetary astrology will encourage us to dream our unique dreams and go outside exisiting structures to live these dreams. A conjunction of Neptune and Saturn means the dreams won’t be based on illusions. Instead we will be supported to link our dreams to deep soul purpose.

The Capricornian work we’ve been doing to learn how to bring things into form will serve us to bring our unique vision and soul purpose into the world. We won’t have to throw out the baby with the bath water.

One example of this shift to Aquarian self expression occurred to me today. In a family of men who love their sports, I often watch golf, soccer, basketball, you name it. This week’s golf news was that golfer Brooks Koepka left the Saudi run LIV golf league to rejoin the PGA tour. This struck me as an Aquarian move in alignment with his soul purpose. He will not get the insane amount of guaranteed money he would have gotten had he stayed in the LIV structure. In fact he will pay $5 million to charity to rejoin the PGA tour. In choosing to return to the PGA, he will live on his own terms and rise and fall on his own merit. This kind of choice will be part of the shift from Capricornian structures to Aquarian times. We will live on our own soul driven terms, make our own heart felt choices and face the exhilaration and challenges of living our own version of our unique soul purpose. (And if you had asked me if I would ever have mentioned golfer Brooks Koepka in a blog I would have thought it improbable, but then we head towards an improbable but wonderful shift! )

As we begin to imagine and then inhabit this Aquarian territory, I am grateful for many a Capricornian project here at Green Hope Farm. Today I think in particular of the Sovereignty Set. This set was created to help us protect our own personal sovereignty in a time in which the misuse of power has made this difficult. As we move into the Aquarian Age the Sovereignty Set will help us find soul purpose, soul identity and soul sovereignty. How marvelous this set is here ready to serve us on the threshold of this wonderful shift.

As a community of Flowers, Angels, Nature Spirits, Dogs, Cats and even some People, Green Hope Farm can be a funny place……and I love telling you all about it!