Yes, its time for my annual discussion of what friends, Staff Goddesses and strangers I accost on the street are serving for Thanksgiving. I have a tedious endless fascination with this topic. Everyone I ask says, “The usual.” then proceeds to describe a meal that almost always has a twist or two. It is the twist or two that pull me into each family’s story.

Another reason for my abiding fixation interest in this meal? My family of origin Thanksgiving menu was so bizarre unappealing unique that I am still puzzling over the menu sixty years later. There was rice. Rice was king. And also Queen. There were peas in a boiling bag from Green Giant and also corn in a bag. There was a spicy fruit compote. There were blueberry muffins from a box mix. There was a dry turkey. However there was no gravy, no mashed potatoes, no stuffing and no pies. For a family that never missed dessert and also sported some very good cooks, the whole thing was odd.

Joining Jim’s family I relished the inclusion of the regular suspects: mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and pies. Jim’s father particularly loved mince pie, and I made this for him with a green tomato mincemeat I canned up each summer. However his Aunt Ruth’s Pumpkin Chiffon Pie was the real star of the pies on offer.

The one puzzle in the Sheehan meal was the appetizer of black olives from a can and celery sticks served in a cut glass dish. I could not imagine wasting space in my stomach on these options, but they always vanished at a Sheehan Thanksgiving. Later I learned this was a very traditional southern New England Thanksgiving thing. Go figure.

After thirty plus years hosting Thanksgiving, the baton has passed to my children, and I am free to put my energy into asking even more people about their Thanksgiving menu.

At my granddaughter’s last soccer game of the season, I asked various spectators what they were serving. One woman’s menu included moussaka for her grandfather from Greece. Another spectator described Thanksgiving as a warm up for the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. Fish dishes are sampled at Thanksgiving to see if they make the cut for the Feast. One man I asked, someone I have known for many years who therefore was probably not too surprised by my odd question could not recall what they ate last year or any year. Some people really don’t find this a topic of general interest.

Turning my attention to Staff Goddesses, one who returns to her childhood home in Connecticut each year said her mother always serves roasted vegetables including broccoli and cauliflower as well. Our roast vegetables include butternut squash, carrots and parsnips so these cruciferous veggies were a new idea. As with my Connecticut family of origin, they also have frozen corn as a side. Her family also has no pie except for pumpkin now added in because her husband missed it. Apple crisp is the dessert du jour which suggests to me that her mother knew my mother as this was the kind of dessert we had in lieu of pies.

Staff Goddess Sam had a southern dad. She spent her childhood Thanksgivings in North Carolina, and the meal included cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows and pecan pie. As Sam grew up in puritanical more restrained Massachusetts, the marshmallows on the sweet potatoes was the thing she remembered most as she had never seen marshmallow fluff on a vegetable. As an adult Sam either cooks from her amazing vegetable garden or she and her mom’s family get Chinese take-out as her mom is from Hong Kong. She stressed that after they stopped going to North Carolina when her grandma died, the menus became very free flowing from year to year. Turnip pudding with Chinese mushrooms and hoisin sauce are one of the few dishes that make the cut each year.

Another Staff Goddess participates in enormous family Thanksgivings of forty or fifty people. Mushroom Wellington sits alongside the two turkeys. There are a few rules for the gatherings. Rule #1 is that there will be petit pois a.k.a. little peas WITHOUT onions. Onions are for Christmas which is a meal that also must include a peppermint roll cake which this Staff Goddess loathes but which the family cannot live without. I haven’t mentioned her name as I don’t want her to have to go into the witness protection program because she told me that she hates this dessert. The pies are the focus at her Thanksgiving and the list of pies is long. Maple Cream Pie takes center stage . I am hoping for the recipe. Rule #2 is that pies must be made from scratch. There was a problem with jello instant pudding used in a chocolate cream pie recently, and everyone hopes that was a one time thing. Rule #3 is that there must be cranberry sauce from a can with the ridges still on it AND fresh cranberry compote.

Staff Goddess Emily grew up on a dairy farm in Walpole NH and now is married to a dairy farmer in our town. She goes to her grandmother at HER dairy farm in Massachusetts for Thanksgiving. Emily is usually given the assignment to make rolls and some years this has involved making eight, ten, twelve dozen rolls.

Em’s Grandma keeps a very tight rein on the menu, and this year she has given Emily the assignment of BOILED carrots. She told Emily there is to be no roasting of vegetables. The carrots can be served with butter but NO ROASTING. The meal begins with a relish tray that includes gherkins. I could not pry out of Emily what else went on this relish tray. Like the Sheehan black olive and celery dish, it’s clearly a dud. There are mashed turnips, mashed potatoes mashed without the skins thank you very much, turkey, gravy, boiled creamed onions, sausage stuffing made with Pepperidge farm stuffing mix thank you very much and big rolls. While her husband’s family likes small rolls, Em’s family likes big rolls. She noted that they like big everything. Emily makes such amazing bread that I know from experience her rolls are beyond delicious whether big or small. I am not clear why Emily has been set free from roll duty this year. It is good news for Em but bad news for everyone else.

All in all, respect for Great Grandma who is so clear about what she wants and deserves at her Thanksgiving table.

I have still got another week to accost people and ask them what their Thanksgiving menu is. Wish me luck! And please email us your menu and family Thanksgiving meal traditions. I love hearing from you! This is a holiday we all share and I love that about it!

So many beloveds are dealing with challenges including health crises, unexpected changes in relationship and life circumstances, illnesses that linger longer than expected and a general feeling of being in a pressure cooker situation. Here are some Flower Essences to support you in self care during these challenges. I’ve listed the concern and a Flower Essence or two which will bring support.

FEELING UNSAFE: Golden Armor, Sanctuary, Safe Passage

FEELING HOPELESS: Gorse, Equanimity

LINGERING ILLNESS: Vitality, Wound Healing, Recovery

UNEXPECTED CHALLENGES: Emergency Care, Maltese Cross

ANXIETY: Anxiety

NEED TO REMINERALIZE AND RESTORE: Vitex, Ethereal Fluidium Super Glue

FEELING CAUGHT IN SAME DRAMA: Cherokee Trail of Tears, All Ego Contracts Null & Void

GRIEF & SADNESS Grief & Loss, The Mary Rose , Grief & Loss Rose Trio

EMBATTLED: Mary Queen of Scots Rose, Indian Pipe

FEELING ALONE: Arbor Garden, To Hear the Angels Sing, The Sunflower Spiral

HARD TO STAY PRESENT: Grounding, Black Hills

NOT SURE HOW TO MOVE FORWARD: The Way Forward, Vision

FEELING BURDENED: Carry Less

OUT OF BALANCE: Balance in a Blue Moon, Sacred Feminine & Sacred Masculine

KNOWING THIS IS NOT THE END: Santiago, Fisterra

What makes Flower Essences such a fantastic source for high vibration healing information? Let me offer up just a few of the many reasons why Flower Essences are so wise.

First let’s consider this growing season here at the farm. In the early spring we had no rain, then we had a brief period of too much rain then in midsummer it stopped raining completely. We have had virtually no precipitation since then. The Flowers growing here had to figure out how to adapt to radically different conditions in order to flourish, and flourish they did (Mercifully groundhogs are not very interested in most Flowers).

Each growing season, I create a working list of what Flower Essences I need to make to keep our inventory in good shape. As I went to make Flower Essences many summer mornings, I was in awe how well the Flowers were managing this unpredictable weather. I had only to look back a year to remember how they managed completely different environmental challenges last year when it rained every day. Now, this growing season they have survived drought conditions. Their adaptability is a big piece of their wisdom.

As an aside, this wisdom about adaptability is one reason why we go to so many places in the world to make Flower Essences. Each environment demands certain things of its floral inhabitants. How the Flowers adapt to these demands is their unique vibrational wisdom, available to us via Flower Essences. The diversity of environmental circumstances means diverse Flower wisdom in our Flower Essences.

But back to my main point, a Flower flourishing in difficult circumstances holds wisdom about how we too can flourish in difficult circumstances. Climate change and all the rapid changes in our world requires us to learn how to adapt at a much higher pace than ever before. The Flowers, steadfast at our sides, are showing us how to do this.

Each year I make hundreds of quart jars of mother Flower Essences so as to keep a consistent inventory of all our Flower Essences. Each time I make more of a Flower Essence, it finds its home in chronological order behind other earlier batches of the Flower Essence. The Flowers, like us, are always seeking to hold the highest vibration possible, so as I add new Flower Essence inventory, all of the mother Flower Essence upgrade their vibrations. In this way all the wisdom the Flowers learned in all the different growing seasons is held ready to serve you. I have been making Flower Essences since the late 1980’s. Many Flower Essences hold the blended wisdom from thirty or more growing seasons. The vibrational wisdom of each of our Flower Essence grows in light and strength season to season.

Additionally there is the long term wisdom of the plant itself bringing to the Flower Essence its core vibrational wisdom.

Let’s consider the Rose family for an example of what I am talking about. Every specific Rose is genetically identical to the very first specimen of this specific Rose. For example our Sarah Van Fleet Rose is genetically identical to all Sarah Van Fleet Roses. Actually its more amazing than that. Each Rose is, in fact, the actual original plant that has been growing continuously for hundreds even thousands of years. Why? Because Roses are grown from cuttings.

Talk about perspective!

More astounding still, when you make a cutting from a Rose, the Rose grows a whole plant from this cutting. It has the ability to grow new roots, new stems, new leaves and new Flowers from any cutting, and again, this new plant will be identical to the plant from which the cutting was taken and the original specimen of the Rose.

With Flowers, the layers of wisdom about adaptability to change are ancient and deep. And this vibrational wisdom is offered in full in a Flower’s Flower Essence. More wonderfully still, our electrical systems are able and ready to read and learn from these wise vibrations so we too can adapt to these rapidly changing times.

One of the most powerful things about Flower Essences is that they help us untangle and dismantle bindings that have been very difficult to resolve.

A letter accompanying an order for Flower Essences sits before me. The eighty years young woman who sent the letter finds herself in an abusive relationship with her older brother who controls the family trust. He doesn’t share her values which focus on being loving, kind and open to new ways of thinking about things. Her hopeful, expansive and sweet point of view drives her brother wild. In response, he has called her a lot of ugly names and cut her off from all but the bare minimum of support from the family trust. As with so many Green Hope Farm friends, I have known this woman a long time. Through the decades she has shared her deep and playful enthusiasm for Divinity sometimes calling the farm to sing a song and always sending us beautiful collages she has created.

This time she writes that her brother has made it impossible for her to proceed with treating her cancer with additional alternative support as well as conventional medical care. You all know how I feel about anyone interfering with our choices about how we take care of ourselves and our health. I am saddened we continue to have people think they should make health care decisions for anyone else but themselves. This Green Hope Farm friend stopped living in the same household in an abusive relationship with this bullying brother sixty years ago, yet he still plays a major role in her life and in her health care decisions.

When someone is in an abusive relationship, there are so many layers to peel away, and so much healing to be done. When the abuse is coming from a relative, the Family River trio is powerful for its capacity to help free us from the ingrained mindset of our family system that might bind us to the situation. The trio empowers us to understand the situation with much greater clarity and frees us to decamp, keeping only the divine wisdom of our family bloodline.

Golden Armor and All Contracts Null & Void are profound for their support to cut the bindings that keep us connected to abusers. The Angels created the Sovereignty Set to support us with this as well. Among many other gifts, this set helps us deconstruct the many ways the group think of patriarchy keeps us bound in unhealthy dynamics. Our bodies belong only to ourselves. No external structure or person should be able to make health care choices for us as this brother is doing with his sister.

Abandonment & Abuse from the Animal Wellness collection is always a go to Essence when someone is in an abusive relationship. It has been used by countless rescue animals and countless people too. There is so much collateral damage done by abuse, and this Essence supports the deep wound healing that must be done. Wound Healing is another go to in this situation. I love this Essence.

In the case of this Green Hope Farm friend, she also made a deep dive into the Additional Flower Essence list to choose some other supportive Flower Essence tools. As always when I look over a group of Essences one of you has chosen for yourself, I learned a lot from her choices.

It is empowering to witness that this Green Hope Farm friend does not settle into a victim stance as she deals with her brother. She makes Essence choices that empower her to whatever degree it is possible to move the situation along to a more humane dynamic. She chose Duchesse de Brabant Rose and then notes its description “I AM an energetic mover and shaker. Consider me to help bring your mind and circumstances into greater order. I AM an excellent remover of inner and outer clutter and offer my services to support you in these tasks.”

While so many have used Ducheese de Brabant Rose from the Bermuda section of the Additional Flower Essence list to help with cleaning our homes, this Green Hope friend calls on this Rose to help bring inner and outer order for other reasons. In her own words she notes that, “The Duchesse is about paring down and getting rid of excess as in “less is more” to reveal the core of simple beauty.” I found it inspiring that she takes this approach to the financial restraints imposed upon her by her brother. She is not going to take it lying down. She is getting legal help, but she is also working to make peace with what is.

In confronting the dynamic with her brother and family of origin, she chose Monkey Flower also from the Bermuda section of the Additional Flower Essence list, once more writing out its description in her letter, “For unraveling dense, dark knotted family issues including abuse, incest, betrayal and for healing wounds suffered from these situations or from any instance in which one person in a family misuses his or her power to control or hurt another. This can also help with relationship wounds.”

Another she chose to resolve this family of origin drama once and for all is Pandorea also from the Bermuda section of the Additional Flower Essence List. Once more she copied the description in her letter, “Helps us to unlock closely guarded issues and reveal old wounds and secrets so they can be healed. This can lift great emotional and spiritual burdens from us as Pandorea helps us to release as well as acknowledge old baggage and things we may have hidden in ourselves that we haven’t wanted to look at. It also releases the negative charge around these hidden matters so that we can “houseclean” ourselves with detachment and calm.” I love how once again she chooses a Flower Essence that empowers her to actively resolve whatever her part in the situation, no matter how small a part this might be.

This discussion is but the tip of the iceberg about which Flower Essences can serve you in breaking free of abusive relationships and healing the wounds that the abusive relationship may have caused you. Please trust your own guidance about which Flower Essences can help you and know we are here to support you in figuring our which Flower Essences to work with and in your journey to wholeness, healing and joy.

Our Flower Essences have connected me with so many people living with such love and clear intention to serve others. Today I thank you all.

One Green Hope beloved who has given her life to serve people in pain and peril wrote today in anguish about communities affected by Helene. While she serves her hometown community each and every day, her heart is also in Asheville.

This woman has been through so much sorrow including the death of her beloved child. Amidst all her personal suffering she has continued to advocate for and take care of so many disenfranchised, suffering people. She truly lives a life of love in action.

If she is upset by the suffering of a specific group of people, she helps write a bill to support them. Then she buckles down and works until the bill gets passed. She has done this numerous times. She has put her money where her mouth is in her personal life as well. When her mother disinherited her sister, she gave her sister her share of the estate after her mother died.

Today this dear woman was trying to figure out why horrible things like Helene happen. I had no answers for her, but her reaching out did give me an opportunity to thank her for the way she lives her life. I don’t think she has any idea the difference her love has made, but it was great to have an opportunity to remind her that her love matters and has mattered to so many.

One of the things I noticed when challenges filled my life was that some people wanted to frame the events as if I deserved them. Patriarchy suggests that if we are good, work hard, do the right things, we will be spared suffering and for those who don’t do a good enough job, well…. the suffering is their just reward. This bogus idea magnifies our suffering by leaving us suffering first from the actual challenge and then from the inner conviction that we deserved the suffering.

This friend does not live with this erroneous belief. She never buys into the patriarchal myth that some people deserve to suffer more than others. She works to relieve any and all from the burdens of their suffering.

The other thing I said to her was that I thought her love was enough. MORE than enough. In fact her love is the only thing that matters. It is what is needed and cuts right to the heart of every situation she finds herself in.

When we are suffering, we need love in action. It doesn’t matter if the person handing us the bowl of soup doesn’t have a theory why bad things have happened to us. The love of the soup bearer is what matters. That and the soup.

All the mind ideas we can gather to explain the unexplainable are just one more thing to let go of. Right now, I frame this as giving these ideas up to the Divine flow of the Eight, using the Eight Garden Essence to help me let go of things that don’t matter and that are not real.

Love is the only real thing. It is the only thing that matters. And so many of you live this truth in loving action every day. You walk your dog even in the freezing rain. You thank the grocery clerk. You tip the waitress even when things haven’t gone well because you know she’s not in charge of the back of the house. You knit for people who need chemo caps. You smile at a stranger who looks like they are having a bad day. You cook for hungry people even when you are very tired. You listen even when a friend is going over the same territory for the umpteenth time. You hug when hugs are needed. You gently take a bug outside when it has wandered in. You laugh at yourself and not at others.

I thank you all for each loving action that fill your lives. I salute you.