Yup, that would be the paintbrush and varnish.

Life always manages to throw some unexpected curve balls and the latest one around here is about our gorgeous new labels. Due to some crossed signals with the label company, they put more varnish than we wanted on the labels. What this means is that while the ink goes on the labels okay, it also can be rubbed off by a determined person or simply by traveling the high seas of the mail.

We discovered this after a week or so of sending a sprinkling of the new labels out into the world. In general, we are using the new labels as we run out of the old ones, but a distributor in Hong Kong asked to have her whole order in the new labels and we were so full of excitement about the labels that we proudly sent her order off with all new labels. Shortly thereafter we heard back from her that the writing on the labels had rubbed off onto the box lids in transit. This was exactly what we hoped was not going to happen.

After a lot of research, we settled on solving the problem by varnishing every label after Lynn or me or Polly our new label queen writes the label. Blessedly I like mindless jobs, because varnishing labels certainly qualifies. But my main emotion is relief that we figured out a solution. While a few labels have gone out into the world without this varnish, from here on out everything will be protected and you will be able to sky dive in the Grand Canyon with your Essences in your pocket and the label will look as fresh and legible as the day it was written on. And yahoo for that!

Jim’s sixth grade classroom looks like a jungle. While our tropical plants spend the summer in the gardens, at least half of them ask to go to Jim’s classroom for the winter. His students learn how to care for rubber trees, hibiscus bushes, peace lilies, and a sea of begonias. They hand in papers through a gap in citrus and succulents, aloes and steadfast geraniums. It takes a truck to bring all the plants to school for the winter and it takes the village of his school to savor all their gifts.

One tree towers about them all in both its height and its magnificent outpouring of love, a tropical beauty called Dombeya Wallichii.

This beloved Flower, a native of Madagascar, is all about sheltering love. When it blossoms, the immense orbs of pink Flowers flood the air with the most unusual perfume of baking cake. This year, as you know, Jim’s school is in the chaos of reorganizing itself to face the present economic situation. Not only do Jim’s kids wallow in the tropics all day, but all the staff meetings- and there is one every day- happen in Jim’s classroom too. Everyone meets in a consoling sea of Flowers, under the sheltering branches of the Dombeya Wallichii.

Because Dombeya Wallichii Flower and Essence are all about sheltering love especially for caretakers, silently pouring out love to students and teachers alike is a natural for this Flower. And this year, recognizing the particular circumstances in play, the Dombeya Wallichii responded with an immense Flowering. Instead of the usual couple of blossoms, it has thrown off over twenty orbs of Flowers, huge balls of exquisite pink. And the perfume wafting down the halls? While Jim has invited everyone in the school to visit his classroom to enjoy Dombeya’s display, everyone would have found their way there anyways, following the irresistible scent of this ravishing Flower.

Diving into the scented heads for a deep breath, each and every visitor is graced with the vibration of this loving presence. Such a reminder to me of the grace of Flowers and their fine tuned love for each of us.

As we wait for the arrival of the new labels and logos, 120,000 strong all shipped from Nebraska last Friday, I continue with my Guide rewrite.

I am almost done my next to last read through. One project I have been working on while doing this edit is a document called, “Green Hope Farm Flower Essence Suggestions for Common Concerns.” This list contains lots of healing concerns and my Flower Essence suggestions for these concerns. As I reread the Guide definitions, I cross check to make sure the Flower Essences are in the categories they need to be listed in, a process that has improved this list considerably.

This list has been in process for a few years but has become a big focus for us this winter. I am sure I will feel called to improve it almost daily, but it is a pretty comprehensive and helpful document right now.

If you want a copy of this new baby ” Green Hope Farm Flower Essence Suggestions for Common Concerns”, please ask for it and this will get me to cut the cord and let it be born.

It is a pretty large document of fifty plus pages. You may want to get it by email so you can keep it on your desktop to print out or not as the case may be. We remain happy to check with the Angels and also look to this document for you if you don’t want to wrestle with this beast, but it is an interesting read! Every one of us in the office has put a lot of loving attention into this list.

I hope it proves a blessing to each person’s search for the most supportive Flower Essences.

Additionally, this list is going to go up on the website very soon.

Webmaster Ben and graphic design Goddess Jess have the new home page built ( but not launched) and are beginning to fill in the pieces. We will load all articles onto the site including this wonderful new list. For the first time the additional Essence list, formerly known as our research list, also will be found online. Once I have finished the edit of the Guide, Ben is going to give me a template so that I can put the current definition for each of the Flower Essences in the Guidebook onto the website too.

Is your head spinning? Mine is. And guess what? While I was writing this blog, the new labels arrived! Here is Jess, graphic design Goddess unpacking some of the boxes!

It’s now a week since I thought this blog was posted……. Something has gone mysteriously wrong again with the blog uploads……. Since last week, Iwe have begun to send out by email and mail the “Flower Essence Suggestions for Common Concerns” list!

We also began the process of changing over to the new labels. Lynn had QUITE the list of labels to write this week- and we began to use these new labels on new inventory- it will be awhile before we aren’t occasionally dipping into old labels because Lynn can only do so much, but we all ooohhh and aaahhhh every time a box with some new labels go out-

So I have put in a call to Ben to see if he can help me get this blog to post and then I hope to hear from more of you wanting this list- I am ready to let it roll!

Ice covered our region about a week ago and our community is still recovering. We lost power over the weekend, while half our town lost power for a week. At the farm, the electricity was gone only long enough to give us a deep appreciation for hot water and offer us some peaceful time cooking food on our wood stove and playing lots of Scrabble. The power outage was a lot less fun for most of the people in our town. Everyone down by the Connecticut River had to drain their pipes, move the contents of their freezers out into the snow, haul water from the river to feed their livestock, and take refuge in hotels or homes with power.

For all its challenges, it was a crisis in which people took care of each other and the power companies worked twenty four seven to get things going again. Everyone pitched in with kindness. It made me wonder whether this same generosity will rule the day with the other crises we face as a country right now.

This week the husband of one of the Green Hope staffers was let go from his work with no advanced notice. He came in to his job and was told to pack up his work station and go.

My own husband, Jim, was told that after fifteen years teaching sixth grade social studies and English, he would be teaching seventh and eighth grade math and science next year as a way to lower the school budget. I could walk you though the reasons given for this decision, but think I will dwell on other aspects of this situation.

Jim is very passionate about how important it is for sixth graders to have a world separate from seventh and eighth graders. It gives these twelve year olds one more year to be kids, before being blasted by all the peer pressures of an American teen. This new plan will see his sixth grade program swept into a sixth through eighth grade pod with him no longer teaching any sixth graders.

He worked for fifteen years to create a sixth grade program that includes such highlights as a curriculum based wilderness program in the White Mountains, a social studies curriculum dovetailing with books read for English, and class scheduling with long class periods to take his students deep into the creative projects he has developed over the years. Today for example, he has his kids involved in a very elaborate treasure hunt based on the constitution. With his fellow sixth grader teacher, he has created a sixth grade year where kids ask to have “working lunches” so they can keep on discussing Lois Lowry’s “The Giver”.

In the new configuration the sixth graders lose the White mountain trip, all read alouds, long class periods, recess, and Jim.

This is a personal loss for Jim as well. He is passionate about sixth grade and social studies. Fifteen years ago, after a stint in the much more lucrative field of hospital administration, Jim chose to return to classroom teaching, specifically the sixth grade classroom.

As he looks down the barrel of a whole new life, he knows that not only does he have to come up with four new curriculums for next year in subjects he has never taught, but he will have only three years to pass the science “Leave No Child Behind” praxis test in order to keep teaching the new curriculum he has been given. The praxis science test for a seventh and eighth grade science teacher is a test for 7th-12th grade certification and requires an expertise in all the materials taught in high school chemistry, physics, and biology.

Jim has never taught any of these subjects and has not studied them in thirty years. While several years ago he boned up on his calculus to get 7-12 certification in math, he does not feel any grade school teacher he knows could pass the “Leave No Child Behind” science test and does not expect to pass it himself. This means he can plan on teaching new subjects for three years, before needing to find a new job. And this is a man who has been in the classroom for twenty three years!

Besides needing to let off steam here, my point is broader than our specific troubles. In the days to come, it looks like this sort of sea change is going to sweep over a lot of lives. There are going to be opportunities for all of us to act and react from our most generous centered selves instead of our most fear driven ones.

In light of the economy and the way education in New Hampshire is almost entirely funded on property taxes, Jim and his fellow teachers expected reductions in staffing and other changes to come to their school. But they had hoped that they would be given the chance to brainstorm with each other and with administrators and school board members before changes were made. This did not happen. There was no communication or dialog before the changes were mandated.

Retroactively, they have asked to be given a chance to come up with some different staffing configurations that fit the budgetary constraints, but better protect the programs. I hope that this will be allowed to happen.

All this has me sipping a big glass of water with Eyes of Mary Flower Essence in it. I can get pretty fired up about who did what to whom, but I realize that my only option is to calm down, focus on how I can listen to Jim without pushing my own solution on him, and think how I can practice what I preach in my own life as CEO of Green Hope Farm.

Interestingly enough, it was Eyes of Mary that was the Flower that we chose to represent the Green Hope Farm Collection of Flower Essences. Eyes of Mary Flower Essence is all about seeing everything in overview, loving with detachment, and supporting people amidst their trials and tribulations without trying to “fix” things. I am leaning on Eyes of Mary right now to help me understand that the situation Jim is in serves his journey, even if, right now, the situation just makes me mad.

It’s a two pronged thing. I want to try not to act from any fear driven place in me that keeps a negative chain reaction going. I want to try and live from the same sort of generous place that prevailed in people in our town this week as neighbor helped neighbor when the lights went out.

I also want to try to remember how much I have learned from situations that are just like this situation Jim faces. I need to remember that this circumstance is giving him an opportunity to learn something his soul wants to learn more than his soul cares about job security. To take his teaching life into his own hands and stand up for himself and all he believes in is an opportunity for him to see his own courage in action. I don’t have to fix anything, just bear witness with love.

I had a funny dream last night. I was at a library sitting with a young mother and baby. The baby was just a few weeks old but tremendously strong with sparkling blue eyes and a presence that filled the room. She was the new wisdom in a room of old wisdom. In the dream, we knew that something way out to sea had been taken and for some reason we decided to send the baby out to sea to reclaim what had been taken. We set the baby up with a big motorboat. Quite a lot of attention was paid to getting her the right outboard engine for the boat, and then we sent her off, confident that she was the one for the job.

I feel this way about this time. We can’t go forward with the tired old wisdom and tools of patriarchy and expect anything to be different. What’s broken can’t be fixed by the culture that broke it. But the dream left me feeling encouraged. The new paradigm of the sacred feminine has been born. She may be young but she’s feisty, talented, and ready to roll. We’ve got the equipment to support her expedition. And she has already head off to sea to reclaim what was once lost. That’s all very good news.