During my childhood Adirondack summers, our family hosted sailboat races every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon.  A motley collection of sailors would arrive at our dock towing their snipes, a sailboat with a jib and mainsail large enough to need a crew of one but small enough to have a good sail even if the wind wasn’t up.

Our family was responsible for setting the course.  If the wind was coming in one direction we would set a three point course in the smaller bay to the south of our dock.  The sailors would agree on how many times round they would sail the course. The direction around the buoys would maximize beating into the wind because that made for a better race with more strategy and skill involved. If the wind was right we would set a larger course in the main body of the lake.  This meant a much longer race as it was a many mile course with four mile legs. 

Before the race, my father was preoccupied getting our snipe ready. My older sister was usually his crew so this left me to go out with my younger brother to drop the buoys to mark the course.  Once everyone had their sails up and were tacking back and forth at the starting line, my brother and I would start the race. First we gave a five minute warning, then a one minute warning and then a go signal.  We would wave towels in case our ridiculously inadequate megaphone was hard to hear.  As the race progressed, we were the committee boat, racing off to rescue anyone who got hung up.

Besides the delight of being a very young teen left to tear around in a big motorboat unsupervised, there was the character study of the captains of these boats. 

One older gentleman had the best boat.  He was the inventor of marine plywood and took the quality of his boat and his approach to every race very seriously. The trophy awarded at the end of the season to the sailor who won the most races never left his cottage wall as he won all the races.  His glamorous wife was his crew. Wearing colorful rain gear and a diamond as big as the Ritz, she looked fresh as a daisy even after very wet races.  I long remembered the race when she reached into a cooler and handed me a frozen Babe Ruth bar. I had never tasted anything so good. One Saturday late in my teenage years I crewed for this glamorous couple’s eldest grandson.  We did not win. As we landed on our dock after the race, we were greeted by both a furious grandfather and father who chewed us out for the mistakes we made.  The family was uber competitive.

But the person that made me think about writing this blog was an irascible Scotsman whom I shall call Mr. V.  Mr. V had been in the mining business and had spent most of his career in the jungles of Central America.  An extremely portly gentleman, he always pulled up to our dock in his gleaming Chris-Craft with his teeny tiny wife at his side.  Mrs. V was one of the smallest and most wrinkled people I had ever met which made the story that she had delivered her children alone in the jungles of Nicaragua even more amazing.  She was a doctor so apparently she knew what she was doing, but I very much hope that “alone” was inaccurate and that she had a local midwife to help her.  I never dared ask her the full story. It all seemed so wildly improbable that this miniature person had given birth to Mr. V’s children let alone in a jungle.  She was the epitome of a stoic putting up with Mr. V’s sailing day histrionics.  Add to this giving birth to his children in the jungle, and she was in a category of unapproachable immortal.

Mr. V towed his boat from about as far away on the lake as you could get.  He had a house on one of the fingers of the lake, a good ten miles from our dock.  Once we dropped in for a tour of his home. While we were used to the creepy deer heads that decorated most Adirondack camps, we were still startled by the walls of his home covered as they were with enormous stuffed amphibians and strange metal contraptions.  Perhaps if I had known more about mining I might have recognized what all the hardware was. The snakes and alligators spoke for themselves.

As a heavy set gentleman, Mr. V was always searching for a small person to crew for him. With his weight in the boat, he needed the lightest crew possible if he was to have any chance of racing well in a light breeze.  He trolled the waters of the lake dragging in one callow youth after the other as no one wanted to crew for Mr. V more than once.

One reason for this was that Mr. V was a terrible sailor. He seemed to have no sense of the wind or any idea that he needed to change his way of attacking the course from moment to moment as conditions shifted.  He came in with the same game plan week after week and followed it no matter how dismal the results. Each race he would immediately set off on a tack that was ill advised, leaving him well behind the field from the beginning. 

Though we never set a course near rocks or submerged stumps, he found them as metal filings find a magnet.  This led to many races in which my brother and I towed him and his wet, cold crew back to our dock. Of additional relevance to his crew was the fact Mr. V was not the most patient of gentleman and always loudly blamed his crew for problems that developed during the race.  His rants alarmed my brother and me so much that If Mr. V arrived for a race without someone to crew for him, we would high tail it into the woods to be sure he wouldn’t lean on us to fill in for him.  Fortunately the lake usually coughed up another young victim for him, and we were off the hook.

So what got me thinking of Mr V? So much of this time is about who we choose to Captain our boat. The wind is up and we need to let go of the shore where we’ve been, but who is going to Captain our boat? So many Captains are like Mr. V.  Full of bluster, unwilling to learn from experience, intent on doing the same old thing over and over again even as it doesn’t work, certain they are right in spite of evidence to the contrary.

While I certainly can stray into letting a Mr. V steer my ship for a moment, I choose the Divinity within me to Captain my boat. So many Mr. Vs clamor for our attention right now, claiming an expertise that they do not have. At best these Captains can offer unhelpful generic advice unconnected to our specific circumstances. At the worse, their advice steers us right out of the purpose and flow of our lives onto submerged stumps.  That’s the thing about listening to the Divinity within us.  It’s current guidance precisely for our situation.  It’s Divinity speaking directly to us in each now.

As we leave behind the Piscean Age and head into the Aquarian Age, we can salute the up side of the Piscean Age with its encouragement of direct mystical revelation, direct contact with the Divinity within us.  But we need to throw out the structures of interference created by all organizations resistant to the idea that each of us is meant to have a direct experience of Divinity without someone else “guiding” i.e. controlling us.  If an organization or person says the only way to proceed is via their guidance or methods of operation, following this advice is like crewing for Mr. V.  Maybe once in a blue moon his rigid game plan worked ( though I never experienced this), but almost always a boat steered by him was bound to flounder or land on the rocks.

People often wonder why we are so open ended about how to use our Flower Essences.  This summer as I dive deeper and deeper into the world of Flowers, I am so very glad that our basic advice has always been: trust your own guidance about what to do with the Flower Essences.  If you feel that you are to rub them on your feet, rub them on your feet.  If you feel you are to spritz a mix over your head  five times a day, I salute your guidance and support you in it.

 I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, but something about this summer as I visit so deeply with the Flowers makes me think of what this vista must be like. I feel I am looking into a vast and breathtaking landscape of healing that I have only just begun to glimpse after thirty five years in the garden.  When you tell me that you were guided to work with a Flower Essence in a new way for a new purpose formerly unknown to me, I am excited and happy. The Flower has spoken deep in your heart.  The Divinity within you has listened and felt the truth and power of the Flower.  As you share your direct, felt experience, my point of view is expanded by yours.  I may never get guided to use the Essence in the same way as you because we are distinct Divine beings in a sea of Divinity, but I know you have received wonderful guidance in perfect alignment with your glorious being.

I am grateful for every moment I remember to let my inner Divinity captain my boat and I am grateful for every moment you do too.

As we navigate this time of challenges and unknowns, it is an immense comfort to know that the Nature Kingdom made a promise to always provide solutions to our problems. Even our most toxic and misguided creations are met by Nature with solutions and healing. Always.

Yes, we still need to seek these gifts out and then actually use them, but they are there ready for us.

The Flower Essence Goldenseal speaks to the Elementals specific promise to help humankind in its healing process and evolution towards oneness. Despite our disregard for Nature and disbelief in the existence of a consciousness in Nature, Nature keeps turning up for us.

This summer I have been working on a complex project with my Elemental and Angelic partners as well as healer Kathy Skolem to create a group of Flower Essence mixes to help us with the specific energetic concerns we face right now. Tune Up ’21 was the first of the mixes we co-created, but by the Autumn Equinox there will be five more mixes to support us at this specific energetic juncture.

As I work on these mixes and dive more deeply into conversations with the Angels and Elementals overlighting this work, I am struck over and over again by the infinite generosity of Nature.

My process works in the following way. First there is the need to identify energetic issues to be addressed. This involves research and many conversations with the Angels and Elementals overlighting Green Hope Farm. Then I consider Flower Essence candidates for each issue by going deep into conversation with the Angels and Elementals of the various Flowers.

One thing I notice is that EVERY TIME I arrive at a Flower Essence needed, the Angels and Elementals have already made sure the Flower is either growing here because they guided me to grow it this season OR it has volunteered in the gardens and is ready to be made into an Essence. The synchronicities are over the top!

During the growing season I am always busy restocking our Flower Essence inventory, but this year sees me particularly in awe of the offerings in the garden. What an astounding gift to find these Flowers ready to serve us all. The steadiness and generosity of Nature leaves me in complete awe and wonder.

One Flower Essence that has taken me on a deep journey this summer is Garlic. When I last studied Garlic, I focused on its gifts for the 6th chakra. This time, the Angels and Elementals have called me to look at other gifts Garlic has. As I see how it creates a force field of positivity, I recall how in myth and lore it is used to keep negative entities like vampires at bay. In revisiting its energy and talking with it in more depth, this reflects its ability to bring to light negativity especially negative thought patterns and move them out of our energy fields.

Now I will reconsider how Garlic can be added to various existing and soon to be created mixes. One of the synchronicities here is that after my complete failure to rein in the rampaging deer last summer with my ridiculous twine fences, I received an email from a beloved GHF friend named Judy who suggested I use some sort of garlic based spray to spray the daylilies. So this season, I’ve been spraying any plant the deers usually eat with a garlic concoction. AND IT’S WORKING! Yes, I need to shower twice a day and still smell faintly of garlic, but who cares because once again I have Day Lilies blooming everywhere!

So thank you Garlic and thank you Judy and thank you Nature Kingdoms! And deer, I love you and thank you for the lessons you have brought me but honestly, I am thrilled to be having a new lesson with you!

This morning in the gardens, the Cleome was sparkling.

I love the pine needle path of this year’s Venus Garden.

In the vegetable garden, a wonderful crop of peas is on the right side of the photo. We’ve been waiting for the pods to fatten up. Today they look ready to begin to harvest. Tonight’s supper no doubt!

This is one of my favorite Roses- Konigin von Danemark. The Purple Smokebush behind it makes for an interesting conversation between the two plants.

This photo was not from this morning but I couldn’t resist adding it to the post. It was taken on Midsummer Night’s Eve.

All Blessings to you!

Not much happens here at the farm without me considering the significance of the event in a larger way. This sounds rather grandiose, but paying attention to small moments on the farm is the way I connect to a greater world. I may very well get the symbolism of events wrong, but this doesn’t stop me from observing the gardens closely and pondering all that happens. Noticing these precious small moments of beauty and challenge brings me joy and help me harvest bigger picture realizations.

Perhaps I would have found this focus on nature no matter what, but I credit my sixth grade teacher for igniting this fire of observation. He had each of his students make an insect collection of 50 different species, identified and properly mounted. It was a long involved project that saw me and my classmates running through fields and forest with nets and collecting jars, looking closely at every tiny thing.

I don’t think I could bring myself to kill any insects now (except when swatting black flies), but ironically this love for all life was vastly increased by this assignment. In many ways it changed my life. After that spring chasing bugs, insects and other small creatures of the world became more precious to me. This science project may well have brought me to Flowers too, because Flowers and insects are seamlessly connected one to the other.

Once I started looking and listening carefully, it was hard to miss that the world talks to us ALL THE TIME. Even when I don’t understand, I know that every tiny event in the garden holds significance.

Which brings me to Monday morning at 7 am. Expecting a large contingent of staffers, Lizzie went out to move the various farm vehicles from the upper staff parking lot down towards the house to make room for the staff cars. I was heading for the gardens when I saw our red pick-up truck wildly careening down the driveway, plowing through stonewalls to stop at last in our ornamental pond out front of the office.

The brakes on the truck failed and Lizzie was unable to stop the truck’s charge into the pond. By the grace of Divinity, Lizzie was safe. This was a miracle that filled our hearts as we considered how easily this brake failure could have happened with one of us going down our steep hill or on a highway with other traffic. No one was hurt. Even the polliwogs were still swimming around the submerged wheel.

In the wake of the truck’s path, garden pots lay smashed, stonewalls were leveled, the welcome arch covered in Hops was flattened to the ground and the truck found itself jauntily perched in the pond. Oddly enough the pond’s fountain was unscathed. We enjoyed its saucy burble as we noiselessly surveyed the scene.

When the tow truck guy arrived to pull “Old Red” out of the pond, he took a lot of pictures to show the folks back at the dispatchers. This was not the usual tow job. Slowly, slowly he pulled out the truck as we watched to see what the damage would occur on the reverse path.

When the dust settled, we discovered the ornamental pond, fiberglass in structure, had a repairable crack. The cedar arch was history. Almost at once, I began to replant the surviving plants and consider what new structure to create for the languishing Hops.

For someone who looks for significance in a slug invasion, raucous crows or a Bindweed problem, this moment gave me a lot to consider. Here are some of my initial thoughts.

Hops is all about spiritual growth. For some reason, ours needs a new support. What will this be? Big picture, little picture things are falling away and new ways of being in the world and seeking the Light are coming into form. And some of these new ways will arrive in dramatic and unexpected ways in terrain we thought was just fine as it was. After all, that arch seemed perfectly good to me, and never did I imagine the truck would need to plunge through this garden for a visit to the pond.

I have always called this garden the Entrance Garden as it welcomes those going to the office and those going into the farmhouse. It feels important to step up the energy of welcome. The old arch was two cedar posts with a cedar post across the top. It had a heavy, grounded feel to it. After checking in with the Angels and Elementals, they had me move an existing more delicate but actually stronger arbor up from the Rose Garden area for a new welcome arch. This was made for us many years ago by a local welder. It is round and very tall with hearts welded into the design. When its settled in place I’ll post a photo. Because of its immense size, we joked that it looks like we are expecting guests from Mt Olympus. Who knows?

Around the original arch lived a cluster of planters. As I put new planters out and began to replant them, I chose plants I had never grown here before that I know nothing about. It’s time for us to welcome the new, and not what we imagine the new to be. I think for all of us everywhere, it is going to be better than anything we can imagine.

I replanted using shards of pottery from the broken pots in the bottom of the new pots. If some old structures survive all the change occurring, these old structures will be used in new ways. They’ll serve the new evolved creations coming in but not be in charge anymore.

And then there was the pond itself and the fact that this body of water had stopped the truck. We built this pool as a representation of the Sacred Feminine. The Sacred Feminine is the deep pool of inner wisdom and intuition within each of us, ever there to guide us towards a path of unity consciousness and light.

Our version of this sacred well of feminine intuition and deep wisdom is what stopped an out of control and very solid truck. This gives me hope that all the out of control destructive energies of this time will meet their match and be stopped by the rising energies of the Sacred Feminine awakening in every one of us. This event leaves me not only with hope but with confidence. It shall be so!

PS A week or so later:

I love all you’ve shared about what you make of this event. One beloved GHF friend said, “Wow, what an amazing happening, and I love what it symbolizes! The male patriarchal energy does seem out of control in the world, but there is the divine feminine that will ultimately transform it.” Another beloved said, “As far as the Lily Pond- deep emotions, feminine, flow, no wood which in Chinese medicine feeds fire which is anger. No stone, the keepers of knowledge and history, stopping this so old history cannot stop new from coming in.”

Keep those insights coming! We’re in this together and not alone!

To imagine me this last month, think of every stereotype of a gardener of a certain age and you have the visual- Straw hat smushed down on my head, garden pants more dirt than canvas, black flies swirling around my head and my feet moving as fast as possible as I tear through the gardens with a wheelbarrow loaded with clippers, twine, compost, soil amendments, shovels, stakes and flats of transplants.

May (and now June) are a blur for a gardener like me. So many things to get done in a short amount of time. But the work environment couldn’t be better (except for the black flies). There is so much beauty to savor on trips to the compost heap or doing any one of the many splendid happy jobs of May in a garden. It’s glorious to just stand there and soak in the gardens around me.

Here are a photos of some of what I have been enjoying. I hope there have been Flowers (or the equivalent bliss) in your life this month too.