Here’s to Lynn Tidman, Teddy Grobe, Susan Dam, Lauren Sherman, Adrienne Cedeno, Sarah Ireland, Ashley Dwinell, Liz Taylor, Jayn Bier, Catherine Barritt, David Jonas, Catherine Boorady, Cindy Brady, Pat Laurin, Kathy Skolem, Deborah Cardew, Sophie Cardew, Patricia Wiltse, Yessenia Araya-Mesen, Vicki Ramos-Glew, Masaki Schuette, Jane Taupier, Jessica Miller, Katherine Bernier, Olivia Fauver, Lauren Lenz, Thembi Muhlauri, Sarah Callaway, Caitlin Glasgo and all the Sheehans who have been and/or continue to be Green Hope Farm Staff Gods and Goddesses!

While there are millions of things I thank each and every one of you for and so many gifts, talents, insights, humorous world views and general sass that I am grateful that you brought to Green Hope Farm….. today I focus on your patience with the Green Hope Farm bathroom….

So here is an official shout out to you, honoring the fact that you put up with a small miniature substandard windowless pit the worst bathroom in North America- some of you for a brief flurry of months but some of you (and you know who you are, dear ones!) for MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS!

Q: How bad was this bathroom?
A: It was so small I frequently thought I was going to crack my teeth on the sink when rising from the toilet. It was so small that not even the smallest bathroom throw rug fit the space. It was so small that it needed a half sized door of just over two feet wide for entering and exiting.

Q: Why on earth was this bathroom so small?
A: When we built this house, I appeared to think that my children would always be in diapers and never need an actual toilet.

Q: Didn’t you think that you might have guests in your home?
A: Apparently I expected only hobbits.

Q: What was the least pleasant thing about this bathroom?
A: It was smack dab in the middle of the house but had absolutely no sound proofing. Anyone in the living room or kitchen could hear way too much. You could recognize the Green Hope Farm old salts because when there were other people in the living room or kitchen, they knew enough to run the water when using the facility ( and I use the word facility lightly- it was the kind of bathroom that made an outhouse seem appealing).

Q: How did you try and make this bathroom a better place?
A: We made an enormous wall sized collage of your cards so that while there was really no way to use the bathroom, it was always an artistically inspiring and colorful ordeal.

Q: What made you decide to do something about this bathroom problem child travesty of a space?
We realized we could take a portion of our living room and make it a bathroom entered from the Green Hope Farm bottling room and simply rip out the existing bathroom.

Q: How’s the project going?
A: This time round, hind sight being literally hind sight and of course 20/20, there has been more of a focus on the fact that people need bathrooms and perhaps deserve not to have the entire office hear all about it.

Yes, it really was smaller than a coat closet.

All gone!

New toilet about to be set in place by Jay this morning. Jay Waldner is the wonderful carpenter/craftsman who framed our house in 1987. The past few weeks, he has had the pleasure of undoing his own work, ripping out the original “bathroom” he framed out for us when we were young and green in judgement.

I am particularly grateful for Jay’s presence right now as it represents the first time since Jay left us that Jim has been willing to have help with a project!

Upgrades include:
Big window with view of beehives, oak, pines and lilacs.
Real sized mirror replacing tiny antique one that was heavy on charm and light on function.
Crap industrial tiles replaced by real ones.
Sound proofing.
Space large enough for humans.

As this year draws to a close, I want to report back to all you Earth Angels about what we did with your generous contributions to the Japan project.

As you may recall, after the earthquake in Japan, we decided to make a special Flower Essences to send to anyone in Japan who wanted it. Our goal was to send this Flower Essence mix free of charge with Green Hope Farm covering the cost of the Flower Essences and any of you who felt so inclined defraying postage costs.

In response to our idea, you flooded us with contributions for postage, and many people from all over Japan asked for the Flower Essence.

To date, we have sent over 1100 bottles of this Flower Essence mix to Japan. Postage for every package was paid for by you! We continue to offer the mix to anyone in Japan who would like it’s support.

In early days, many bottles of the Flower Essence mix were walked into territory near the center of the damage. Later, bottles continued to go out to the hardest hit areas as well as to people all over Japan who were concerned about radiation and dealing with the trauma as it affected the entire country.

Tomoyo Rezvani was a key person in getting Essences to all parts of Japan but many, many people distributed the mix, often in very courageous ways.

A number of you broadened the scope of your gifts and made gifts for Flower Essences for rescue animals and also people in this country affected by events like the tornadoes in the south.

We also continued to give Flower Essences to those who can’t afford them, and a number of Earth Angels supported us with that effort. One particular Earth Angel created a fund for folks with financial concerns to receive Flower Essences at the close of their lives. Sharing Essences in this way has been very moving for those of us here, and we have heard some wonderful stories of gentle deaths supported by the Flower Essences.

My deep thanks to each and every one of you who gave so generously! Please know we will continue with all these efforts!

One postcript- Our work with rescue animals got wonderfully hands on this month when this dear rescue cat joined us. Pippa is a wonderfully spunky feline with an engaging personality. She quickly made friends with all the cats, dogs and people living and working here. So far, she likes to spend her days in the office watching us pack and ship orders. At night, she is in the middle of every craft project with a particular affinity for yarn. She has all of us laughing at her joyful antics. Jim is usually the brakes in our family when it comes to more animals, but Pippa won him over in a heartbeat.

Thanksgiving included four dogs, four cats and twelve people around the table. This was a smaller group for us than most years but a zesty one.

From past Thanksgiving posts, you know how much I like finding out guest’s childhood Thanksgiving menus then including their twists in our meal. This year’s newcomers meant the addition of a broccoli cheese rice casserole which proved very popular as well as a very complex take on sweet potatoes in which things were mashed, pummeled, ground by hand then finished off with marshmallows submerged in the sweet potato matrix. It was a serious hit.

Thanksgiving remains my favorite holiday especially since Ben has taken over full responsibility for the turkey. I love that the week before Thanksgiving I can wish everyone we connect with here in the office a Happy Thanksgiving because it is a holiday that belongs to all of us.

Strange weather also seems to be common ground for just about everyone we connect with these days. Here in the north country, we had a serious snow storm on the day before Thanksgiving which morphed into a string of unseasonably warm “spring days”.

The newly planted spring bulbs have been confused enough to be poking their heads through the ground.

What do you say to a brave little fleet of Crocuses who stand poised to blossom? No! No! No! doesn’t seem to stop them. I am hoping that some last minute additional mulch will.

Most of the farm projects are inside right now- Even with the soil still warm, there comes a moment when the shovels get hung up for the season ANYWAYS.

I continue to work on the next edition of the Guide. In addition to trying to rework every Flower Essence definition with input from the Angels, Elementals and you all, I’m also sorting through all the testimonials you sent us for use in this next edition. Many of you have asked that we put these testimonials on the website as well as into the Guide, so I am making one big document to post on the website.

When I started this project a number of weeks ago, I had several hefty files of testimonials we had saved since the last guide was printed. It is an incredible adventure to read your stories, and it fills me up with a great deal of gratitude. With every healing story I read, I feel so lucky to be part of Green Hope Farm Flower Essences.

Here is a letter I am going to put into the section on Flower Essences and Rescue Animals:

The best story, however, is my rescue fight dog. He was almost catatonic when the rescue group saved him. All of his teeth were gone & he hadn’t seen the light of day for almost a year. He was still pretty messed up when I got him. He had serious irritable bowel & lots of fears. I started him on the remedies the minute they got here. He was feeling really poorly for about 4 days- then, the next morning my eyes almost fell out of my head! When I went downstairs to feed him, I was greeted by a new dog! He was standing up (not cowering in the corner,) wagging his tail & really glad to see me! His energy had completely shifted & he hasn’t looked back since. His digestive problems were solved & he has since had nothing but pick-up-able poops! His whole space has great energy to it. It took me four months to get him to go outside. Now, he’s put 2 & 2 together & knows to go outside to “do his business!” We have gotten him some toys & he loves to romp & roll around in the sun & play like a puppy! They think he’s between 10-12 yrs old- but you couldn’t prove that today! K.B., Louisville KY

Isn’t that something to be thankful for? So many more letters to share soon. Bless each and every one of you who takes a moment to tell us your Flower Essence stories. I am so glad to be working on this project so all of you can hear all these stories! As I pour over these letters there is one other thought that fills me…….

Thank goodness your handwriting is a lot better than mine!

Some of you have been asking us what we are doing to prepare for 11-11-11.

I am never quite sure what these events mean, but I like how they give us all a sense of occasion and an opportunity to celebrate new beginnings and our collective spiritual journey.

During the Harmonic Convergence in 1987, we camped out in our half built house. It was our very first night in our new home and very special to get up at dawn to greet the sun rising over our first farm crop of buckwheat, planted to improve the soil.

With 11-11-11, we decided to have a BIG bonfire.

Jim, Emily, her friend Charlie and I dragged brush from the pile between Ben’s land and our land.

Sometimes I have been put in charge of making the bonfires. As an earth sign, this doesn’t play to my strengths. Much as I need fire energy, a fire I build can often molder along in a dismal sort of way. So this time I asked Emily and her friend Charlie who are both Aries to build the fire.

It was Ben’s thirtieth birthday last week so the bonfire was part of his birthday celebration. Here he is talking to MayMay about the blaze.

It was a great decision to leave Charlie and Emily in charge of the fire. It lit with one match and was a towering inferno within about ten seconds. Here they are enjoying their creation, having been told they are now in charge of all future bonfires.

We also saw this fire as a dhuni, a purifying fire into which we could symbolically throw bindings and attachments. I was glad to have a chance to write down things I wanted to let go of and throw this list in the fire.

And when the blaze settled down, we also used the embers to enjoy a few ‘smores. After all Will hadn’t had a snack in fifteen minutes and he was famished!

Anyone wondering if we are all connected would have plenty of food for thought after a week or two shipping orders at Green Hope Farm. We have about a thousand Flower Essences on offer but in any given week, there will be particular Essences from our enormous array that fly off all over the world in a flood of independent orders. Lately one of the Flower Essences that has been rushing out the door is Indian Pipe.

There is so much to say about this beloved Flower Essence!

Indian Pipe was used by Native Americans as an herbal decoction to calm querulous and restless children especially those with fevers. It was also used for pain relief. As a Flower Essence, Indian Pipe helps people remember the abiding reality of peace beneath tumultuous events. As the Angels describe it, Indian Pipe helps us experience the ocean of God’s love ever present beneath the surface waves.

With its profound connection to Native Americans, it comes as no surprise that Indian Pipe Essence also holds a template for balancing the four winds and the four elements. Domesticated animals particularly love it for the support it gives them to regain this sense of elemental peace and unity with nature whenever this awareness has been lost to them.

Many animals can benefit from Indian Pipe right now and thankfully, their people are ordering it for them. Animals are part of the Elemental kingdom so they see their job assignment as absorbing and rebalancing the vibrations around them, but right now, there is too much for them to absorb and stay balanced at the same time. The accelerating vibration of the planet leaves many animals absorbing the chaos of their people’s reactions to the changing planet as well as other chaotic vibrations around them. This is one of the reasons we suggest Golden Armor for the animals as it buffers them from all this extra dissonance.

Indian Pipe is also extremely helpful for the animals in the present circumstances. It eases them back into a primal experience of self, an experience that by its essential nature is peaceful. In the wild, animals know how they must live. They do what they need to do to survive, but they maintain an experience of unity with their world throughout all their daily activities. Domesticated animals can lose this experience of unity and fall into the illusions of the human community of otherness, separation and loss. This tends to happen more when their people are stressed, and the tumult on the planet is leaving a lot of us stressed. While Golden Armor helps animals not take on our illusions in the first place, Indian Pipe helps restore the animals to their natural state of oneness with the natural realm if they have temporarily bought into our vibrational confusions.

We shouldn’t be so surprised that animals might need a roadmap back to their natural state. They find themselves in worlds that are not of their creation and in the energies of dissonance that would never be something they would create. They have no natural roadmaps back from a place they never would have created. Fortunately, Flower Essences can show them the doorway back to their own balanced self.

Us humans need Indian Pipe just as much as the animals for we too need support to cut through the sway of illusions of separation to come into an awareness of the seamless unity and abiding peace of all that is.

I had a very Indian Pipe healing this past summer that reflected this Flower’s deep kindness and ability to help us snap out of our mind funks. To back up a moment, Cranberry Lake, the place in the Adirondacks where I went to every summer of my early life, was always my favorite place on Earth. As a child and young adult, I couldn’t really imagine life without this place, and it never occurred to me that I would have to imagine this. I am still having a hard time completely wrapping my head around the truth that the place is gone from my life.

My love for this place was all about my experiences there of feeling one with the natural world. As a very small child I felt a kinship to the rocks, trees, waters and most particularly the Flowers of the place. It was no surprise that the Adirondack collection was one of our first collections of Flower Essences. To meet with Adirondack Flowers along a trail or at the water’s edge was to visit with friends, so of course these friends were the ones I turned to first when I began making Flower Essences.

On a practical level, when the place in the Adirondacks fell away from my life, I had to figure out other ways to source the Flower Essences. For a number of years, my kids continued to visit Cranberry Lake, and they took on the responsibility of making needed Flower Essences but this was always a bit touch and go as Flowers don’t always return to exactly the same spot from season to season. I could tell the kids to look for Yellow Water Lily in South Flow or Small Woodland Orchis in the swamps of Cowhorn Pond, but the Flowers were not always there. Nonetheless, we made do until last summer when the kids were told they couldn’t visit the family camp anymore either. With this full stop to visits, I had to get more serious about finding all the Adirondack Flowers near the farm.

The problem was that while I knew where some of these Flowers grew around here, there were several Flowers I had never seen in local woods or fields. So this summer, every woods walk was a search for some of the missing Flowers. There were two that I was particularly concerned about: Titan and Indian Pipe. As a wild orchid, Titan can’t be grown from seed or transplanted, not that I knew where to transplant it from. I really had no idea where to begin with my search for this one. As far as Indian Pipe was concerned, I was certain it grew around here, but it was another one I had yet to actually find. I map my world by where Flowers grow, but this one had eluded me, and my inventory of its Essences was low low low.

One August afternoon I was fussing over an enormous potted Dombeya Wallichii tree that spends the warm months outside the greenhouse in a place right by our front door. As I plucked untidy leaves and tied up leggy branches, I suddenly noticed two Titan orchids growing just a few inches away from the Dombeya’s pot . Not only were there two healthy Titan plants, but they were about to bloom. Three feet from our front door!

You can imagine my gratitude, joy and relief. The arrival of these orchids was truly the answer to a prayer. I was still glowing a few hours later as I took a woods walk with the dogs. As I went over the discovery of the Titan orchids in my mind, I was in a glow, but a tiny part of me was still concerned about finding Indian Pipe.

As my mind began to turn this niggle into a full blown worry, I glanced up into the woods ahead of me. A shaft of brilliant sunlight illuminated a patch of earth under a hemlock tree, and there in this swath of sunlight grew a glorious clump of Indian Pipe, the first I had ever seen in New Hampshire!

Sometimes no matter how Flowers try to disguise themselves as just beautiful props on stage set Earth, their intense love beams out and envelops us in greater realities. In that moment, I bathed in the peace of Indian Pipe and in an awareness of the immense generosity and tender love that is the natural world around us. In that moment, I could feel myself, at long last, lay down any burden of worry about finding Adirondack Wildflowers for our ongoing collection.