When I first moved to New Hampshire, one thing that delighted me was that there was so much less poison ivy than where I grew up in Connecticut. Avoiding poison ivy was nearly impossible in my childhood world, much as I tried. Consequently, I had many bouts of poison ivy as a child, including one case where I puffed up from head to toe because a neighbor had burned some poison ivy in his leaf pile and I had gotten downwind of the smoke.

When I arrived in Meriden twenty seven years ago, it was rare to see poison ivy. Between vigilance about avoiding what little poison ivy there was and this general lack of poison ivy, I had many years free of poison ivy problems.

But not anymore. Poison ivy is spreading like wildfire throughout the region. Here at the farm, there is more and more poison ivy in the hedgerows. And despite my best efforts to avoid contact with the plant, I have gotten poison ivy a lot the last few growing seasons. In fact, I have a bad case of poison ivy right now. I seem to get it from the dogs’ fur. They run through the poison ivy and when I pet them, I get poison ivy.

Right now my glass of water is dosed with liberal amounts of Healthy Coat, Breathe, and Outburst. The Healthy Coat and Breathe are excellent for any situation of skin irritation or allergic type reaction like my reaction to poison ivy. Outburst helps with any kind of explosive situation and I consider poison ivy to fit this bill. The Angels also suggested it would be good for me to work with Flee Free more. This helps both animals and people to rebuff all sorts of irritants and pests. They said it would help increase my poison ivy threshold. Will report back.

Sadly, I am steering clear of love fests with Riley and May May in order not to get more poison ivy. They are acting understandably confused by this. I will ask the Angels for some ideas about what I can do about the poison ivy patches the dogs run through most frequently. I would welcome your suggestions too. I am hoping for a non toxic, earth friendly spray that kills the poison ivy but does not hurt anything else. Yeah, yeah, I know. What can I say but “Hope springs eternal”. And you are right. In the fifties, I would have bought swamp land in Florida.

Jim heard on the Vermont public radio yesterday that the reason poison ivy is spreading like mad is that, like most plants, it thrives on the increased CO2 build up of global warming, but that with poison ivy, the CO2 build up also seems to make poison ivy more virulent. It’s just so nice to know that signs of global warming are all around us.

I sit here trying not to scratch and also trying to accept that global warming is a necessary learning lesson for humanity. If I talk with the Angels, they calm me down and help me see that it IS all for learning. As you already know, when I sit with the Elementals, the mood is a bit different.

Speaking of my partners, I have had unusual instructions this year. The greenhouse is full of plants ready for planting, but nothing has been transplanted into the Venus Garden, the main vegetable garden, or the Cherokee Trail of Tears garden spaces yet. My guidance is that it will be planting time all next week, several weeks after things usually go into these gardens.

This could simply be the Angels way to keep me sane. Lizzy graduates from college on Saturday and I am cooking for three different gala events this weekend. This doesn’t exactly leave time for transplanting several hundred heads of lettuce and every other plant baby awaiting life in the soil.

So the next couple of days I will be cooking not planting. I think Lizzy will be glad to see me at Bennington on Friday with dirt free fingernails and my gardening pants retired for a few days. Will also try hard not to look like a poison ivy test volunteer.

And now, I need to go fill up my water bottle with my Flower Essence friends from the Animal Wellness Collection.

PS Vicki’s husband Kevin is doing an oral history project about Green Hope Farm. This has given us a chance to boggle his mind with our stories. Today he wanted photos of life in the office. We took some action shots of us reading the alumni magazine of the school where he teaches. He is on the cover of this edition of the magazine. Since we all have the sense of humor of students in junior high, we thought it was so funny to take these shots of us reading the magazine.

Kevin is the guy on the cover wearing sunglasses. He is responsible for Vicki’s big belly. Baby due in October.

Birthday girl Patricia on left ( her birthday was yesterday) and new Jane have a Kevin moment.

Here come the Tree Peonies.

And below, a well mulched garden.

Yesterday afternoon Sophie and I got the okay from the Elementals to clean up the main vegetable garden for planting. Until then, the Elementals had asked us to stay out of this and several other gardens. We never know exactly why we get these directions. It could be as simple as our feet would pack down the soil too much, but we like to imagine there are all sorts of esoteric reasons.

Sophie and I hauled a couple of piles of weeds like this out of the main vegetable garden, glorying in the hot sun ( which you’ll note from today’s picture has gone AWOL on us again!).

Some weeds came up in places where I didn’t put enough mulch on last fall but most of the weeds come from the interface where hay meets lawn. For how big this garden is, we cleaned it up really fast, thanks to the mulch. (Yes, I am still happy to break into my MULCH INFOMERCIAL).

We also pulled out corn stalks that the Angels had asked us to leave in place all winter for energetic reasons. Now we’ll spread more mulch.

Under the blue tarp in the background is the hundred bales of hay we will use this spring for mulch.

This morning May May and I spent a good stretch of time weeding violets out of one of the perennial beds. Okay, so May May supervised with a tennis ball in her mouth while I weeded.

When I was first in Meriden, gardening my tiny plot in the village, I watched another gardener ruthlessly weeding out the Violets in her garden. I was shocked and therefore completely disregarded what this suggested about Violets. When I went to plant the gardens here, I welcomed two Violet plants and since then, much as I love the Violets, I have had many an hour trying to reign in their glory.

Okay, back to work.

I thought you might like this. Let me know if it is a help and I will keep it updated and post it every so often.

All Blogs are archived by the month in reverse order of when they were written. Just click on the month and then scroll down to find the blog you are looking for. You might have to go to next page to find ones early in a month.

Okay, so it makes no sense to have them in reverse chronological order. I take no credit for this. I didn’t write this blog program. If I had, it would probably be more complicated! Just know that ALL blogs are right here! Really!

BLOGS ON ANGELS
Angel Designs, January 31, 2006
The Angels on Grounding, May 24. 2006

PARADIGM SHIFTS
Team Earth, February 28, 2006
When Life Throws us off a Cliff, March 2, 2006
The Emperor’s New Clothes, April 5, 2006
More on the Family River or Farewell to Rusty Plumbing, April 7, 2006
On Being an Empath, Some Thoughts, Some Tools, April 20, 2006
An Excellent Question that led to Thoughts on Following Guidance, April 19, 2006

BLOGS ON ELEMENTALS
Land Clearing: An Elemental Request, February 13, 2006
Elementals Deliver the Goods, February 20, 2006
From Entitlement to Gratitude, May 4, 2006
Elemental Love, May 9, 2006

BLOGS PRIMARILY ABOUT FLOWER ESSENCES
Flower Essences that get the Party Started, February 21, 2006
Common Issues with Suggestions for Flower Essences to Consider, February 23, 2006
Flowing with our Resistance to Flower Essences and Life Changes, March 1, 2006
When Life Throws us off a Cliff, March 2, 2006
Maple Flower Essence, March 16, 2006
The Generous and Safe Gift of Flower Essences, March 22, 2006
Fears, Doubts, Worries, Shopping Lists, March 23, 2006

BLOGS ON GREEN HOPE FARM OFFICE LIFE
Flying Mattresses and Fireside Moments, February 2, 2006
Some Serious Oneness Going on, February 9, 2006
Yessenia’s Baby Shower, March 9, 2006
Thanks to Ben, Here we Go!, March 26, 2006
An Americana Food Moment, April 15, 2006
For Yessenia’s mother Rosita and sister Edith, April 18, 2006
Sophie, Thursday and New Animal Wellness Brochures, May 11, 2006

BLOGS ABOUT FAMILY LIFE
Progress Report on the Knitting Olympics, February 14, 2006
The Dish, February 15, 2006
February “Vacation Week”, February 22, 2006
Update from Projectville, March 6, 2006
A Lot of M Words, March 24, 2006
The D Word, March 25, 2006
Jim Sheehan Stretches his Legs, April 5, 2006
Safe Arrival, April 11, 2006
Has it Been Forty Days Yet?, May 14, 2006
Happy Birthday Dear Katy or There is Something Wrong with this Sock?, May 23, 2006

BLOGS ABOUT THE FARM
The Maples Console, Feburary 6, 2006
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2006
Backyard Sugaring at Green Hope farm, March 14, 2006
The Last Boil, April 1, 2006
April Projects, April 24, 2006
Cats will be Cats, April 27, 2006
The News on Sunday, May 2, 2006
Has it Been Forty Days Yet?, May 14, 2006
New Bees, May 15, 2006
Friday, May 19, 2006

LOCAL HEROES
This one is for you Mrs. Gallagher, March 9, 2006
Be a Local Hero, March 28, 2006
MayMay and I make our Firday Morning Tour, May 5, 2006
Two Shining Lights on a Rainy Day, May 17, 2006

A Green Hope friend named Mary asked me what I mean when I use the word Grounding.

I thought we would all learn more if I turned the discussion of Grounding over to the Angels of Green Hope Farm. The following is their words as received by me.

Angels: Grounding is not about anchoring to the material plane. Grounding is about anchoring to what is real and true and this does not include the material plane.

What is real and true? Few things that you see are real, but everything that is real is true.

We will forgo the riddles for a moment.

The truth is simple. God alone is real. Divinity alone is real. Love alone is real, No matter what word you choose to apply to what is real, it alone is real.

So grounding is a process of anchoring in the real, the timeless eternal God in everything.

How do you do this?

Your heart is the place to go. Your heart is anchored and in divinity more so than any other place in your life.

Other things and other people may be grounded in divinity, but you cannot ground through something else or someone else that is grounded. It must be your own connection.

This does not mean that you do not need wayshowers, other people and ideas guiding you to uncover what is real and what is not. You will need wayshowers, like the Green Hope Farm Flower Essence Grounding or a good spiritual teacher. The electrical patterns of wayshowers give you information that helps you on your journey to your own heart and to being grounded only in the real, but it is YOUR journey and you must take it. No one else can do it for you.

This gives you a litmus test for your spiritual journey. If some idea, person, or practice takes you out of yourself, away from the primacy of your own heart felt connection to divinity and leads you to rely on the practice or the person, then it is not leading you to divinity and it is not grounding you.

Most of humanity is in a swirl of ungrounded information in an ungrounded culture. Try to remember that all this is not real.

We offer you a metaphor that is timeless, even though it refers to a piece of equipment whose time has come and gone.

Consider a record on a record player. Consider this record turning at an accelerating speed. The experience of being grounded is like being at the center of a record where nothing is turning but everything is real. The experience of being ungrounded is like being out on the edge of the record while the record spins. It is easy to be in the center of the record. It is very hard to hold on from the record’s edge.

Anything that helps you ground will help you with that journey back to the center of the record where all is real. Anything ungrounding will keep you in the dizzy spinning place at the record’s edge, feeling like you are spinning out of control.

The good thing is that this spinning is not real. Nothing is real but the center of the record where divinity is. Even remembering this truth will help you back towards groundedness at the center. All things grounded, be they Flowers, their Essences, Teachers or their wise words will encourage you back to the center. All things ungrounded, and therefore not real, will not.

Molly: Why are Flowers and their Essences helpful grounding tools?

Angels: Consider the music of the spheres. The harmony of creation comes as each part of creation sings its unique song. Flowers know themselves to be divine, at the heart of creation, and part of all that is. They also know how to sing their unique songs. They sing in harmony with the music of the spheres.

Again, this does not mean you are to sing the same song as a Flower. It means that a Flower can offer you course corrections as you find your unique song.

This is really the aspect of grounding beyond the generic. When you are anchored in your divinity, it is not that you are nothing in a sea of nothingness. You are a unique expression of love in a sea of love. You have a song to sing, unique to you, in harmony with the whole of creation.

Flowers and their Essences guide you towards a remembrance of who you are and what your unique musical song is. They do this almost as a pitch pipe tunes an instrument. You play your musical song as best you can. A Flower or its Essence offers a musical vibrational note that helps you course correct towards a more refined expression of your true self’s song.

Then you play your song again. Other Flowers or their Essences help refine the tuning as needed. This is what good teachers do. They contain you. They help you see what you are and where what you do and how you express yourself falls away from your true self. They are pitch pipes for tuning the true self.

Like the Flowers or a wise teacher, we from the Angelic kingdom experience and contain the real you as well. We offer vibrations to help you tune to this true self. We too offer ourselves as wayshowers and companions for your journey to knowing self. The divine in us salutes the divine in you.

For example, if you have temporarily lost the bead on self kindness, we might bring to you the vibration of mercy. This vibration of mercy might remind you of a tender love that lives within you, a love not predicated on your mind’s idea of what is deserved or just. This vibration of mercy might help you find the place within where a similar love, something essential and eternally part of you, can be found.

In this way so many parts of your eternal self come forward to be remembered and the music grows sweeter with each remembering.