I thought it might be helpful to offer Flower Essence suggestions for our life circumstances during the pandemic, especially as this chapter of life on earth stretches on. Before I begin, I want to note that we still have a mix, Timely Virus Mix, for support to keep virus free or cope with the virus if you do get it.

I have divided my suggestions into categories- Let me know if I missed something!

One other thing. You’ll notice I chose photos from the Camino throughout this blog. This is because the Camino and the reality of spiritual journey is so relevant during this time of pandemic. In truth, we are still on the Camino even when we are not literally walking a trail!”

Support to be as resilient and flexible as possible

So many plans cancelled or changed. So many jobs and relationships in flux. This has been a time requiring us to be very flexible and resilient in the face of innumerable setbacks and disappointments.  Here are some Flower Essences to help us find our most resilient self.

Common Ragwort– Helps us not get stuck in resistance but find our resilience to face necessary change. This is especially helpful when the change is extreme and alien. Ring any bells?

Watch Your Back– Okay, bear with me a moment because this doesn’t initially seem to have much to do with flexibility and resilience, but this combination includes all our Palm Essences, all of which embody and offer a vibration of great flexibility and resilience. Just think how Palms bend in hurricane winds yet live to see another day.

Coltsfoot– Another one that seems more connected to other concerns like regaining flexibility after an orthopedic injury, however this one also helps us have a flexible attitude towards change.

Red Rugosa Rose– This one helps us ride stormy seas with resilience, grace, humor even panache.

Support for feelings of claustrophobia

On the Camino there are places on the trail that are called God forsaken places, stretches that feel so spiritually heavy that pilgrims must work hard to keep going through these dark places. Here are some Flower Essence suggestions if this stretch of your spiritual journey has felt like a God forsaken place or simply a place of claustrophobic smallness.

Bramble from Scotland– This one helps us arise from a dark place and move towards a place of greater light, even if the journey right now can only be an inner journey not literal.

Omey Island– This combination remedy, made on the sacred tidal island of Omey Island, Connemara, Ireland, helps us accept the natural flow of life including times when we are cut off from each other as when a tide cuts an island off from the mainland. It helps us to feel whole even as our lives have been pared down by circumstances beyond our control. It helps us know we are spiritual beings having a physical experience not visa versa. It helps us rest in an understanding that this time serves us spiritually and therefore it’s okay to accommodate it peacefully.  Pilgrims created the Camino with no intention of including God forsaken places, but these places arose none the less as part of the spiritual journey.  Omey Island helps us know these places have their gifts.

Boundless– Support from this Venus Garden variation to feel the Boundless glory of our souls even when physical limitations are present.

Ruby Moon Hyacinth Bean– Helps us experience our spiritual freedom no matter the circumstances.

Specific support if we miss traveling

One of the essential gifts of Flower Essences is that they bring us the healing vibration of other geographical locations when we can’t go to these places ourselves. Consider dipping into collections from places you’d like to visit.  This gives your energy system the same information as if you had actually visited. Yes, it’s not the same as actually being in the place, but right now these global offerings are very expansive and balancing to us.  We have Flower Essences from Bermuda, Ireland, Spain, Costa Rica, Chile, Patagonia, Crete, India, Sicily, Greece, Taiwan, Japan, Scotland, St John USVI, as well as from various places in the US.

Help so our currently restricted daily life to feel more joyful and fun

Mazarife- This Camino beloved supports us to create an oasis of joy during bleak stretches in our lives.

Daisy– If we have been scattered or discontent, Daisy helps us find a cheerful, happy state of being, one that feels very centered and grounded and where we feel confident in our right to be happy.

Gratitude– Because counting our blessings always helps.

Don’t Worry-Bee Happy– Rising above the clouds of worry to feel the buzz of eternal joy.

Globe Mallow– Support to feel a robust appreciation of the everyday as well as experience even the most humdrum and constrained day as sacred.

The Fairy Rose– Because we all need a bit of dolphin magic and play.

FJ Grootendorst Rose– Offers us that most happy summer feeling.

Bramble– This Bramble from Ireland helps us experience the half glass full even amidst circumstances that are extremely challenging.

Allspice– Helps us heighten our senses and therefore experience the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Acceptance of what is

In addition to Omey Island, there are other Flower Essences that help us find acceptance with what is. Interestingly, many of them are from the ever-evolving Venus Garden at Green Hope Farm which each season offers us support for a big picture situation we are all going through.

Equanimity– This Venus Garden variation holds a template for equanimity. Equanimity is the state of being calm, composed, even tempered especially in difficult situations. Equanimity is the ability to remain poised and in balance even when pressed by painful experiences of failure and loss. It is not so much not caring, as being able to care in a calm and emotionally balanced way.

Love it and Leave It– This Venus Garden gem brings us to an experience of our immutable Divine real self. It does this by loosening our focus on the unreal and helping us focus on love. It does this by encouraging detachment and an unshakeable knowledge that all things of this world are momentary and passing. This knowledge releases us from the futility of trying to control outcomes. It releases us to genuinely enjoy whatever is happening without thinking it defines us. It releases us into true happiness as we realize nothing defines us but our Creator. This detachment leaves us free to focus on what IS unchangeable, and it isn’t fame or fortune. Focused love on Divinity is our way through the momentary and passing to the absolute and eternal.

Loving What Is- Help to put the heart ahead of the mind, because when the heart leads and the mind supports the heart, we find purpose and acceptance even in extreme circumstances. When the mind leads, it’s not so good.

Maple– Maple helps us cultivate the middle road, a balanced and calm view of things and acceptance of what is.

Redwood– What does the ancient Redwood know? This too shall pass.

Flower from the Gardens of Taormina– Trusting the path in front of us even as things fall apart.

Support to use this time out to recharge for new breakthroughs

A golfer swings his club backwards before forwards and both directions serve the trajectory of the ball.  We are in a pause, a space that sometimes feels like a going backwards, but as things begin to go forward again, we’re going to see more clearly how this “time out” served us.

Zucchini– This one encourages us to use any downtime we have been given to recharge without guilt.

Desert Garden– Supports us to receive nourishment in inhospitable, harsh situations that seem to offer no hope of sustenance.

The Gate Beautiful– The backswing takes us temporarily back into tired old tales of three dimensional life, the forward swing takes us into the vibrant fifth dimension. This Venus Garden gem from 2020 powers our forward swing on into the beautiful fifth dimension.

Support to find our creative voice in this time

There is a scene in Apollo 11 when Houston mission control realizes that there won’t be enough oxygen to get the astronauts home unless the astronauts build a filtration system up in space.  Someone at mission control assembles all the random gear that the astronauts have available to make the system- things like socks and duck tape- and gets a group to build a filtration system that they can teach the astronauts to build in space. This saves the astronauts lives.  Sometimes I think constraints are the mother of invention just as much as necessity.

When I taught photography before Green Hope Farm was born, one assignment I gave my students was to take photographs of one building at the school using a kind of film that only printed in black and white with no gray.  The narrowness of this assignment made it the one that brought out the best in the students.  When the dust settles post covid, we are going to see a flood of new creations, creations born in spite of and sometimes because of the constraints we have all experienced. Here are some Flower Essences to support you to be part of this flood of creativity.

La Rioja– This Essence from the Camino collection supports us to find our unique creative voice.

Wild Iris– Reaching for the stars, we can choose to birth healing creations from the heart of our souls. This one helps us align to our most sublime creativity.

Lady’s Mantle– Sheltering our creative efforts so we can give birth to them when the time is right.

Clivia– Supports tangible results from our create efforts.

Partridgeberry– Support for a creative project to bear fruit especially those created in partnership (for me, this partnership has been with Angels and Elementals so this doesn’t have to be a partnership with another human).

The Eight Garden– Helps us get in the flow of the expanding light energy so we can bring our creative dreams into form in the most seamless way possible.

Support to navigate the losses

Change brings loss and this shift has brought a lot of it. As we pause to mourn the dead and the things we have seen leave our life, these Essences may help.

Grief & Loss– This Flower Essence combo is a steadfast friend in times of grief and loss. I can’t recommend it too highly.

Grief & Loss Rose Trio– Three generous and loving Roses offer a trio to tender support for us in our suffering.

Phoenix Rising– Supports in us the energy of rebirth from the ashes.

Arbor Garden– Humming with a vibration beyond the earth illusion of separation, this one helps us to feel the unity of life and abiding reality of oneness.

Support to feel hope, trust and our connection to source amidst the chaos

Gorse– Helps us have a steadiness of hope and optimism even in situations in which we are being battered by the winds of change or find ourselves in an environment of pessimism. It is an excellent ally when a feeling of all is lost is prevalent because Gorse knows all is never lost.

Eyes of Mary– This one helps us see the situation as Angels do, offering us an overview that is deeply relaxing, inspiring and hopeful.

Red Mangrove– Helps us feel anchored in eternal realities as temporal ones shift or fall away. This small and tenacious tree, rooted at the ocean shoreline, is one of the few trees that withstands hurricane winds. As an Essence it helps us know the truth that we are safe and firmly anchored in our Creator even when the waves rock and roll us or when all the other things we have looked to for stability and safe anchorage are crumbling away. It’s also a great energy for new creations as Mangroves serve as the nurseries for much new ocean life.

Yellow Water Lily– Helps us feel deeply rooted to source no matter the tumult, no matter the storm blowing on the surface of our lives.

Effort and Grace– Our efforts matter, not the outcome. That is what we can bring to the table right now. Grace matters too, and it comes to us with abundance and generosity when we least expect it. This Venus Garden combo shares a magical mix of effort and grace that encourages us to keep going in the mess of human life, knowing our efforts elevate and sweeten grace just as grace elevates and sweetens our efforts.

Creeping Daisy– Fills us to the brim with the knowledge that Spirit is, always has been, and always will be loyal to us.

Support with our next steps after this time

The Angels wanted to end with this topic, noting that the Camino collection which figures prominently below, is a particularly appropriate group for this concern.

Queen of the Night– This night blooming Flower and vibrational beacon of light illuminates where we are and helps us navigate forward across any terrain we are hesitant to cross. Her light literally unknots and dissolves complications. It is focused and wise.

The Way Forward– Made from many Flowers along a 500 mile stretch of the Camino, this Camino gem helps us find the next step wherever we are on our path.

Belorado– Another Camino beloved, this one helps us have faith in the emptiness before the dawning of the next chapter when we will find more community.

Puente la Reina– A Camino friend that helps us to lighten our energetic load, be clear about whom to travel forward with and who can actually support our growth.

Manjarin– Another from the Camino, this one supports us to see below the surface of any situation and break down the existing worldview so we can be energetically discerning about gifts and red herrings.

Trabadelo– A beloved Camino friend, this one helps us find the courage to let old patterns go even as we don’t know what our life will look like without them.

O’Cebreiro– Also from the Camino, this one helps us find the strength to leave behind people and places that you have loved but are not part of your growth as a soul (another for this is The Letting Go Flower).

Santiago– Another beloved Camino Essence. This one is for moments of false endings when the spiritual journey is ongoing.

Fisterra– The final Camino one suggested by the Angels. this one offers support when the soul is at the end of a long process of laying down major paradigms of this or other lives.

Rebirth!

As the staff goddesses departed for the weekend, we riffed about all the things we were going to do on the weekend- dancing, clubbing, movies, meals out, sky diving. When our laughter stopped, we had a moment of just being glad we were all healthy, but yes, there was still a fragrance of cabin fever in the air- both the usual winter in NH version and the unusual covid variation.

I decided to shake up the weekend as best I could to combat the north country’s particular type of cabin fever.  I would strive for innovative, outside the box adventure and a saucy attitude.

So how did it go? Let me share my exciting Saturday with you.

As Saturday morning dawned, temperatures were in the single digits. That and a significant wind chill factor made dressing for success vital. My solution was to layer with two winter coats, and that was while I was inside.

Jim needed to go to the dump with sheetrock scraps from the barn renovation. He got the interior of the truck smoking hot thus luring me into riding shotgun to town. This was a chance to have a date or as they say on The Bachelor TV show, “have significant one on one time”. We made the most of it by savoring the excitement of getting the truck weighed both before and after dumping our load.

Back at the farm, I decided to get our Animal Tracks book and go out and track the wanderings of the neighborhood bobcat. We’d seen him trot through the yard at dawn, so I knew where to look for his freshest tracks. This activity proved befuddling.

Humans may be staying home more during covid but the wild animals? Not so much.  About fifty feet into tracking the bobcat, I ran into a vast number of other tracks. As I wandered into the field next door following tracks, tracks and more tracks, I traveled up and down and all around the field, circling round and round in a futile attempt to sort out the deer, coyote, rabbit, turkey, skunk, squirrel, bobcat and dog traffic.

Because it was bitterly cold, I began to muse on the topic of “How much longer can it stay this cold out?” I recalled my first boss in NH who used to say that if you survived to double digits in February (ie Feburary 10^th), you had made it through the worst of a NH winter.  As I was counting off how many days until that magic moment, I also recalled that this man jogged with his tie on.  The memory of watching him jog round the track in suit coat and tie got me laughing.  So there I was staring at the ground, walking in circles and laughing my head off. Could an evening out on the town be more fun? I don’t think so.

It was lunchtime by the time I threw in the towel on becoming a master tracker in one day. I knew nothing further about bobcat behavior but had clearly established myself to the neighbors as truly off my rocker. I could just hear them commenting, “An arctic wind blows and she’s wandering in circles in a hayfield for a very, very long time. And good golly, she appears to be laughing.”

Post lunch on the weekends is always a moment of excitement as I wonder how so few people can make so many dishes.

After the last dish was washed and before the afternoon snack dishes began to pile up, I sat down with granddaughter Grace to discuss important topics like, “Do mermaids have to wash their hair?” This chat entertained me as I ripped out a large chunk of stitches on the sweater I was knitting. Even though I JUST knit this same sweater for one grandbaby last week, I messed up on the directions for this sweater for another grandbaby. By the time we had solved our mermaid questions and I had ripped out what felt like most of the sweater, Henry was up from his nap and asking to have books read to him.

30 or 40 of them.  Sometimes more than once. The three adults in the household, Grandpa, Grandma (me) and Henry’s Mom, all pitched in.  All of us were either reading aloud or listening to someone read aloud all through the afternoon hours.  What can I say? Ferdinand wears well.

Dinner time and a new recipe tried. It was not good. Like a night at the casino, I had gambled and lost.

But it wasn’t a total wash. Grandpa had just enough voice left to croak out a chapter in the chapter book we’re reading, then Grace and I had half an hour of mermaid time. OMG! Serious mermaid drama as one of the mermaids goofed up a levitation spell!

As the evening wound down, I felt serious contentment with the day. I had not been anywhere exotic or eaten anything very good special or felt warm except when practically planted on the wood stove but there was still glorious life all around me, and it was good.

PS Here are what bobcat track’s look like.

PS 2 I will try and list some of the Flower Essences people have been leaning on for Covid Cabin Fever in the next couple of days.  In the meantime, there is always a meander in a hay field when its 4 degrees out with a wind whipping off the north pole.

It’s tough to be human these days but let me tell you, its seriously tough to be a mermaid.

How did eight year old granddaughter Grace and I find this out?

Winters are long, cold and dark in New Hampshire with the emphasis on cold. Grace lives with us, and for that I am eternally grateful because, among other things, she likes crafting as much as I do.  

Much of our after school/ after sledding time together is spent crafting to our heart’s content. However at a certain point in the evening, we need to put down the Elmer’s glue and do something else.  Sometimes we wrangle Grandpa into reading aloud to us.  As a sixth grade teacher, he is practically a professional reader. Grace’s mom also reads aloud wonderfully well.  We love listening to her too.  But sometimes we need to go somewhere warm with different problems than masks or not getting to see cousins and friends right now except from a distance.

How fortunate that we stumbled on a tv show about teenage Mermaids on the gold coast of Australia.

Nothing takes your mind off your problems like learning how challenging it is to have a tail that sprouts whenever you get wet.

Oh the mishaps mermaids have!

The teenage mermaids on this show are hidden in plain sight. Some have always been mermaids and some became mermaids by accident.  They sport legs when they are on dry land, but whenever they get even slightly damp, they have only ten seconds before their tails return. During this ten seconds they either need to get back to the sea or hide from all the humans.

For a mermaid, if

You grab a bottle of water with condensation on the outside? You get a tail.

Someone spills a cup of tea on you? You get a tail.

A hose gets pointed in the wrong direction? You get a tail

Kids on the beach accidently spray you with a squirt gun? You get a tail.

Someone knocks you into a swimming pool? You get a tail.

A rainy day and you forgot your umbrella? You get a tail.

This particular pod of mermaids hangs out at a juice bar- A JUICE BAR! Heaven forbid, because let’s face it, all that juice considerably ups the ante for getting accidently splashed by an errant mango smoothie.

All in all, it’s a tough gig to be a mermaid.

Consider the difficulties of being a mermaid but not having your parents know.

How do you explain to your mom or dad why you can no longer do the dishes?

Or why you can’t help install that new sprinkler system in the yard?

Or how come you run away when the dog shakes himself?

Or why you never go swimming with the family anymore even though you live on the ocean?

Or why you wear gloves when you go fishing?

Or why you won’t go camping on a rainy day?

Or how come you quit your job as a lifeguard?

And what about how weird you act during full moons? I mean, we all know how challenging full moons are for mermaids, but to have to come up with some plausible human reasons for your moon lunacy to your parents?  It’s a serious challenge.

Then there is the issue of your dietary choices. How do you explain the fact that you now eat nothing but seafood? Plus you have to remember that regular humans don’t eat lobster shells. Nor do they crack open oysters with their teeth. Mermaid table manners are very different than human ones.

And when you sing? It’s a dangerous thing because some mermaid songs are siren songs, and they make everyone fall in love with the wrong people. This leads to another whole other arena for mermaid disasters- the world at large.

Out in the world, say at school or at your after school job at the water park, challenges sprout like mushrooms after a storm.

For example, how do you let people know what is wrong with the sick dolphin without telling people you speak dolphin?

And how big of a disaster is it when your ice cream stand breaks down and the ice cream starts melting everywhere?

And what about the other special powers you have like water shape shifting and the ability to freeze or boil water at will? These would seem to be assets, but…… Oh No! These mostly seem to get you in trouble, especially in science class.

These are the kind of pressing problems that mermaids face. They remind me and Grace that it’s not so bad to be human. Though right about now, deep into winter, we might not mind a week or two with a tail, if it meant we were in a juice bar in a warm climate.

For a farmer like me, I was interested to learn that the lyric “Keep Your Eye on the Prize” is a variation of the song “Keep Your Hand on the Plow” by civil rights activist Alice Wine. The new lyrics were first sung at the Newport Jazz festival in 1958 when Mahalia Jackson and Duke Ellington performed the song.

The phrase “Keep Your Eye on the Prize” is defined as, “To remain focused on achieving a positive end result, without being distracted by problems or setbacks.”

Great light pours into our world. Meanwhile problems and setbacks surround us- so much so that we can drown in the daily problems and setbacks.  I like this song’s reminder to keep our eye on the prize. And what is this prize, this positive result?

I’m still thinking big when it comes to the prize. World Peace. Tolerance. A Healed Earth. All sentient beings loved and cared for. I’m in the mindset that radical change for the better can and will happen.  I’m firm in my belief that the incoming light is helping humanity give birth to a new more loving version of itself. 

About this incoming light, I like it when I hear astronomers speak of Earth moving to a new part of the galaxy, a place of greater light. However, my experience of this incoming light is first and foremost a felt one, and therefore this is the main reason I believe positive change is coming.

I don’t mean to suggest this incoming light is what’s saving us. To clarify, since we are one with everything and nothing is separate, the incoming light and us receiving the light is like us shaking our own hand. We can say that a part of us is ready to receive the light and a part of us ready to bring the light, but there really are no different parts.

Because this greater light is pouring in 24/7, we can experience it at any moment. Sometimes this happens to me, say when I am pausing to look at the clouds.  It does seem that right now I need to be quiet and still to feel this light clearly.  This means it is mostly in the quiet of the night that I feel this energy pouring in.

Each night I welcome this light, first by asking for help from Angels, Elementals and Ascended Masters to release all that needs to be released from within me, all the shadow bits that are taking up space that could be filled with this light.  I ask for the support of these higher aspects of oneness because they know how to integrate the light into lower vibrations. The Ascended Masters in particular have done it for themselves. Then I try and open to receive this light into my energy system. I ask for it to be grounded into the grid of Green Hope Farm too. How amazing to be here now, for it seems we need only settle down and close our eyes and there it is, this generous loving light.

This light is for everyone, no exceptions. Do we have to ask for guidance or open to receive it or even notice it in order for it to fill us? I don’t think so, but I like working with it in this way. I believe our willingness to receive the light helps it fill our world and that helps all creation.

One of you asked that I keep on trying to share my understanding of things in 3D and 5D terms. So here I would say I break my request into two pieces; a request to release 3D patterns that keep me vibrating in the illusion of separation (things like judgement, anger, hatred, fear) and a request to welcome into my energy system this light with its gift of 5D and higher vibrations of love and healing.

 As I experience the light coming in, I find it impossible to imagine that this light energy doesn’t reflect a big shift underway.  I am glad for tools like Flower Essences that help smooth the integration of this energy. I am also grateful for Flower Essences’ support with releasing the old as well as welcoming in the light. This light is a big deal, and I am grateful for all the support we are getting to remember it is part of us.

 In the quiet of the night when I sit with this light, it’s easy to have my eye on the prize because it feels so close.  I don’t know exactly what shapes the prize will take in our world or exactly how the old will give up the ghost and the new will be born. But it’s like transition in labor. The part of us that has been submerged in the pain doubts a birth will ever happen, let alone soon, but the body knows, the baby knows and the midwives know. Yup, this baby is coming.

So yes, I am aware that we haven’t gotten to the birth yet, We’re still in the pain and suffering. No doubt there will still be bloody towels to clean up even as the baby takes its first victorious breath. But this moment of new life is upon us.

This is such an enormous paradigm shift that I don’t think we can even imagine all that is being born right now, but I do think we will know more soon. The blissful quality of this incoming light informs me that the baby born will be worth the mess.  These glimpses of the light, thrilling and astounding, keeps me going with my hand on the plow. 

I return to the earlier lyric “Hand on the Plow” because we have to keep going through this turmoil not with hand wringing or by washing our hands of the whole mess or by handing off the problems to another but by keeping our hand on the plow.  For me this is cooking the meals, doing the dishes, reading books to grandchildren, knitting for babies, packing your orders and writing you notes, walking the dog, planning the gardens, dreaming of Flowers, trying to make the best of difficult birth canal moments, digging deep to find morsels of humor, trying to work through the problems and confusions of this time- just keeping going in the most ordinary way in a most extraordinary time.

And I know from your notes that you are peaceful warriors too, doing what needs doing, a dishtowel in one hand and eyes crinkling to reflect a reassuring smile underneath the mask. It’s a privilege to be with you in this time.

The kitchen table is covered in wooden boxes of seeds and a pile of seed catalogs. My idea of bliss. Most seeds stay viable longer than a year so I save leftover seeds from season to season. The Kitchen Garden seed catalog notes how long different flower and vegetable seeds stay viable, so I keep this catalog close at hand as I sort through my old seeds.

I like this catalog for its illustrations by Bobbi Angell.

She also illustrated one of my most beloved plant identification books, Flora of St John, US Virgin Islands.

During the years when my family camped at the now gone Maho Bay Campground, I would check out the campground’s copy of this book every afternoon to identify Flowers I had found during the day. This seemed to irritate the activity desk folk, because while no one else wanted the book, I was clearly hogging it. Finally I bought myself a copy, and I would lug it back and forth to St John from home. It remains one of my favorite books (and also one of my heaviest). What a wonderful adventure it must have been for Bobbi Angell to live on St John for a year and draw all the Flowers that botanists found for her.

I also like this catalog because Kitchen Garden carries seeds for extremely delicious varieties of vegetables. They really ARE thinking about the kitchen.

The catalogs I lean on are Seed Savers Exchange, Baker’s Creek Seeds and Johnny’s Selected Seeds, but I get seeds from a lot of companies including Burpees who carry things that no one else does. Mehera Marigolds for example.

Fifty years ago, Burpees sponsored a contest asking home gardeners to hybridize a White Marigold. When someone succeeded, many seed houses joined the bandwagon to offer these seeds. Now that the dust has settled on this creation, most seed houses have lost interest in White Marigolds. Not me and fortunately not Burpees. I can’t imagine our gardens without this Flower or our collection without Mehera Flower Essence.

Seed discontinuation is a frustration. Today’s mid afternoon rabbit hole happened when I discovered that Baker’s Creek Seeds no longer offers Kikinda Squash seeds. This was a bad moment. Not only is Kikinda Squash a gorgeous presence in the garden, it is a mainstay in our collection of Flower Essences for fertility concerns.

I found a company in Serbia and also one in the Ukraine offering seeds, but some dodgy things were going on with payment on their sites (Webmaster Ben blocks ALL Ukrainian traffic from our website because Ukranians have crashed our site many times. He would not have been pleased if I had opened that doorway in any way- and even naive me got the feeling all was not well on this site). Anyways, I was relieved to find a little old lady in Florida who had the seeds. I will do a better job of saving these seeds this year, so this doesn’t happen again.

I was also surprised to see that Baker’s Creek had temporarily shut down its website to cope with too many orders. They do wonderful work offering non hybrid, non GMO seed varieties so I shouldn’t be surprised they are already swamped….. but it is only January 5th!

I don’t actually know what I will need for seeds until after the Winter Solstice each year. This is when the designs for the year’s gardens are ready for me to receive from the Angels and Elementals. I’m reminded that not everyone is operating on our particular co-creative model of Angelic and Elemental input and get on with their garden plans earlier than me.

After the Solstice, I spend time in the dormant gardens, tuning into what the Angels have planned for each garden this season and drawing mandalas and other directions in a note book. The Venus Garden for 2021 was the first design they explained to me. Among other things the garden has a lot of verticality thanks to vines like Scarlet Runner Bean. There is also a beautiful spiral which includes a lot of Zinnias. In the wake of 2020, I relish a Venus Garden offering energies of Joy (Zinnias) and Fearlessness (Scarlet Runner Bean). We should even be able to plant in the ground this year as the construction that impacted the garden last year should be over by spring.

As I wander the vaguely snow covered gardens of the farm, I try not to freak out at how much work I have ahead of me come spring. Staffing in the office was limited in the key gardening months of 2020, so I was mostly inside looking out the windows at the weeds proliferating with abandon. I didn’t have time to reign them in (or Netflix binge), but hopefully this spring will be different.

The Angels and Elementals reassure me that the most important thing is that the vibration in the gardens is in good shape and that together we will come up with solutions for bringing the garden spots that didn’t get weeded back into the fold.

The topic of Zinnias and joyful vibrations reminds me of a quantum physics article Lizzie brought to my attention recently. It explained how those of us working to hold higher vibrations offset those vibrating at a lower rate not in a one to one ratio but in a surprising big way. One person vibrating a love and reverence vibration counterbalances 750,000 individuals in a lower ego frequency. One individual in the bliss vibration counterbalances 10 million people in a lower ego frequency and one enlightened God realized individual counterbalances 70 million in a lower ego frequency. Sometimes when I’ve let myself be pulled into a lower vibration fight and I’m trying to recover and “go high” as Michelle Obama calls it, I can feel like it’s a one to one ratio and my efforts no matter how successful or unsuccessful don’t make THAT much difference.

I found these actual ratios a wonderful reminder why working to raise our vibrations and keep them high really matters. Just as one candle can illuminate a pitch black room, our love, our reverence, our bliss helps us all. There is nothing selfish about trying to raise our vibrations and stay in a place of love, generosity, gratitude, happiness and joy. Your efforts to do so truly matter to us all and I thank you.