To restock the Flower Essences in our Wildflower Collection I need to remember when and where I have seen the Flowers in the collection in bloom.  Some beloveds like Dandelion and Goldenrod are hard to miss. When they blossom, they fill the landscape.  This makes it easy for me to make more Essence, though you might be surprised by what a short season Dandelion actually has. When it’s gone, it’s gone.

In any case, it doesn’t make Wildflowers less important because they are common, but it does make it easier for me to restock.  Some Flowers like Bottle Gentian are much more rare, and I need to focus to find them for restocking.  

This is the time of year Bottle Gentian flowers.  It likes to grow in the scrubby terrain between deep forest and woodland fields, but it is relatively hard to find. This year as I walked to a spot where I sometimes have found Bottle Gentian, I came across a family of Bottle Gentian several hundred plants strong.  I was bowled over by this abundance.  I feel fortunate when I find one Bottle Gentian plant, and here there were literally hundreds in a place I had never seen any before.

I sat down next to this amazing community of plants to consider all I knew about this powerhouse of a Flower and soak in its vibration.

I first met Bottle Gentian in the Adirondacks when I was a child. From a very early age, I recognized it had strong plant medicine.  I was extremely happy whenever I met it in the woods. It was so regal with such presence. Later Bottle Gentian was prominently featured in a book of Adirondack Wildflowers a friend and I painted when we were teenagers.  I would not describe the Adirondacks as a Flower filled landscape, so when we made this book, we searched hard for every last Flower we painted.  Bottle Gentian was a standout. It communicated to us its strength of purpose and resilience. It spoke of power used well.

Decades later in the summer of 1995, I was reminded exactly how resilient this Flower is.   I found Bottle Gentian blooming undiminished in an Adirondack landscape that had suffered an enormous blowdown of trees.  The scope of the blowdown/ microburst was immense.  940,000 acres of Adirondack wilderness were damaged by the storm with 126,000 acres completely destroyed with nary a tree left standing. It is estimated that ten million trees were felled by the storm.  When later I went on a seaplane ride to see the destruction, I saw mountains far into the distance with all their trees leveled like matchsticks. 

The night of the storm, the skies had been a strange green color. We played cards, listening to the frightening sound of mammoth trees breaking all around our camp. During flashes of lightning we peered out into the storm. Never had I seen enormous trees do what they did that night, waving like palm trees before breaking in half or uprooting or doing both. We awoke to a landscape of trees fallen like pick up sticks. We felt grateful to be alive.

A few days later, in a completely impenetrable rat’s nest of down trees, I found a resolute Bottle Gentian blooming.  To have survived the storm and lived to flourish afterwards made this cluster of blossoms a dynamo of strength.  I knew this Bottle Gentian would bring a particular vibrational wisdom about facing anything life could throw at us, so I made it into a Flower Essence and added it to our inventory.

Bottle Gentian Flower Essence supports us to hold our energy in sanctity in any situation no matter how difficult or dire. It empowers us to remain poised and serene in the face of upheaval and forceful change.  It helps us see more clearly in any circumstance. During that storm it had shown its grit and courage. It helps us do so too.

In the 27 years since that storm,  I have continued to benefit from this Flower’s strength and learn so much from its Flower Essence vibration. I delight in every encounter I have with this Flower in the wild, so you can imagine my joy in finding so many blossoms this September.

I wondered what strength this family of plants would bring to our Bottle Gentian inventory. I also wanted to know why.  I always want to know the whys.  Not that I always get answers to my questions but still, I ask.  In this case I wondered why so many Flowers this year?  I was talking to the Angels about this as I enjoyed another visit today with this community of Bottle Gentians, and they said in answer to my why, “Ask Bottle Gentian.”

And so I did.

“Greetings.  We bring great strength with our show of numbers. We want to remind you how to be powerful and hold your strength in complete harmony with others.  No matter the size of the group, you can all be in your full power without violating anyone else’s energy system. Look how our Flowers cluster in perfect accord with each other, all given space to flourish and all rising in their full expression.  This balance of power and harmony is one piece of our relevant wisdom for right now.

We also want to support you in the right use of your energy.  Your world is rapidly firing up into higher frequencies, and this requires a lot of energy from you. It can be arduous work to let go and flow with these vibrational shifts.  

We suggest you consider without criticism or shame how you use your energy. This examination is to give helpful insight. There is no need to judge. Do you make space for replenishing activities?  Do you sometimes inadvertently drain away your energy with activities like scrolling social media platforms or watching the “news”?  Do you listen when your body needs rest? Your world so often pushes you to keep going when you are spent and need to rest and restore yourself. Do guilt buttons sometimes make you push past balance so you are left drained?  With kindness to yourself as you take this inventory, consider keeping a full tank as we do. You need energy right now to adjust to the incoming light.  If you have energy, cherish it.  If you are exhausted, arrange to rest if possible.  And remember you can ask for help from all the lightworkers in spirit here to help right now.  See how our deep blue coloring and closed blossom formation suggests holding one’s energy?  Call to us and we will help you do likewise.

We are not asking you to cut people off or being unloving.  Sometimes lightworkers on Earth worry that self care means not doing your lightwork.  Right now your lightwork is self care.  This is the best thing you could do for those around you and those you love; gather your energy so it’s available to support you when you need it.

We send you our love.  Avail yourself to our wisdom.  Call us in. Study our architecture. Take our Flower Essence.  Ask for our help.  We have much relevant wisdom and want to share it with you now.”

Very early this morning I went out in my nightgown to pick some Flowers for the office crew and visit with the garden. The sun was just coming up and illuminating the landscape with radiant morning light.  I particularly love how Flower petals glow in this early morning sun.

As I wandered around chatting with various Flowers, telling them aloud how beautiful they were, a new neighbor walked by with her dog.  I have no idea what she thinks of me, and it’s none of my business, but she probably has an opinion.  After all she’s seen me quite a lot in the early morning gardens apparently talking to no one while sporting a nightgown.  Though honestly the most unusual dawn moment must have been when I was heaving a few rocks back in place on a stonewall, also in my nightgown.

It’s just that the dawn calls soooooo loudly that I often run out to catch that early morning light and say hello to everyone before I get dressed.  Soon it will be winter and even I get garbed up with more than a nightgown for winter, but for now, before I put on my gardening pants for the garden work of the day or don clothes for the office, there is usually a dawn moment in the garden in my nightgown. 

What if I were to call out to my neighbor an explanation of what I am doing?  Would it make my behavior seem any less eccentric to shout out “I’m just talking to the Flowers.” And again, what she thinks of me is none of my business and it’s not my job to shift her opinion of me (nor is it possible).

My spontaneous moments of gratitude in the garden and all these questions I had about a witness to these moments made me think about all self expression in this strange moment on Earth.

I use the word moment here for a reason. I am very grateful that the Angels repeatedly tell me this is a moment which we are moving through not an experience here to stay.  Phew!  However, it is a moment that calls us to be our authentic selves then let the chips fall where they may.

Many of us could say that about our entire lives and many lives before that.  We’ve been called to be our authentic selves in communities that don’t necessarily get us or agree with us. And given that circumstance, we also recall how the chips fell out. Very badly at times.  It makes even a benign expression of our true shimmering glorious self an act of courage. 

Being in our truth is not a challenge because we don’t know who we are, but because we have been slammed for being ourselves.

It’s been a long time since I was disowned by my family of origin, but there are still ripples from this of both the inner and outer kind. One outer example is that I hear family of origin news such as the death of a relative in extremely strange ways or not at all. This incivility often leads me back to the original wound of being thrown out of the family which brings its own inner ripple.

Recently, someone sent me a link to a video entitled “Let Them Disown You.” I listened. I understood that the speaker was trying to encourage people to stand in their truth regardless of the consequences. That is a noble thing to encourage.  I would encourage it even after being disowned, but it’s not a simple thing to suffer the consequences of being true to ourselves.

I appreciated the man in the video asking the question, “Why would anyone want to be associated with people who think they own you and therefore think they can disown you?”  How true. However, life is more layered and complex than language.  

Of course no one wants to be in community with people who say they can own or disown you, but I doubt that ideas of ownership ever come in isolation from hundreds of other ideas and emotions in a family system.  To be disowned is to have been in a complicated relationship with a group of people who have complicated reasons for disowning you. And finding the language choice unacceptable doesn’t clean up the feelings that come with being disowned.

Wrenching rejections are experiences of us showing up in our truth only to be told “We don’t want you.” There is no follow up explanation such as, “Your truth exposes our lies and weakness, so it’s easiest to make you the problem.”

If we’ve had these rejections enough, even small moments of self expression can have a shadow of worry.  I hoped that the passing neighbor would see me as harmless.  I got a belly laugh out of describing the moment to the staff, but I also felt the need to reassure myself that I was safe. 

As I work to integrate all the parts of myself that have navigated rejection before, I experience all sorts of emotions and concerns. I try not to belittle any response but instead acknowledge the sadness, fear, anger and other feelings that still surface in the wake of traumas. Today for example, I held the tiny thread of worry and looked to my comforting inner adult that knows that no matter how nutty the neighbor thinks I am, it won’t get me disowned or burned at the stake.

One thing I really love about gardens is how they slow me down to a human pace.  When I dig potatoes, I fork up the earth and pick up one potato at a time. In this sane pace there is the space to hear all the voices within me that need to be heard. There is the space to be kind to myself.  I can contain my reactions then acknowledge and comfort the younger versions of myself that still live within me, healing from earlier traumas. 

As I dig in the earth I am reminded that our dear mother Earth herself brings comfort and support to our healing process. This is one reason why, no matter what the neighbors think, I will keep on visiting the gardens morning, noon and night to talk to all Nature and sing its praises.

I hope you too have a place in Nature that sets you free to be your full glorious self in full expression and comforts you if others don’t understand who you are. I hope you are surrounded by kindness.