During this season, we will be sending a gift bottle of Symphony Flower Essence mix with every order. If you want more of this Flower Essence, it’s now available for purchase as well.

Here is the backstory on Symphony and how it was created.

The Green Hope crew gathered shortly before Thanksgiving to consider what we could give you dear ones for a seasonal love offering.  We sat together in silence then shared what we felt. We realized we wanted to support community.  Weary of being divided from each other by events and attitudes, we wanted to meet in the middle, and we wanted to help you meet in the middle in that space of shared humanity. 

We wanted to support the kind of connections we have with you every day of kindness, love, humor and a compassionate understanding that we are all in this together.  In this time of painful contraction and arbitrary division, we wanted to support every possible expansive experience of togetherness. We considered what Flower Essences combined into a mix would help us feel part of community whether we find ourselves alone or amongst others.

As we considered possible Flower Essences we also considered different names for this new custom mix. Too often, the words seemed like they might divide us further instead of healing us into greater harmony.  Then we thought of MUSIC and how Flower Essences are always about helping us be our own unique high vibration music in harmony with all creation.  And then we thought of SYMPHONY.

Yes! A symphony orchestra creates beautiful music arising from the unique and precious expression of every one of its members.  In the music of a symphony each of us is needed to play our unique musical notes. And so we joyfully settled on the name Symphony. May this new mix, Symphony, help all of us as we each take our seat with the orchestra, beloveds amongst beloveds, ready to be part of a bigger, glorious creation, no less than music of the spheres.

Are we ready?  But of course!  The last few years have too often left us feeling alone or in small, diminished groups trying no matter what to express our unique inner music.  Despite constraints, we have learned about who we are and what our music is.  We have learned how to play our instrument well.

So we come to the symphony of this moment, ready to play.  We look around us and are grateful for the company of fellow musicians. Wherever they are, they are with us.

The conductor raps the podium.  The conductor is the Divine unifying force within us all calling us to order. It’s time. We sit up straight, fully awake and listen closely.

Will we know the music?  Yes! We know the score because it’s in our hearts.  Everything is there in our hearts, awaiting us in this moment. The conductor lifts the baton. 

And we begin.

With love from Emily, Jen, Lizzie, Molly, Sam Vicki and all at Green Hope Farm

Alignment Garden, Arbor Garden, Bermudiana, Daffodil, Elephant Trunk Loosestrife, Flow Free, French Marigold, Jasmine, Letting Go Flower. Old Blush China Rose, Peach, Pear, Plum, Sanctuary, To Hear the Angels Sing

If you read my last blog, you’ll know I attempted the Herculean task of abandoning a 35 year run of being in charge of the Thanksgiving meal to turn the day and its meal prep over to my son, Ben, and son in law Charlie. Why was this a daunting task? My goal was to let go without succumbing to any backseat cooking.

In an effort to game the system and make it more likely that I had some small level of success, I decided to impersonate my Great Aunt Lois who perfected the role of entertaining but unhelpful guest. To help me, everyone called me Lois all day. On the relatively rare occasions when I strayed from my course to sound the alarm about a boiling pot of gravy or thrust the potato ricer at someone, they would shush me out of the room with the sassy comment, “Snap out of it Lois.”

And how glad I was for every shove nudge out of the kitchen back into the playroom with the grandchildren, because let me tell you…..It was fun to be Lois.

How freaky was it to be carefree and doing what I wanted as a woman on Thanksgiving? Pretty darn freaky and I loved it. In fact, I have already sworn off 2022’s Thanksgiving meal and passed the chef baton to Ben and Charlie.

As I watched the National Dog Show with the grandchildren, not a single concern about menu execution, food prep or time management entered my brain. Instead I could fall in love with Claire, the Scottish deer hound who once again stole the show.

When the little people and I put on our winter jackets and wandered down into the hayfield, nothing called me back to the stove. I was free to wander in the six different directions the grandchildren and dogs were heading in.

I tried to be slightly responsible and told the menfolk about my whacked oven and how it turned off randomly and frequently needed to be rebooted. But other than that I did a fantastic pretty good job keeping my hands busy with the matchbox toy cars and a towering stack of toddler books instead of paring knives and wooden spoons.

So maybe the real Great Aunt Lois would not have been with the kids. After all she preferred an extra dry martini in the company of adults with nary a toddler in sight. But I like little people. As I sat amongst them I knew when they cried it was probably because someone needed a snack or a diaper change. When things escalated to a cousin to cousin meltdown, I was already on the ground with them to listen to their feelings and help sort out who got the next turn with a toy which previously no one on earth had ever had any interest in.

Somehow these lovely little people reminded me that we are all children here on Earth. Maybe offering snacks and listening to each other’s feelings could help us get back to appreciating each other versus fighting so much.

While we brought world peace closer in the playroom, Ben and Charlie appeared energized by their cooking efforts. Such good smells and so much laughter. Women kicked in with roasted vegetables from Lizzie and mashed potatoes from Emily. Lois? She brought her appetite.

As we came to the table the mood was one of gratitude. Like so many other families, ours did not meet for Thanksgiving last year. What a blessing we could be with each other this year sharing this fabulous meal. Our gratitude even brought out a gentleness when the topic was raised: How did Lois do?

There were a fair amount of teachers in the crowd so they missed almost nothing. If I glanced at the stovetop, one of them saw it, if not two of them. I knew I couldn’t expect grade inflation nor did I think I deserved it. I noticed my own problems keeping my hands off the oven mitts, so I gave myself a B- but the family elevated that to a B. I was very happy. I put my pearls away carefully that night, knowing Lois would live again next year and maybe even get a B+ for her lack of effort.

My 35 year run as the cook in charge of our family Thanksgiving feast ends this year.  I’ve passed the aprons on to my son Ben and son in law Charlie. They are in charge of the meal.  It’s their menu, and they will cook it all. Except for the pies. I’m making the pies. 

To implement this plan, it will be necessary for me to be out of the kitchen preferably with a baby in my arms pinning me to a sofa.  This is because I am a terrible backseat cook.  My children are all very grown up, and they have run their own kitchens for decades.  In fact, they are all fantastic cooks, but that doesn’t stop me from “trying to be helpful” in a most irritating way.

I had a great aunt who was a book editor in New York City.  I’m not sure a mixing bowl or dirty dish was ever part of her repertoire.  Did she dine nightly at the Algonquin Club? I do not know. I do know she was Margaret Mitchell’s best friend and edited Gone with the Wind.  Anyways, Great Aunt Lois would always come through the kitchen after an enormous family feast as if she were Queen Elizabeth I on a royal visit to a country village.  Dressed to the nines, she would peer over piles of dirty dishes to make contact with all of us at the sink and say, “I’d love to help, but you are doing such a wonderful job, I won’t interfere.”

I will need to channel Great Aunt Lois on Thursday.

One of the Thanksgiving chefs, Ben, came through on Sunday for a visit. He lives over the river in Vermont.  I made a vow NOT to ask any questions about the meal or offer to shop for anything or make any suggestions.  My daughter Elizabeth was there during Ben’s visit (probably to keep me true to my vow). She noticed me starting sentences then stopping to look out the window and pretend I wasn’t really going to say, “What’s the plan for the stuffing?”

It was touch and go but I got through the visit with only six or eight moments in which I was staring out the window with a bit of a grimace on my face.

I’ve heard some menu rumors.  Charlie’s mother’s family comes from Kennett Square in Pennsylvania so mushrooms feature heavily at their family occasions.  I’ve heard tell that Charlie is bringing an enormous box of mushrooms.  This is the extent of the rumors. 

I don’t know much about the rest on the menu or when we will eat.  Like Great Aunt Lois I will enjoy the meal when called to the table. Until then I will regale people with clever stories as she did or perhaps (and preferably) burp the newest grandchild George who will be just shy of three months at this his first Thanksgiving celebration.

I did appreciate Ben and Charlie taking pity on me by throwing me the bone of the pies.  I will make them today so that tomorrow at the Wednesday night meal (also taken out of my hands) I can impersonate Great Aunt Lois and put on pearls, heels and some sort of old school scent like Shalimar then waltz through the kitchen once or twice looking completely disinterested.

This will give me practice for game day, Thanksgiving when I will once again don the pearls and wrestle my backseat cooking to the ground once and for all. Wish me luck!

As more Light floods the planet, by its very nature, this Light illuminates dark places we haven’t been able to see.  After all, that is what light does.  It illuminates the dark.

We are fortunate to have this Light pouring in to illuminate the darkness.  This Light diminishes the dark without our help.  However this time calls us to help the Light by looking at what is being revealed i.e. our own shadows and the collective shadow.  As we look at our individual as well as collective shadow, we transform the planet.  

What do we do as so much darkness comes to light? How can we integrate our individual and collective shadow? How can Flower Essences help? I was very happy when the Angels asked me to write a blog about this topic.  I knew I would learn so much from what the Angels shared.  

First of all, it’s uncomfortable even painful to look at these shadows.  Many people have said to me over the years that the way to handle the dark is to ignore it.  This has been impossible for me to do. People in my life, whether willfully or in ignorance, have acted from their shadow in ways that endangered me and my family.  I learned the hard way that not looking at the dark does not make it go away and only fuels the darkness. 

In contrast, when we look at and bring to light the shadow in ourselves and others, we are much less likely to act from our shadow or fall victim to someone else’s shadow. Ignoring the dark leaves it to flourish and spill out in wildly destructive and damaging ways.  A refusal to look at our shadow or anyone else’s feeds the problem. Looking diminishes the problem.

Looking at our shadow requires us to take inventory of how we really feel, how we really live and what the consequences of our choices really are.  Mercifully there are a number of Flower Essences that help us do this healing work and stay integrated, high in vibration and in the flow of the rising Light.

Many tree Flower Essences including Spruce, Oak (from the Additional Flower Essence list), Cedar, Redwood, Pine and Maple help us when we feel disoriented by what we see in ourselves.  They help us to stay integrated, in balance and in kindness towards ourselves as we see ourselves more clearly.  They offer their vibrational strength and fiber to bolster us to keep going and keep our vibration as high as possible.  All Nature is with us in this pressing work and trees step forward in particular to be our anchors.  Find a tree to help you if you do not have any tree Flower Essences. Or do both!

Shame, loathing and judgement lower our vibration and weaken our energy system without helping us change. Keeping our vibration as high as possible helps us move forward. Crab Apple helps with self loathing, that patriarchal wound that we’re here to be human but only if we do it “perfectly.” Konigin von Danemark Rose helps release shame. A lot of this shame is not ours and regardless of its source, it doesn’t help us heal. Spruce helps when this self inventory has shocked us.  Spruce is also helpful when the light reveals what has been happening in the shadows on a global scale.

Bottle Gentian is another ally in this honest inventory process.  It gives us courage and strength to look at what is actually happening individually and collectively no matter how painful it is to acknowledge.  A part of our Bottle Gentian inventory, one that keeps informing our entire Bottle Gentian inventory, was made in the aftermath of a destructive microburst tornado.  Bottle Gentian offers that level of support to help us stay integrated and strong when we have to look at serious darkness and its destructive fallout in our lives and on our precious planet. Here is a whole blog about Bottle Gentian.

I also like Yellow Water Lily for helping us with the flood of emotions that can come with an honest self inventory.  This beloved reminds us we will ALWAYS be anchored in the divine. It also helps us stay afloat amidst watery emotion.

Flow is very important as we look at our shadow.  We need to process then let it all go. If you’ve read even a handful of my blogs you know what Essence I am going to mention here. Flow Free.  Flowing means letting go AND it also means welcoming in higher vibrations. Transformation not stagnation is the name of the game.  All the Venus Garden Essences help us welcome higher vibrations.  I am also glad we now have a combination remedy called Welcome the Light for this.

When looking at our shadow, we need courage to do what we need to do to move forward in a different way.  Yesterday I got in a silly fight with one of my adult children. Pride wanted to keep me there in the fight nursing my grievance. I could have stayed stuck in “being right” instead of being happy. Fortunately as I spritzed myself with Essences, I saw how ridiculously seriously I was taking myself, and humor busted up the whole situation.  I went back to my daughter to own my piece in the fight and genuinely apologize and also move through the interaction with this bubbling sense of the absurd.  How marvelous to dump the whole thing by taking responsibility while also being kind to all involved including myself. What grace there is in not taking ourselves so seriously.  Thank you Don’t Worry- Bee Happy.  Humor can be the generator that keeps our vibrations up when we take honest inventory of ourselves.

Looking at our collective shadow is a different kettle of fish than a self inventory, but it still may require us to take ownership and see ourselves differently. Right now the growing Light is accelerating a big reveal of planetary players formerly operating in the shadows.  This incoming Light is going to reveal what those in the dark have been doing while we have been diverted from looking or simply counted ourselves out as powerful enough to impact the situation. 

It is very hard to look at how we have been duped by those who have taken advantage of our innocence or distraction to do damage to us and the collective.  Osteospermum helps us with this feeling of betrayal.  It helps us soften the blow of betrayal by helping us know our strength to deal with this betrayal. If we retain our sense of power as we look at what has been happening, then we can act from an empowered place and make changes that may seem small but add up with other people’s changes to make all the difference.

And as with our individual shadow, as we look at the collective shadow, the important thing is to keep our vibration as high as possible in response to what we are seeing.  This is our Way Forward.

Lion’s Ear helps us connect with all those Light beings who want to help us stay strong, empowered and high in vibration while these hidden realities are revealed.  The Lion’s Ear collective of Light workers wants us to experience ourselves as a part of this collective working to bring Light and Healing to our planet.  Individually we may feel low. As a collective we can stay high in vibration as we solve the problems revealed.

Amongst the healers I know or know of, the word on the streets is that this is going to be a bit of a rocky time for us as the Light illuminates much more clearly what exactly has been going on in the dark here on our planet. It’s so important for us to understand we are not alone as we see this darkness more clearly. To Hear the Angels Sing is another old friend for feeling the presence and support of those that are with us. 

I am going to mention one kind of reveal that may take the stage in the months to come; a financial one.  What’s recently happened to the distribution of wealth in this country? While there has been an erosion of the middle class in this country for decades, the transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest greatly accelerated during the pandemic.  In 2020, workers of the middle class lost $3.7 trillion while billionaires gained $3.9 trillion. Trillion is not a typo.  493 individuals became new billionaires while more than 8 million Americans dropped below the poverty line. So many small businesses closed their doors for good while big data, big media, big tech, big pharma, big food, big everything had record profits.

Who are these billionaires amassing these fortunes? Here’s a sample of some who benefited from the constraints of lockdown. Larry Ellison’s wealth increased by $34 billion in 2020, Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth grew by $35 billion, Google’s Sergey Brin by $41 billion, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos by $86 billion, Bill Gates by $22 billion and Michael Bloomberg by almost $7 billion. 

In considering this, I recall the Angels’ description of money made off the backs of others in an unfair exchange of life energy. They called it excrement explaining this money holds terrible karma ( see my recent blog Money). Nonetheless this shift in who has the money has left the average person on earth more financially precarious than before lockdown. Thank goodness we still can take full ownership of our life force energy and connection to Divinity, the truly valuable things on the table.

How do we bear witness to this kind of robber baron behavior?  How do we avoid taking on the shame of robber barons or avoid getting stuck in a state of rage?  How do we use our energy to bring change? As I worked on this blog, the Angels came back to the same point over and over.   It’s all about us keeping our vibrations high and keeping the sovereignty of our energy systems. 

Keeping our vibration up is incredibly important because when we are in despair, grief or anger we lose our energy.  That’s why it almost doesn’t matter what Flower Essence or other vibrational tool you use if it helps you keep your vibration up. Additionally, higher vibrations leave us more empowered to hang in there and bring change.

Flower Essences I grab for when I am angry or despairing include Outburst and the Sovereignty Set.  The Sovereignty Set is so important for so many reasons.  By holding our energy system as a sovereign space, we no longer unknowingly contribute to our resources being taken by others.

Inciting us to fear is one way others disrupt the sovereignty of our energy systems. In the end of 2019 before lockdown, the Angels had us share a gift bottle of Be Fearless with every person that ordered.  Inciting our fears keeps us disempowered, distracted, in a low vibrational state and ripe to be taken advantage of.  I continue to feel Be Fearless and any tools that help us release our fears are incredibly vital.  

The sovereignty of our energy field is a pressing topic.  Early in my life I thought the most important thing in life was for me to be a good girl and do as I was asked, even if it meant throwing my own energy system into a big energy deficit by taking care of too much and too many.   I was raised up to dismiss the health and well being of my energy system in favor of any patriarch who came along and said I owed them my energy. I believed that if I did otherwise I would not be a good person and might be thrown away.

This fear began with a childhood misperception of mine that my younger sister had been sent away, never to be spoken of again, because she cried too much and wasn’t well behaved.  The fact was that she was mental challenged and my parent chose to send her to a facility for mentally challenged individuals.  She became a part of the shadow of our family with me the only one in the family who ever mentioned her existence.  Katy’s disappearance left me believing that me being good was a life or death issue. If I wasn’t good, I too would disappear. So at age four, I took on every bit of family business dumped on me in order to meet family standards of “good.” 

How long it has taken me to lay down this charge and find a different way to be?

 Now I listen to my heart as best I can for guidance about how to use my energy.  It guides me to say no as well as yes.  It offers discernment about how I use my energy, my true wealth.  My heart helps me prevent people with shadowy motives from taking advantage of me. The Mary Rose and Borage are two I love for heart support.  Spiderwort helps with discernment All Ego Contracts Null & Void and Carry Less help us dismantle these old interfering mind ideas that prevent us from following our heart’s impeccable advice.  

In asking the Angels one more time how we can navigate this time of light illuminating the dark, they once again stressed keeping our vibrations high. They reminded me that nature, rest, beautiful music, Flower Essences, laughter, time with beloveds, meditation, movement, whole nourishing foods and so many other things are all helpful.  We know when we do something that takes our vibration down.  We know the ways we can raise our vibrations. We just have to love ourselves enough to follow through with self care.

It’s time to see our own value and take care of ourselves.  Those operating in the dark certainly see our value.  By keeping us paralyzed in fear and feeling badly about ourselves, they have been able to harvest our energy at will.  It’s time to listen to our own hearts and inner guidance and not what “the powers that were” tell us.  We can and will navigate this time and bring immense healing to Earth when each of us, as divine light filled beings, recognize ourselves as such.

As I finished this blog, I said one more time to the Angels, “But what about the robber barons?”  They reinterated two things. First, it is time for humanity to value the wealth within us that isn’t material or financial. Second they noted that we can leave these patriarchs to wallow in their financial manure piles, because as we begin to make heartfelt choices, it will transform the planet until they are simply irrelevant. More importantly, as we live anchored in our hearts, at long last our dear Gaia will be free to express the Love energy which is her true self and destiny. Us too.

We purchased land for Green Hope Farm in 1986 from David Benson.  He was a very handsome gentleman in his eighties who had been farming on the land since the hurricane of 1938.  At the time of the sale, David kept a parcel of the farm with his house and barns on it, so our land was just pasture and overgrown pasture gone to pines and wild apples.

Though I had no idea what I would be growing here, from the beginning, there was a great deal of focus on finding the best water the property had to offer.  David insisted we get a dowser to check for water before we signed the papers. I had heard a bit about “water witches” but knew nothing more than that they usually used a stick to find water in some mysterious but effective process.  David repeatedly said he didn’t want to saddle us with land that had no water.  There was some reason to worry about this as across the street from the farm the neighbors had drilled over 400 feet yet still got less than a gallon a minute of water. David noted that they had not gotten a dowser in before drilling.

I knew with my whole heart and being we were meant to live on this land, and there would be water for us.  Somehow I convinced farmer David to let the sale go through in the late fall before dowsers checked it out. I promised to get a dowser to the property come spring. In the meantime, David decided to take me under his wing and teach me a thing or two about farming.    

David was the first person who believed I was serious about farming.  During that first winter when the deed had changed hands but we hadn’t yet started building, David took me to many farm meetings all over New Hampshire.  What an unlikely duo we made at these meetings of crusty old granite state farmers.  We had fun, but it was hard to miss how regressive farming was in the New Hampshire of the 1980’s. 

I remember one meeting where Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farms tried to explain branding to a group of us.  I was the youngest person in the room by at least fifty years.  I think Gary probably had more luck talking to his cows about branding than to this crowd.  It has always struck me as strange that while Gary failed through no fault of his own to light any fires of change in New Hampshire, just across the Connecticut River, Vermont farmers caught the fever to brilliantly brand themselves, their state and its agricultural products.  Meanwhile David and I sat in on meetings where the brakes were applied with vigor to any new ideas.

This stuck quality of farming in New Hampshire didn’t stop me, and one group of people that helped me go full steam ahead were DOWSERS. Some of them even lived in New Hampshire though all meetings were in Vermont.

How did I first connect with the lively dowsing community in these parts?  Before we broke ground for our farmhouse, I broke ground for gardens.  My rototiller guy was named Jerry Burt, and he was a well known dowser.  Jerry was happy to dowse the property.  In fact, after he dowsed it, he had six other dowsers come dowse the property as well.  The spot he chose for our well was marked by small rock.  No other dowser knew this.  In an open field of 7 acres, every dowser picked the exact same spot to put the well.

My husband Jim was mystified by this, so Jerry grabbed him a Y shaped branch from an apple tree on the property and taught him how to dowse.  Jim proved a natural dowser. The stick in his hands just about ripped his hands apart on its downward pull as he walked over “the spot”. This opened things up for Jim to dowse other places for other people.

With that magical synchronicity of dowsers all in agreement, the site for the well was chosen. When we drilled, the water proved abundant and refreshing in its taste. David Benson could finally sigh a sigh of relief!

Dowsers have a deep connection with the Elemental kingdom.  Heck, some of them probably ARE Elementals! In any case, I’m sure the Elementals here encouraged and celebrated as these dowsers tuned into the unseen realities of this land.  I am grateful to the Elementals and the Dowsers who found the right spot to drill.  They helped ensure that millions of bottles of Flower Essences would have the best water possible.

The gifts from the dowsing community continued after the well was dug.  Dowsers are fantastic networkers.  Before the internet, they connected people with common interests with astounding precision and generosity.  As I got gardening with the Angels and Elementals, the local dowsers took a great interest in what was happening.  They visited and then they shared news of what we were doing here with other dowsers. 

Soon I was invited to speak at the monthly meetings of the American Dowser’s Society which is headquartered in Danville, Vermont. My early years here, I asked the Angels and Elementals for answers with body kinesiology. Many dowser’s recognize this as body dowsing so they welcomed me into their community.  As the gardens grew, dowsers would come through with their own dowsing tools to check out what was happening here and how the energies of the land were shifting.  This co-creative endeavor really caught their fancy.

Fast forwarding to 1993, the one summer we were open, dowsers worked hand in glove with the Elementals here to get the word out to possible visitors.  While we only put up a couple dozen posters advertising we were open (and again, there was no internet or even mailings done) thanks to the Elementals and Dowsers we had thousands visit the gardens.

The Dowsers also invited me to speak at the annual convention where I met so many interested and interesting folk.  They also got me to write about my experiences at the farm and the creation of our Flower Essences for their American Society of Dowsers quarterly journal.  It was amazing how many people heard about us from a two page article in this journal.  The dowsers took exceptional care of all things Green Hope Farm.  To this day I smile just thinking of the warm welcome I received from dowsers in a world that was not all that ready for what I was doing.

Lately I’ve been called back to further gratitude for the dowsing community.  It’s hard to miss how many dowsers are doing innovative work to protect us from EMFs and all the technology that have flooded our world since the 80’s and 90’s.  I am not surprised only thankful for the innovative vibrational tools that current dowsers are inventing to protect us from this technology. Our Golden Armor has become one tool amongst others thanks to dowsers.

Dowsers have always helpied make the unseen seen. They create tools and techniques to bring the unseen into our awareness in measurable and apparent ways.  Water dowsing reveals the location of  unseen currents and reservoirs of water, but dowsers are tuning into so much more than water. Back in the day when I first spoke at the Danville meeting house, there was always a dowser on call.  They helped in so many ways.  For example, they would help find missing cats or find underground piping before bulldozers did.  Not only do they reveal what is, but dowsers help us creatively deal with what is when it’s problematic.  Now they are helping us neutralize all the unseen energies bombarding us from cell phones, cell towers, routers, ad infinitum.

Recalling all the incredibly helpful and kind things dowsers have done for Green Hope Farm, I am so delighted to see them turn their innovative but grounded skills to problems we face now.  While some feel I am silly in my hope, the dowsers empowering solutions to problems that have left others wringing their hands make me know my hope is justified.  Dowsers with their bottomless curiosity and complete dedication to understanding and solving energetic earth concerns make hope a sensible choice.  Gratitude too.