Flower Essences for finding Calm when we are not actually Safe

From 1997 to 2010 my family and I lived with death threats from my violent, drug addicted, mentally unstable brother. These threats did not stop until my brother died of a drug overdose.

The many years of threats left me searching for Flower Essences that would help me and my family stay calm and centered even as we lived in danger. During these years, I needed Flower Essences that would help us not be adrenalized or in a flight or fight response all the time. We needed Flower. Essences to support us to feel calm even when we were not actually safe. We sought Flower Essences that would help us live our daily lives with as much good cheer as possible, even as we had to have systems in place should things go south. It was a balance of the practical and the hopeful, and it was hard to achieve.

The threats were credible. While my family of origin wanted to soft pedal my brother’s threats, violent behavior, drug use and illegal activities, the police in our area watched my brother closely and agreed with us that my brother was a danger. While it was helpful that the police didn’t discount our concern as my family of origin did, and instead actively worked to protect us, this didn’t leave us feeling safe.

The police patrolled the farm once a night. They knew that any 911 call from us was going to be bad, and together we discussed what we should do before and after such a call. Even with this support, we were vulnerable almost all the time. We often felt isolated and misunderstood as well as unsafe. Well meaning people would say things like, “How likely is this brother to actually kill you?” I was grateful to the police who did not feel we were overreacting, but sadly being right to be concerned wasn’t a solution or a comfort.

So what Flower Essences helped us? Here are some of the many we leaned on.

Emergency Care– This is helpful whenever we feel scared or adrenalized. I carried this one with me everywhere to take when I got alarmed or in case of emergencies. There was a moment when we learned that a student at our daughter’s college had been randomly killed in a school parking lot. For a bit we didn’t know if the victim was our daughter. This was the kind of moment that Emergency Care helped us with.

Flow Free– It was important always to keep flowing- not hold my breath, not hold onto spikes of anxiety, fear and worry but just flow. I took Flow Free every day. for all those years. It was the first thing I did each day- put Flow Free in a quart of water to sip throughout my day. I don’t know how I would have gotten through those years without Flow Free.

Sanctuary– We created this for a rape crisis center, but it helped us too.

Scarlet Runner Bean, Red Clover, Old Blush China Rose– These were three individual Flower Essences than helped me derail my fear train of thought. The Red Clover was particularly helpful in panic driven moments. Sometimes the circumstances just crumpled me and Old Blush China Rose helped me pick myself up again.

During this time the Angels had us create a Venus Garden called Don’t Worry- Bee Happy. A lot of my spiritual work was to understand that worry and fear didn’t help me. There were actions to take but to let the fever of constant worry prevail was not helpful.

So many of the Venus Gardens were to reassure and bring us closer to Divinity. That was one unexpected thing. Despite my rather puritanical upbringing, I didn’t experience these threats as some sort of punishment from an angry deity nor was I mad at my spiritual guides and teachers. Yes, I was mad at my brother and the rest of my family of origin, but I felt that spirit was in the trenches with us every second of this horrible time. Even as I couldn’t be given some guarantee that it would all turn out okay, I had their absolute support. The Roses including dear Agnes Rose with its affirmation, “You and I are not We but One.” was one reason I felt this unbreakable companionship. Roses are Divinity in form and so are their Essences. They help us feel our inseparable oneness with Divinity.

One more thought on Don’t Worry- Bee Happy and other Venus Garden beloveds like Equanimity. During this time we had to stop believing that enjoying our lives as best we could was wrong. We could legitimately have just stayed in a state of alarm all the time, but we had to set ourselves free to be happy and not feel guilty about this.

Releasing my guilt was a big process. Things happen that are beyond our control, and sometimes we want to take responsibility for them or blame others just so we don’t have to acknowledge our lack of control. I would go over and over events and think to myself, if only I hadn’t done this or that maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have happened. I had to work really hard to let this thought pattern go and acknowledge that my holding onto guilt was in some ways an effort to see myself in control of something I was never in control of.

I hope none of you find yourselves in circumstances like this one, but I am so glad there are Flower Essences there to support you through if you do. I am grateful that the journey of creating Essences has continued since then with more supportive Flower Essences like the Sovereignty Set,Safe Passage Be Fearless and Amor Fati.

If any of these Flower friends call to you, know that we send them to you with so much love.

It’s Always a Going Forward

In today’s email a Green Hope Farm friend asks if the Flower Essence wisdom her dying cat is absorbing will stay with him and be part of his next return to a body.

This is how the Green Hope Farm friend asked this question, “I have a question about the flower essences…..say the flower essences I just purchased for (my cat) are in his system for a couple days and then he passes on to Spirit, when he comes back again, will he have the flower essences information and a raised vibration?   Probably a strange question, but I am a very curious being.”

For me the answer is an emphatic yes.

Here is one reason I believe this. A woman fortunate enough to know and love a God realized Perfect Master asked him what would happen in her next life. Would she find her connection to Divinity again or would she have to start from scratch? The Perfect Master said to her, “It is always a going forward.”

He went on to explain that each of us pick up wherever we left off and thus move on closer to the goal of self realization.

Things fall apart on this plane of reality. Our efforts often don’t bring the results we hoped for. It’s that conversation about Amor Fati again. Doing our best is our work and outcomes are not in our hands. Divinity wants us to wake up and know our oneness, but Divinity not our personalities knows best how to accomplish this.

And frankly, the methods of waking us up can sometimes feel so dispiriting. Our personalities can so easily get lost in thinking events define us when only Divinity defines us.

I find it a great comfort to know that whatever we have learned in this life goes with us and informs what is next. We may have to let go of pretty much everything, but we do not let go of our connection to the Divine and that is all that matters. However close we have come to understanding our oneness with source, we remain in this truth and get to pick up where we left off. I find this very comforting.

This beloved in my life knows exactly what Flower Essences she needs. Her wise choices each time she visits the office are a vast reminder of how we carry what we know from incarnation to incarnation.

Hope, Amor Fati & Flower Essences

A new Green Hope Farm friend emailed to ask for Flower Essence suggestions. Her life had taken a violent turn in an unexpected direction. All her plans for her future were gone with the wind. In the aftermath, she works to accept what happened, even as the life she had envisioned continues to feel more real to her than the one she now inhabits. She seeks a thread of meaning and purpose in what happened. She wants to find peace but also not throw in the towel, despondent and without hope. She wants to rebuild knowing her personality is not in charge but hoping for the best.

Her brave letter made me think about the concept of Amor Fati. A few years ago I began to write about my life to sort out what happened to me and make sense of it. In hashing things out for myself, I hoped to release any lingering anger or bitterness about “what people did to me.” I wanted to be in my life with gratitude for everything.

As I began to write, I stumbled on the notion of Amor Fati, the attitude in which we see everything that happens to us, even suffering and loss, as good or necessary. To keep this idea in my mind I began the document with the following description of Amor Fati. Every time I opened the document, I would reread this.

AMOR FATI

Whatever needs to be healed within us, calls to us in events we call fate. Fate brings matters to our attention. Fate serves our process of finding our authentic self.  Fate calls us to unseen and unknown parts of ourselves.  Instead of being bitter about our fate, love it, embrace it, see it as the perfect gift in service to us, to our wholeness and holiness. 

What do we do when we realize the ego is not in charge? Do we give up? Do we turn and embrace our fate and love our fate just as it is?

So back to this Green Hope Farm friend. When she wrote, I suggested I sit with the Angels and assemble a mix that supported her, holding Amor Fati in mind. She too seemed intent on accepting her fate and finding it meaningful. She also wanted to reconcile herself to living in hope that the new life coming towards her was going to be one of grace, including some of the dreams that had recently been stripped from her.

The Angels suggested these Flower Essences for a custom mix. (After I posted this blog we got more requests for Amor Fati mix so it is now available to one and all)

Coralita, Flower from the Gardens of Taormina, Effort & Grace, Equanimity, Don’t Worry-Bee Happy, Love It & Leave It, Loving What Is, Purplemat, Redwood, Flow Free, Jade, Zubiri, Blackberry, Canary Island Broom, Fragrant Orchid, Alignment Garden, Gratitude. Through Angels’ Eyes

As I looked at the Essences they chose, it was a bit of a Eureka moment for me. The bulk of these Essences are VENUS GARDEN ESSENCES. Each Venus Garden Essence takes a year to create. First the garden is designed by the Angels in the dark of winter. Then in early spring I grow the plants for the garden with the Elementals help. Then early in June, when the danger of frost is past, the entire garden is planted while following precise directions from the Angels. Come the fall equinox, the garden becomes a combination Flower Essence mix offering timely support for our collective spiritual journey.

In the Venus Garden

Even when I had never heard of the concept of Amor Fati, the work of helping us live it had been the Angels and Elementals’ focus as embodied by the Venus Garden for more than thirty years. Now all of us can get support to love our fate by choosing from the different Venus Garden Flower Essences that address this challenge over and over in different ways and from different directions. If there is interest, I will make this custom mix into one available for one and all (now available as there was interest! ).

In that Eureka moment, I realized support for Amor Fati has always been a big picture, long term and integrated project for the Angels and Elementals here. I have long thought of each Venus Garden and Essence as building on previous gardens and Essences, but I don’t really think I grasped the overall theme until now. Perhaps later there will be another big picture theme that will shimmer into view. All I know for now is that we are all getting a lot of support if we want to embrace our fate and love it.

Lion’s Ear in the Venus Garden

Before I close, I want to ponder the way Amor Fati and Hope cross paths. Some might say that embracing one’s fate means hope has no place. This isn’t true. We dream our fate into being before we incarnate when we have more of an overview of what we need to learn. Our work becomes accepting what we planned even when it is not what our we consciously want now. However things turn out, we still need hope. We need to hope for our spiritual growth and to hope for the fulfillment of our destiny to know we are one with Divinity. Trust comes in when we accept that how we get there is not always easy or something our personality would choose.

If looking for Flower Essences to keep hope alive, on our Resource page there is a document called Flower Essence Suggestions for Common Concerns. This document took years to create and is a great place to go if you are looking for Flower Essence support for a specific issue or concern. Usually a topic will be followed by general suggestions then more specific suggestions for variations on the concern. You’ll see what I mean below.

Here is the listing for HOPE.

Hope: Phoenix Rising, Through Angels’ Eyes, Queen Anne’s Lace, Swamp Candles, Fragrant Orchid, Borage
Light at dawn after dark night of soul: Ragged Robin
Hope when life looks devoid of life: Epimedium (additional Essence list)
Embracing hope as a way to move towards the Golden Age: Through Angels’ Eyes
Help to bring hopes and dreams into form: Inkberry, Nicker Nut, Lady’s Mantle, Biting Stonecrop, Belerephon of the Open Door
Moving away from despair and hopelessness: Gorse, Pink Grootendorst Rose

Sometimes when looking for support for a topic I will look up its opposite so looking up DESPAIR these are the suggestions

Despair: Borage, Crab Apple, Feverfew, Gorse, Milkweed, Giant Milkweed, Montbretia
When stuck in childhood despair: Inner Child, Abandonment & Abuse

If the suggestions in this document do not feel right, there are so many other ways Flowers and their Essences call to us. Sometimes the name of the Flower will call out when we see it. Sometimes when we go to the description, a phrase in the description will feel particularly relevant or powerful. The Angels choice of words is always intentional and deeply layered. When the words resonate, the Essence will most likely bring you a helpful vibrational energy.

We also are called to Flower Essences by the appearance of the Flower. That appearance is a signal to us as well as the insect and bird kingdoms. Flowers indicating their purpose through what they look like is known as “the doctrine of signature” When explaining this concept, I always think of Snapdragon as a particularly good example as the Flower Essence is concerned with issues of the mouth, jaw and teeth as well as the spinal column. Each Flower can be plucked and made to open like a mouth. A lovely moment last summer saw a pack of little people in the Venus Garden playing with Snapdragon blossoms. The Flowers encircle a straight stalk which particularly with White Snapdragon (which is the color we use to make the Flower Essence) resemble a spinal column.

This email exchange and resulting Amor Fati Flower Essence mix happened before the LA fires though now it reads as if she could have been from LA as she too lost the life she knew. Our hearts and prayers and thoughts go out to all concerned in this sorrowful time and all who are experiencing devastating life events..

With love and hope.