When Emily lived in Sicily and created our Sicily and Santorini Flower Essence collection from some wonderful Mediterranean Flowers, she made several Flower Essences from Flowers native to Tunisia and also travelled to Tunisia which is only one hundred and five miles from the Sicilian coast.

We have been listening to Emily’s stories of Tunisia again and asking different questions than we did the first time when we focused on descriptions of Emily riding a camel. We have actually been thinking of Tunisia a lot this last year because Jim’s best friend, Jake Walles, is the ambassador to Tunisia for the United States.

Tunisia is next door to Libya and this was just one of many reasons that Jake was very good friends with Chris Stevens, the Ambassador to Libya who died last week in Benghazi. Jake and Chris worked together during several State Department postings and this spring, they actually shared a Senate confirmation hearing to become Ambassadors in the neighboring countries.

Jim took a rare trip down to Washington DC this summer to see Jake sworn in as the Ambassador to Tunisia. The ceremony was at the State department, and it took Jim about two months to get clearance to attend the event. For this country mouse with a love for all things history, it was a really big deal for him to be there to bear witness to Jake’s career milestone.

When Jim returned home, the thing he mentioned again and again was how Secretary of State Clinton spoke about Jake at the ceremony in a very personal way as a compatriot she knew well and genuinely respected. Jake has worked tirelessly for many presidents and Secretary of States. After a first posting in Amsterdam in the early eighties, Jake switched focus to the Middle East, and since then, he has had State department postings all over the Mediterranean and Middle East, including a posting as the charge d’affaires in Greece and consular general to the Jerusalem Embassy. He was posted in Tel Aviv when Saddam sent missiles into the city and has often been right in the middle of some very upsetting and dangerous situations. Since his early twenties, Jake has given his life to trying to help this region of the world. This week we are earnestly hoping he won’t literally lose his life to the conflict.

Late Friday night, we were relieved to hear briefly from Jake that he is safe. We wonder what more we can do than pray.

This morning I felt encouraged to turn my attention the Sicily & Santorini Essences again. Flower and their Essence wisdom speak exactly to the healing concerns of the region in which they were grown and made. Feelings of disenfranchisement, powerlessness, separation and fear of our differences are issues which all humanity shares yet they are coming to a head here in this part of the world, and the region’s local Flower Essences address these issues.

The Angels went deeper in explaining this link. They reminded me that while our tendency is to make explosive problems like these we see on our televisions something outside ourselves, what is happening in northern Africa is happening within all of us. As each of us own our own shadow parts and work to bring them into the light and heal these wounds, we help the whole planet. This is, in fact, a planet without boundaries so as we heal ourselves we heal the whole world.

As I pursued my fall weekend activities including harvesting winter squash in an idyllic and peaceful country setting, it seemed a long way from the scene in front of the Tunisian Embassy where Jake works. But when Emily and I spent some very heated hours trying to sew book bags for her first grade classroom with a sewing machine with a mind of its own, well……..I was reminded that greater calm and emotional balance is ALWAYS possible even in a quieter life, and I was encouraged to just take the Sicily and Santorini Essences again in the hopes that every little bit we all do from our quieter eddies will help to lighten the load of the whole planet.

Here are some of the Sicily and Santorini Flower Essences that felt particularly helpful right now:

Ramping Fumitory offers wisdom about self articulation with good personal boundaries but without defensiveness.

This elegant Flower sets an example of shifting the intense explosive color red into centered contained pale pink and white. It also suggests that balance of maintaining our own boundaries without losing ourselves to this concern. This has been one of the most popular of the Sicily and Santorini collection and no wonder. A longer description of this Essence is on the Sicliy and Santorini collection page of the website and in the new Guidebook too.
Seaside Flower from Taormina helps us be optimistic and positive in the face of harsh circumstances.

Flowers that flourish in extremely exposed terrain have to work so hard to express themselves. What a wonder it is that they express beauty and expansive welcoming good cheer despite the way circumstances make it so difficult for them to flourish. Such a lovely energetic reminder to us all!
Red Flower from Santorini supports us to thrive again after things explode in our lives and helps us to respond to radical change with creativity, strength, fearlessness and adaptability not further violence.

There is almost no soil on the caldera of the volcano in Santorini, yet the entire slice of land is covered in this Flower. For me this Flower Essence reminds us that there are always resources for us to flourish if we only remember to go inward.
Tree Medick helps when external forces have made our lives heavy and we feel bogged down by helping us flood our energy systems with divine light and then hold and radiate this light as a natural state of being.

Maybe it was the name or maybe it was some old friendship we had but Tree Medick called to me a long time before we met, and I was so very happy when a Flower Essence friend in Barcelona sent me some of this remedy. When Emily returned from her trip with this Essence in tow, I was delighted to have it to share with all of you. Tree Medick really does help us fill with light, hold this light and share this light in such a friendly inclusive way.

Sicilian Wild Sweet Pea‘s affirmation explains its energetic strength so well, I AM open to the truth of my situation and ready to begin a process of harmonious change.


Sweet Pea from the Green Hope farm gardens is our number one remedy for sleep issues, but Sweet Pea also has a component of helping us with issues of community. Here, the original Sweet Pea from Sicily- the grand dame of all Sweet Peas- helps us get to the root of our issues and understand where things went wrong and what we can do about it.
Scarlet Pimpernel from La Rocca– I have always loved how Emily and the Angels expressed the wisdom of this Flower Essence, “Being one with God means that none of this work can be bigger than us- We can do it.”

And this little powerhouse can remind us of that- no matter what the situation!
Flower from La Marchesa support for when our journeys take us into the unknown or into places in-between. It also supports us during times when our ideas of who we are have been stripped from us and we aren’t yet sure where the whole process is taking us or who we will be on the other side of the experience.

La Marchesa mean marsh and this Essence has cropped up a lot for people in those marshy situations of betwixt and between- in-between careers or jobs, in a state of transition from one role to another, in a place where everything has fallen away and the way forward is not yet clear. It helps us feel at ease with all these unknowns and supports us to relax in this place of unknowing, confident that new life and new direction will come. I love this Essence perhaps because so many of us need this one right now.

Italian Sainfoin holds wisdom about constructively managing our emotional response when something explodes in our lives or we experience violation or violence against us. It helps us find a balance in our emotions neither a passive response nor a reactive one but a creative transmutation of the energies. I love it’s I AM affirmation, I AM the creative transformation of all violence directed at me.


This Italian Sainfoin Flower Essence was made in the west of Sicily on Motia, a tiny island that once was a hub of ancient civilization for the Phoenicians and Carthaginians until its destruction by the Greek tyrant Dionysius the elder of Syracuse in 379 BC.

This Flower is found throughout the Mediterranean, but Emily making the Essence from Flowers at Motia brought an extra oomph to the Essence as this is a place that had to find its self identity after being violated. It is now the site of small art museum of very rare antiquities with the rest of the island left in a natural state.

It is interesting to note that the ruins of Carthage, where the Carthaginians that settled Motia were from, lie in a suburb of Tunis, Tunisia. Carthage’s most famous citizen was Hannibal who tried to conquer the Roman empire in the Second Punic War (218-201 BC). After several surprise victories and a famous march through the Alps with elephants, Hannibal was defeated by the Romans in 202 BC and Carthage became a client state of Rome and her fourth most important city. Carthage was destroyed in 698.

Tassel Hyacinth– If I had to pick one Flower Essence that most profoundly holds the vibration of peaceful co-existence as a global community, it is this one. Its I AM affirmation is, In the diversity of creation, I am the Unity of Life.


I am going to close with this beautiful Tunisian native plant, Tree Germander, which helps us find within ourselves our unique soul qualities then express these with great finesse and beauty. May this plant encourage us all to find what is true and beautiful within us and express it gently!