I want to share with you about some of the Flower Essences you are gravitating to right now but first…. I thought I’d do a quick check in about….masks. How are you feeling about them? Hmmmmmm…..me too!
What style do you prefer? The ones I have sewn are rather plain in design. To learn how to sew them, I found a funny little video in which a man watched a woman sewing a mask. I wasn’t quite sure why the man was there. The woman did all the explaining and the sewing. Did she need supervision to sew it correctly? Who thought it would be a better video with a man chortling over her remarks about tucking in the threads? So many questions about this strange new world we live in.
One thing I have noticed about masks: They seem determined to lose themselves. Each week, I need to make more. Where do all these lost masks go? We have a designated place in the kitchen for all masks, but most days another one has disappeared. Why, like socks, do masks go walkabout?
Out in the world as I check out other people’s masks. I covet some masks more than others. I had no envy of the Bud Lite mask I saw. Then a friend had a mask that resembled a strawberry. I wanted that one. It even was embroidered with the little seeds that strawberries have. Clearly the creator of this masterpiece had no intention of losing her mask. May the force be with her in this heroic task.
There is so much awkwardness with masks. Yesterday I had to go someone’s house to pick up Green Hope mail that had been misdelivered to her house. As our mail goes to POB 125 in the post office and as her street number was 205, it is a little hard to know why this happened….. Anyways, she came to her door without a mask. I had mine on, but I wondered how rude it looked to back up slowly to get to that six foot distance. We had a lovely chat , but it still felt awkward.
I spent a good part of my childhood in Mexico City where manners were paramount. Shaking hands and being polite were the name of the game. If we went to someone’s house for a meal, and they served something that might make our gringo stomachs rebel, my parents told us kids to eat the food and have tourista later. And we did. Now, I have to fight all those instincts. This is pretty weird for all of us, isn’t it?
Another thing I’ve learned is that no one can understand the last name Sheehan said through a mask. Or maybe it is just me mumbling. Who knew watching each other’s lips was something we all did ( and needed to do for that matter).
As Jim awaits word on whether he will be going back to school or doing more online teaching, he asked me to research masks with clear sections over the mouth so his students can see his mouth and potentially understand him better. I found a 17 page pattern for masks with clear plastic sewn in. This was 16 pages too many for me. I turned him loose on Etsy.
Now he wants something that involves an elastic collar around the neck and some sort of blooming of plastic pieces encircling his head. Think Darth Vadar and you’re on the right track. That’s going to be one mask I might have disappear (It makes the Bud Lite mask look like a winner).
To write of other things…… When the quarantine began, I took over many jobs because, temporarily, there was no one else to do them. As the staff goddesses return, masks in place, we are reconfiguring who does what. As we sort through this new beginning, I have decided to keep doing one job I took on unexpectedly and that is bottling the Flower Essences.
There are many things I like about this job. I love visiting with the Flowers in this way. As I go to make an Essence, I think about what it is for and why it might be helpful right now. I also like seeing the patterns of what flows out the door here and wondering why certain Flower Essences fly off the shelves.
Our Flower Essence collections is a bit like a big collection of people. Some I always know are going to be in the limelight and go out the door to you week after week in a very steady stream. They seem born to be out there in a big way. From the moment they hit our shelves, they make a splash and help a lot of people and animals. But some are more retiring. They hesitate to go onto the mainline up and often don’t make enough noise to be noticed. Yet I know they are gems. With these more reserved Flower friends, it is not a matter of self esteem. I do not think I have ever met a Flower that didn’t know it deserved to be here. It is more that some Flowers seem very content to just be who they are and let others find them or not.
I love it when you do find these retiring Flower Essence allies in spite of their reserve. I love it when you see their strengths as much as the more gregarious Flower Essences that enjoy the spotlight.
As I bottle, I relish seeing that you have found and embraced these more low key Flower Essences. Their ability to wait until the right moment with absolute equanimity and then deliver when called upon carries its own wisdom. I love seeing how these Flowers have confidence in your discernment, a confidence that is deserved.
I thought I would share a half dozen or so of the more reserved Flower Essences you all gravitated this week. I know you found them because I needed to restock the shelves with them. As I bottled this group, I was struck by how precisely some of these Flowers answered the concerns of these times.
Comte de Chamborg Rose– To quote a bit of what the Comte says about itself, “Use me when you must prevail but want to do so with a light touch or when you have need to assert yourself but do not want to offend. I have a vibration of self-articulation in harmony with all around me. This is my strength: an ability to be fully myself without ruffling feathers.”
Is it just me or is anyone else needing help with this light touch? An astrologer friend explained it is something about Mars being in its home sign of Aries for the next six months leading to fiery interactions. Let’s just say that as I bottled this one, I put it right into my drinking water and said a grateful THANKS!
Los Arcos This beloved Camino Essence describes itself succinctly in this way, “Finding the bravery to move ahead on your own and at the same time being open to support from unusual places and activities.”
As you have noticed from other recent blogs of mine, the theme of moving on without trying to drag anyone else along has been a big one for me. So too has the precious experience of unexpected support from unexpected places. I have found Los Arcos to be very validating in this letting go process. It is one of many Flower Essences we have for helping us to let go, but like all the Camino Essences it has a particular gift in helping us know that the letting go is just a moment on the trail and not our final destination. It can be very disheartening to find oneself in the emptiness of letting go, yet Los Arcos helps us feel the palpable promise of serendipitous new chapters.
Belorado was another Camino beloved that needed bottling this week. It shares similar gifts with Los Arcos describing itself in this way, “Holding faith in the emptiness before the dawning of the next chapter when you will find your authentic and supportive community.”
Jade Flower Essence helps us roll with the unexpected quality of what happens as we heal. We all have these conceptions of what it should look like as we heal individually or heal as a planet. For me, it is pretty clear that I should refer to my ideas as misconceptions versus conception, but then I doubt I am alone. Could any of us have imagined 2020?
In any case, Jade helps us to ride the waves of what our healing actually entails. While I would like it to be a more serene course, Jade knows healing is a roller coaster ride. Fortunately Jade knows how we can hang on without throwing up!
Whenever I think about Jade I remember of a story one of you told me about partnering with Jade. This dear woman had gotten a very strong prompting to work with Jade and had been taking the Essence for a few weeks. Then one afternoon she was driving down the Pacific coast highway in her convertible having a lovely time when a mattress from the truck in front of her flew off the truck and fell on top of her. Well…… she lived to tell the tale, and she always linked this to working with Jade which she felt had prepared her for this very, very unexpected moment.
Ginger Thomas– This wise Flower friend from St John, USVI sits in quiet reserve on our shelves. He is present 100% when called upon, and he arrives with a sparkle, humor and a powerful depth of wisdom unlike any other Flower Essence I know. Here he briefly and rather mildly describes himself and his immense vibration, “I AM the translation of inner wisdom into wise action, refined and pure, unsullied by discordant and extraneous ideas. I help you ground in your inner wisdom, helping you make wise choices in your life, because I hold the vibration of the long view, the wisdom of a true elder.”
I am so delighted you have found Ginger Thomas. Maybe his time has come, and he has opened shop in a bigger way. Maybe something has shifted and we can finally hear his wisdom like a bell ringing in a still night. In any case, I am glad he is going out to you now. He has so much to offer us.
Foxglove from Patagonia As we experience quarantine and social isolation through this confusing time, I am grateful for the wisdom of the Patagonian Flowers including this magical Foxglove. It brings a hard earned wisdom about grounding in our immutable inner Divinity when external circumstances are on the move as they are right now. This and other Patagonian Flowers carry the wisdom of the Patagonian land mass which over geologic time had a particularly big adventure of splitting off from supercontinent Gondwana then rotating around and around alone in the ocean for eons before coming to its current location joining the tip of South America.
So quarantine hasn’t gone on for eons (though some days it definitely feels that way), but it has flipped us on our heads a few times. Foxglove’s vibration helps us stay present but also calm- even radiantly joyful- as we flip around. It reminds us that everything we need is within us. As we let go of what is already gone and accept the dizzy spin of the times, solace, purpose, meaning, humor and truth are revealed via a deep dive into our hearts and the Divinity that lives there within us. Foxglove from Patagonia shows us exactly how to dive in.