Our Fall 2022 News

Welcome Dear Friends to the annual meandering news from Green Hope Farm! 

If meandering is not your cup of tea, in brief, the Venus Garden Flower Essence for 2022 is GAIA KNOWS BEST. It is a GIFT and a bottle of this Essence will be included with all orders.  Mother Earth asks you to put drops of this Flower Essence in places on her where you feel called to put drops. This will help heal and uplift her and support us all to co-create a New Earth.. 

The second thing is that this growing season, as you shared with us your concerns and hopes, a group of Roses stepped forward to explain their timely support for these concerns. The qualities they embody and share via their Flower Essences are described by them as already within you.  These Rose Flower Essences’ gift is to help you access these strengths as your very own.  

Building from what you requested, here is a list of the Rose Flower Essences and the strengths they help you access from within yourself.

ALCHEMY- Alchymist Rose

AUTHENTICITY- Wild Rose

CALM- Margaret Merrill Rose

COURAGE & FORTITUDE- Alex Mackenzie Rose

DIRECTION- Ispahan Rose

ENTHUSIASM- Julia Child Rose

FAITH- Coral Pink Rose

FREEDOM- Golden Wings Rose

FOCUS- Rosa Glauca

FOUNDATION- Rosa Gallica

GRACE- Grace Rose

JOY- FJ Grootendorst Rose

KINDNESS- Sarah Van Fleet Rose

PATIENCE- Henri Martin Rose

PERSPECTIVE- Rosa Mundi

RESILIENCE- Red Rugosa Rose

SOFTNESS- Goldfinch Rose

TRUST- The Mary Rose

UNITY CONSCIOUSNESS- Agnes Rose

If you wish to get any of these Rose Flower Essences, please order the Flower Essence by name of the Rose not the topic. The Going Inward Rose Collection is also offered as a set for $120.

ONE REASON FLOWER ESSENCES HELP

Flowers become themselves. A Zinnia seed does not grow into a Daisy plant.  Flowers have no interest in becoming something they are not. They remain ever true to themselves.

Flower Essences help us be like the Flowers and become who we are.  They don’t thwart our process of self actualization or take us in rogue directions. They waste no time encouraging us to be what we aren’t.  Instead, they help us let go of anything that blocks our unfolding into our true and authentic self. Often these blocks are limiting ideas we hold about ourselves. 

The process of becoming our authentic self is a letting go as we are asked to let go of definitions that we thought helped us know who we are.  Flower Essences reveal we are always much bigger than these self definitions. By releasing self definitions, we experience our vast and timeless self beyond duality and limitation. Flower Essences help us do this work.

A SUMMER OF “I DON’T KNOW”

This year’s growing season of virtually no rain and baking heat was a big shift from last year when in July alone we received nine inches of rain. In fact, our extremely hot and dry summer was different than any in the last four decades here.  We also heard from many of you about extreme and unfamiliar weather.  Farming always requires flexibility amidst unexpected variables and an acceptance of very different outcomes.  This summer was a particularly unpredictable adventure.

The season started with a bang or rather a crash.  Our enormous thirty year old arbor and centerpiece of the Arbor Garden collapsed in a big wind. To rebuild or not rebuild? That was the question.  Every day I spent time in the garden space, open to what the garden wanted. Like all land, these gardens have their own destiny.  I get to be a part of that destiny but not in charge of it. The cooling shade and feeling of sanctuary provided by the old Arbor was gone, yet with the arbor removed (a big messy project!) the surrounding gardens, long in deep shade, were now open, sunny spaces. Elsewhere in the gardens our perennial beds have filled in with trees and shrubs making these gardens much shadier.  This gave the suddenly sunny Arbor Garden a certain appeal.  A small arbor that survived the blowdown looked surprisingly happy and easily managed the now pruned grapevines.  Its presence meant we could still call the Essence we make from this garden, The Arbor Garden, regardless of whether we built a new arbor.  One day I knew the garden wanted to be left open. The loss of the Arbor had proven expansive and liberating to the space. I was glad I waited patiently in an “I don’t know.” state of mind. So was Jim who was happy not to add the construction of a new arbor to his long list of farm projects.

No rain fell for several months. What guidance did we receive to help the gardens through this time?  The guidance was a single word I am deeply familiar with: MULCH.  Building, nourishing and protecting soil with mulch has long been a focus, but this summer my Angelic and Elemental partners upped the game and had me put 20 cubic yards of bark mulch on the Flower gardens and umpteen bales of mulch hay on the three main vegetable gardens. If you want a visual on 20 cubic yards of bark mulch, it filled two industrial size dump trucks.  My back can also give you more information. Every garden was top dressed with the nutritionally dense compost we make, organic soil amendments and then hay or bark mulch.  Green Hope Farm is an organic farm so no pesticides, glyphosates or chemical fertilizers are used. 

As one blistering hot day followed another, I questioned my feeling of calm.  Was it nuts that I trusted the Angels and Elementals’ regenerative agricultural processes would help the gardens manage this extreme weather? I decided to remain confident.  After all, the intelligence in Nature has been managing an ever changing planet for a very long time. 

We still did some rain dances, talked about rain constantly, searched the two week forecast for predictions of rain and waxed poetic about last year’s rainy summer.  I watered only when guided to water which was very infrequently.  In conversations with my Angelic and Elemental partners, I stayed alert to any new way they wanted me to use my hands and feet for the team. Together we explored how we can co-create and heal the Earth in shifting circumstances.

In the end, it was one chubby woodchuck named Reginal Montgomery “Chuckie” Hogbottom who caused more distress in the gardens than the drought.  You can check out Reginald’s report in a September 21, 2022 blog if you want to read about his successful plundering of the main vegetable garden.  Everywhere else, mulch made a huge difference.  Even the potatoes that love a wet summer managed to produce a good crop under their foot of mulch hay.  Much to our surprise, one crop actually liked the dry heat.  This crop was our beloved Red Shiso. Last week the staff goddesses and I cut and hung the crop to dry, and it was a magnificent harvest of deep purple and abundantly ruffled plants.  It was our best harvest in many years.  

Red Shiso early in the season. The Calendulas didn’t mind the heat either.

Doing what we could to manage the extreme weather then waiting in the unknown to see if our efforts would be enough had finished with experiences of hope.  Our gardens had not become dustbowls because they all had “skin.”  Plants had survived, not because of pesticides and petroleum based products, but because the soil was bio-diverse and alive with worms, bacteria, bugs, fungus and other forms of life that made the soil healthy enough to support life under arduous conditions.  Efforts we made together were met with a response that revealed the powerful healing and adaptive capacity of Mother Earth. May we all move forward listening to her wisdom and letting go of our mistaken ideas that humans alone know best. 

GAIA KNOWS BEST

The Venus Garden is the center of our vibrational work at the farm. Since 1993, this beloved garden with  its ever shifting designs ( and names! ) has resulted in deeply healing Flower Essences of a very high vibration. The Venus Garden is the keystone of the whole farm and our work in the world.  I consider it our finest co-creation at Green Hope Farm (though our resident groundhog, Reginald Montgomery Hogbottom, would feel differently.  He prefers a garden with more edibles). Each year us humans and our Angelic and Elemental partners build from all we have learned together in past gardens to create a relevant and healing garden and accompanying Flower Essence. 

Our co-creative process has its own rhythm.  The Autumn Equinox marks our harvest of the previous season’s learning lessons. At this point, the Angels hear from us humans as part of their process of figuring out where to take the gardens in the following year.  During the darkest time of year, the Angels withdraw to plan how to take the farm forward in its evolution.   Their plans for all the gardens including the Venus Garden are ready for us humans after the Winter Solstice.  I look forward to the Winter Solstice for many reasons. One of them is because it is always very exciting to find out what the plan is for the coming year’s Venus Garden. It gives me a glimpse of the season’s focus and just plain inspires me for another growing season.

In January of this year, I settled down in all seriousness to receive the precise design for this year’s Venus Garden.  As with all the gardens here, I expected to receive the design from the Angelic architects of form per usual.  However this year came with a lovely twist.   From the first meeting, Mother Earth was more involved in the actual planning of the garden than I had known her to be before.  It appeared that this was HER garden in a more specific way than ever before.  In many meetings, I sat with the Angels overlighting Green Hope Farm and Mother Earth to transcribe their input about the design.  I started off not knowing anything and the knowing came from these precious partners.

Nature has more perspective than I do about what is needed in the gardens to create healing spaces and healing Flower Essences and to serve Gaia in the best way we can.  This means I have always been completely happy to give over the designs to Nature. In the beginning, I saw this as reflecting my appropriate “less than” status in the partnership.  I thought my partners were just being nice when they said I mattered and was an equal partner. With great patience, they spent years reminding me that my notions of inferiority were as false as human’s more common notions of superiority. In point of fact, we are all one.  To bring home their point, they had us create Flower Essences that would help me grow into experiencing our onenness. Endless synchronicities in and out of the gardens and wonderful dreams also showed me our indivisibility.

As I moved towards a greater experience of us as one, I saw my divisive ideas were simply hogwash.  First of all, oneness can’t actually have more or less valuable parts because in oneness we are all one.  Additionally, we may all have different roles, but that doesn’t make any one of us more or less valuable. 

I have come to realize that humans working in partnership with the Angels and Elementals of Nature is going to become the natural order of things.  Together we can co-create more expansive and powerful healing spaces in Nature than when our human illusions of inferiority, superiority and separation take us out of the co-creative process. The future will be co-creation, and it will be fantastic. 

To get back to this year’s Venus Garden, while some years the number of Flowers in the Venus Garden is limited, this year’s design included a very large number of different Flowers. With my partners looking over my shoulder, I spent hours pouring through seed catalogs to find the specific varieties required.  What a moment of delight when I knew I had found all the seeds.

In March, the office and greenhouse spilled over with germinating seed flats. They were everywhere!  By April our new hoop house was packed with baby plants for this garden. What a treat to have a hoop house once again thanks to former staffer Rex Miller and Jim.  In early June, after the danger of frost had passed, Green Hope Farm friend Kathy Skolem and I planted the garden.  The complex design included twelve distinct wedges, each containing sections of specific Flowers, all circling an inner sanctum of high climbing Flowers. It was one of the more complex designs we’ve planted.  Kathy and I were very happy (and tired) when we had everything in the ground per the precise directions of our Angelic and Elemental partners.

Flowers planted included Dorothy Eckford White Sweet Pea, Milky Way Morning Glory, Holy Basil, Genovese Basil, Sweet Alyssum, Rocket White Snapdragons, Mehera Marigolds, Marine Blue Heliotrope, Verbena Bonariensis, White Gomphrena, Moldavian Dragonhead, White and Purple “Leda” Ageratum, Italian Purple Eggplant, White Peruvian Four O’Clocks, many varieties of White Zinnias including Polar Bear, White Wedding, Benary Giant White and Oklahoma White, Woodland “Only the Lonely” Nicotiana, Moonshadow Hyacinth Bean, Starlight Dancer Nicotiana, Jasmine Nicotiana, Belle Blanche Datura, White Queen Cleome, Horehound, Sage, White Cosmos BonBon and Purity Cosmos, Blue, White and Violet Bachelor Buttons including Select Ultraviolet, Krausa and Italian Large Leaf Parsley and Milkmaid Nasturtiums.

After we finished planting the garden, we stood back to admire our work and water in the plants.  At this point, much to our surprise, we were asked not to go in the garden for the rest of the growing season. Gaia said complete sanctuary was what she needed to create this garden and a new healing Essence. From then on, there was no weeding or deadheading. Flowers came and went with many Flowers arriving of their own accord.  These volunteers included Mustard, Belerephon of the Open Door, Dandelion, Blue Vervain, Mallow, Ajuga, Mexican Poppy, Bells of Ireland, Cosmos Picotee, Cosmos Sonata, Nicotiana Perfume in shades of pink, Coral Pink and Red Wine Zinnias. These plants shifted a white and purple garden on paper to one that included a rainbow of colors.  When I walk by any garden, I routinely deadhead any spent blossoms and pull any weed I see. It took great concentration for me not to step into the garden. We were not even to lean over into its airspace! I only goofed once to deadhead a Cosmos.  Sorry about that Gaia!   

The garden gave Gaia a chance to express herself in a co-creative framework of us planting exactly what she wanted exactly as she wanted it. This is different than what can happen for her in a wilderness free of humans or in a setting where humans are not listening. Humans, in this instance, gave Gaia the opportunity to express herself in an innovative and new way.  Like the Rose window of a cathedral, Gaia’s light flowed out of her through a garden mandala designed by her and worked by humans per her specifications. It was a vibrational model for what is possible when humanity and Nature work in conscious partnership. One day she said, “I am your mother, but I need the relationship to evolve. I wants to co-create the next chapter with humanity.”  

This co-creative project was full of surprises.  Over the growing season, I saw my ideas about what Mother Earth would want in her garden were misinformed.  She welcomed various grasses and other weeds I considered messy and invasive.  These newcomers in no way bothered the Flowers we had planted but seamlessly joined the space. I watered the garden once in a while, mostly because I wanted to connect with the space. The garden kept its serenity regardless of scorching heat.  Once Gaia asked Kathy, who is a wonderful singer, to sing the garden a song. It was a beautiful heartfelt moment as Kathy sang, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”  The rest of the time, it was my enthusiastic but not very talented singing that filled the air. It was very hard not to burst into song when near this garden. This was something Gaia seemed to love even when it was me forgetting the words to a song or singing off key. The back and forth reflected the flow of love from this garden which filled our hearts which would then spill back over into grateful song.  That’s another thing, Gaia is not a perfectionist.  She just wants us to try. My song was enough.  

Yes, even as weeds proliferated, and nothing was tidied, the garden’s energy blew our socks off.  Gaia certainly DID know best!  Even now, after the Fall Equinox and first heavy frost, the garden broadcasts an intense feeling of sweetness and love, palpable and holy.  Sometimes tears as well as song come as I walk by this garden. Along with sweetness is a calm certainty radiating from the garden that all will be well. 

Mother Earth named her Essence, Gaia Knows Best.  This garden was a refresher course reminding me I do not know what Mother Earth needs to heal, but Mother Earth does.  This garden helped me listen more deeply and hopefully leave behind some “know it all” ideas I didn’t know I had.

And now, Gaia graces us with a chance to help her.  She asked us to give the Flower Essence from this garden as a gift to all of you when you order so that you can share it with her wherever you live.  She created a Flower Essence that will bring her solace, comfort and healing each time you share drops in other places on her surface.  It will also ground a co-creative vibration where it is dropped and open wide the door for more co-creative endeavors.  We send this Essence, Gaia Knows Best, to you with love and gratitude for your support of our dear Mother wherever you live or roam. 

GAIA speaks: “Take comfort in the truth that I DO know best. Let go of your ideas and let me take myself and all you passengers forward.  I know it has been a bumpy ride. It will remain so for a time to come, but I know what I am doing. All will be well. 

It is a precious gift to me for you to share this Essence with places where you live and visit.  I ask you to follow your promptings about where to drop these drops.  These promptings are messages from me.  In moving my Essence around my whole surface, a network of light is amplified.  We heal together, and in the act of sharing this Essence, you support me more than you can know and solidify our unity of consciousness and purpose.”

A TIMELY RUMI POEM

As I began to write about Gaia Knows Best, I found these lines from a poem,

Let the beauty we love be what we do.  There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. 

These lines felt so expressive of Gaia’s Essence as each time a drop is dropped, it will be a different way to kiss the ground and express our love.  When I went to find out who the poet was, I discovered it was 13th century Persian poet Rumi. I also found the whole poem.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty / and frightened.  Don’t open the door to the study / and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. / Let the beauty we love be what we do. / There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Somehow Rumi so accurately expresses our times with its collective distractions and stuck knowledge in counterpoint to the opportunity to be a sacred, beautiful and loving expression of the present.  Since Rumi was God realized, the poem feels particularly encouraging and optimistic.  The Roses also share this abiding optimism that even though things appear to be a total mess with not much clarity about where we are going, we can and will find our way using strengths already within us.

Grace Rose who initiated the Rose project

THE ROSES STEP FORWARD

The Angels frequently remind me that when people are confused, it can be easier for them to move forward in their spiritual evolution. I suspect this means we made a lot of steps forward this year!!! Yet the thing is, confusion still leaves us feeling confused.  At one point, as the staff goddesses discussed how we weren’t at all sure what you needed, because for goodness sake, we weren’t sure what we needed, we decided to ask for your input. What issues pressed in upon you? What were you looking for? How best could we help you?  From many wonderful conversations, we built a list of strengths and virtues that you wanted support to embody.  

Much to our surprise and delight, as areas of concern came into focus, the Roses stepped forward to say this was their time to help you shine.  What they said next echoes in my heart still.  The Roses explained that each of us exists beyond the limits of our self definitions in complete timeless possession of the virtues and strengths required right now.  Accessing these gifts is not a becoming something we are not, but an inward discovery and remembering of who we have always been and always will be.

Ispahan Rose

WHY ROSES?

Most Flowers come into incarnation on Earth to evolve and raise their vibrations in the milieu of duality. They do this to be part of the great experiment of Earth and to give us role models to raise our own vibrations.

Roses are different.  Roses come into incarnation in a vibration beyond duality, aligned only with their unified experience of self as Divinity.  In this way they are both a glimpse of where we are going and footholds for us to rise up into our untarnished soul.

Our mistaken self definitions bind us and keep us in artificial dramas on stage set Earth.  Roses pokes holes in the stage set as well as in our mistaken self definitions.  They dissolve away our attachment to the unreal and set us free to experience who we always have been, who we are now and who we will always be i.e. Divinity in a sea of Divinity. To put it more succinctly, Roses restore us to ourselves. How on Earth do they do this?

As the Roses stepped forward to be the wayshowers of the season, they explained that they help us find our divine and imperishable inner strengths much as a flashlight finds its target in the dark.  It is not a creating but an illuminating.  For example, when we work with Margaret Merrill Rose to access CALM, we are not pulling in calm from outside ourselves but finding the CALM that was always within us.

On the next pages, specific Roses share the strengths and virtues they want to help us access from within ourselves with their Essences. Each Rose wanted a brief explanation of its healing intentions to clarify the timely strengths it helps you access. Roses, like all Flowers, bring forward their strengths in accordance with our needs.  These Roses heard your call.

Again, if you want any of these Rose Flower Essences, order them by the name of the Rose or order The Going Inward Rose Set to receive the whole group.

Alec Mackenzie Rose

ROSES AND THE FIGURE EIGHT

Before specific Roses are mentioned, there is one more thing.  As we move our energy in the world, consider the figure eight.  I’ve previously written about the figure eight as a symbol of how to bring things into manifestation.  Now the Roses want us to consider how the eight also represents us going inward to our eternal self to refresh and restore ourselves and access parts of our bigger self in specific ways and then naturally flow back into the world expressing our bigger self and the qualities that make us who we are. The Roses want to support us in this inward and outward flow process.  

Alchymist Rose

ALCHEMY- Alchymist Rose 

Crumbling institutions and the “powers that were” would have us forget our own volition and our own powers of alchemy and transformation.  This Rose snaps us out of that daze to remember we are powerful alchemists, able to transform lead into gold.  Alchymist Rose roots us in an expansive self identity in which we know our inner power to radically heal and transform ourselves, and in every way, participate in the co-creation of a new Earth. 

AUTHENTICITY- Wild Rose

With so many outside forces clamoring to push us into pockets of group think, this Rose helps us ignore the hubbub and seek the steadfast grounding of our own true self.  Wild Rose knows there is nothing more important than knowing who we are, so it escorts us inward to an expansive and liberating experience of this.

CALM- Margaret Merrill Rose 

No matter how chaotic the outer circumstances of our lives, when we go inward, we find an eternal wellspring of stillness and calm.  This Rose inspires us to breathe, let go of the surface circumstances and deep dive into this inner wellspring of calm.

COURAGE AND FORTITUDE- Alex MacKenzie Rose

Right now, as we experience so many things falling apart, Alex Mackenzie Rose helps us find our courage and inner fortitude to change what we must change and choose a new course with fearless determination. This Rose shines a light on our inner capacity to do what we are called to do and reminds us we have the inner strength to persevere and even flourish, no matter the external circumstances.

DIRECTION- Ispahan Rose

In times gone by we could live a life anchored in institutional values, requiring few individual choices or shifts. Direction, positive or negative, was provided by the surrounding culture.  These externals have proven impermanent.  Now disconnected from collapsing guideposts and confronted by a lot of half baked new ones, we must choose our own way amidst a cacophony of divergent opinions, few of which suggest a heartfelt way forward.  

So how do we choose our direction?  Ispahan Rose helps us go inward to access our inner compass that knows how to proceed in alignment with a more timeless experience of ourselves.  It anchors us in an inner place where we can calmly and confidently sort things out and find our authentic way forward. 

Whereas I often do not know why a Rose has the strengths it does, Ispahan’s purpose feels rooted to its source.  Ispahan Rose comes from the ancient Persian city of the same name, Ispahan.  Once the midpoint on the Silk Road and considered the center of the world, Ispahan was an extremely progressive city, integrating many cultures yet clear in its sense of self. This remains our charge in this time; to welcome different points of view then choose our way with confidence and acceptance of other viewpoints. Let Ispahan help you! 

Julia Childs Rose

ENTHUSIASM- Julia Child Rose

At her forty fifth reunion from college, Julia Child towered above her classmates.  But it wasn’t her height or her fame which struck me as I watched her go by in an alumnae parade.  It was her infectious joy that made her standout. Like sunshine in our midst, she glowed with an enthusiasm for life.  How appropriate that this deep yellow Rose was named for her.  As a Flower Essence, Julia Child Rose pulls us inward to find our own unquenchable enthusiasm for life.  We too have a wellspring of happiness within us that knows the value of life and loves life regardless of its challenges. Anchored in this wellspring, Julia Child’s inner light lit the world.  We too can anchor in our imperishable self, access our genuine and spontaneous delight in the living of life and let it shine as Julia did.

FAITH- Coral Pink Rose

The collapse of the old is the birth of the new. Amidst the drama of the collapse, it can be hard to feel the reality of the new. This Rose Essence pulls us into our center which can dismantle our conviction that the endings stand alone.  This Rose is a particular balm to those for whom the losses have stacked up. It quietly supports us to keep the faith and trust the flickers of new life and hope we feel within us.

FREEDOM- Golden Wings Rose  

Golden Wings Rose describes itself as a secret weapon that cuts us free of the binding of fear. Could there be any more helpful support as where there is fear there is no love.

Rosa Glauca

FOCUS- Rosa Glauca 

While Rosa Glauca helps us see our external world with clarity and focus, it also helps us look inward to focus on our imperishable inner divinity as well. Rosa Glauca quips, ‘It’s no joke that “what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” 

FOUNDATION- Rosa Gallica

We necessarily seek a new way to live on Earth as institutions and circumstances we once considered permanent crumble and collapse. With fewer external pillars of society to revere or reject, we must build a new foundation from an inner experience of who we are versus an outer one. Ancient Rosa Gallica helps us anchor in this internal experience of true self as foundation, a foundation so much stronger and more imperishable than anything we could ever find in the external world.

This does not mean that Rosa Gallica dismisses the external world and our work in it as insignificant.  Once we are grounded in an authentic foundation of self, Rosa Gallica helps us connect this foundation to Mother Earth’s grid so we relate to her as an inseparable part of our being. This dissolves patriarchal illusions of duality that would see us as separate and at odds with our planet.

GRACE- Grace Rose 

I grew Grace Rose because of my grandchild, Grace. I thought it would be nice for her to have a Rose in the garden bearing her name.  When Grace Rose first bloomed in all her ruffled peachiness, it stopped me in the garden to gently straighten me out about a couple things.  Grace Rose pointed out that I had diminished the significance of her presence to her name.  Grace Rose reminded me she existed in the gardens as the embodiment of grace, that all pervading Divine reality of love freely given.  This conversation brought me up short. I hadn’t acknowledged the reality of the Rose or the reality of the grace she embodied either.

Grace Rose reminded me that grace is the inner reality that makes all things possible. It is a forgiving love which moves us beyond duality to love itself.  It both oils the wheels of change and is the matrix of change.  While grace is inseparable from our being, we sometimes lose track of its presence. This Rose helps us feel the grace of our circumstances and feel the grace of the omnipresent and personal love of Divinity that is with us always.

JOY- FJ Grootendorst Rose

FJ as I call her, journeys us inward to experience the power of the small and simple things to bring joy. She ignites and expands any kernel of happiness in our memories or in our daily lives into a flood of renewing joy.  She helps us feel this anytime, anywhere and regardless of circumstances.

KINDNESS- Sarah Van Fleet Rose  

Battered and bruised by uncivil dialog and stormy change, we all could use some kindness.  Sarah van Fleet Rose anchors us in our inner kindness which brings a balm of healing both to ourselves and to those we encounter.

PATIENCE- Henri Martin Rose

When we face any question or dilemma, Henri Martin Rose helps us patiently hang in an “I don’t know” space until a genuine knowing sweeps through us.

This waiting game may feel uncomfortable to us because we all grew up in patriarchy. This patriarchal mindset encouraged us to believe us humans are separate from and better than the rest of creation and the sole possessors of a de facto knowledge superior to anything else on offer in the cosmos. As children we were expected to learn the approved knowledge of our cultures in order to be part of this superior group of know it alls. Just as the Rumi poem says, we were taught to think we were empty and had to go to the study to fill up on recorded “knowledge.”

Where do answers come if we wait in not knowing? In this summer of unknowns, I’ve thought a lot about how often answers come to us after we’ve put the problem down and gone off to do something else.  When we put the problem down, we accept not knowing, and then there is nothing in the way of the answers coming from oneness. While this may feel like no more than a giving up, when we let go of our problems, we’ve trusted in the oneness and out of this comes our answers.  This oneness is the infinite self within us that is indivisible with everything and therefore tapped into a knowing far beyond the limitations of patriarchal knowledge. 

Each night before I go to sleep I ask for help to let go of everything but my connection to my inner Divinity. So much of what I need to let go of are things I think I know because the culture told me it is so. Experiencing self as inseparable from everything requires letting go of all these bindings.   

When we trust life and our inseparable part in it, we don’t need to “push the river.” We can wait peacefully in not knowing.  Unknowing and knowing are part of the whole like the inbreath and the outbreath.  We accept the answer will be found within us just like the question was. We rest in the truth that we have always been an indivisible part of an all knowing universe.  We don’t have to be a separate someone or hold onto a separate frame of reference to have the answer we need. We already are the question and the answer. It’s all flow. The practice of just being in a place of not knowing reveals everything we need to know has always been within us.  

Henri Martin Rose has always described itself as Bear Medicine. Bears live a cycle of being in the external world of unknowns, then going inward to hibernate in dreamtime to access the knowing of their bigger selves. Like the figure eight which the Roses talked about, Bears flow into spirit then return to express spirit in their waking physical lives. It is a seamless unity.  Henri Martin Rose helps us with this. Knowing and not knowing move beyond duality into one state of being. It’s all Beauty, Love, Oneness.

PERSPECTIVE- Rosa Mundi  

This is a difficult and chaotic time, but it is not a purposeless one. Rosa Mundi restores us to this perspective in so many ways.  First she helps us feel there is purpose beneath the dramas both in our individual lives and also collectively. We may not understand what the purpose is, but we can still feel there is a purpose.  She also anchors us in knowing we are spiritual beings having a physical experience and not visa versa.  Perspective is easier to maintain when we know we are in the world but not of the world. Perspective also frees us to do what we can with all our hearts yet let go of the idea that results define us.  Rosa Mundi knows only Divinity defines us.  Additionally when the plot is over the top, she helps us ground in the inner knowing that earth plane drama is not reality. We exist safely in Divinity and always will.

RESILIENCE- Red Rugosa Rose

In this time when nothing much goes according to plan, we frequently need to find our inner resilience so we can go with the flow. Red Rugosa Rose helps us reclaim our inner skills to go with the flow and ride out the storms.

Resilience is essential right now.  Being resilient is so much more useful than getting what we want.  Deep diving into our pool of inner resilience frees us in a way that getting what we want never does.

SOFTNESS- Goldfinch Rose  

The invasive technology that permeates our external world isn’t going to disappear of its own accord, and sadly it often leaves us prickly and defensive. Goldfinch Rose helps us find the inward place of imperishable tranquility and softness, no matter the invasive electrical and societal pressures of the modern world.  We need and deserve this soft place. Thank goodness it is there waiting for us. 

TRUST- The Mary Rose   

Roses encourage us on an inward versus outward journey.  Take the Mary Rose for example. First of all, she helps us house clean our hearts. This makes room for us and for the pure vibrations of Divinity to live as one in our hearts. 

The Mary Rose also loosens our attachment to an analysis of life based on external events.  She ushers us gently inward to inhabit our souls where we naturally let go of any framework of judgment based on external events. In the sanctuary of our hearts, we know our soul remains untarnished no matter what happens to us. In the sanctuary of the heart we know all is well, we are safe and we can trust life. 

UNITY CONSCIOUSNESS- Agnes Rose 

If we were to fully grasp the vibrational truth of just one thing, this might be the most important one to grasp:  We are not separate from Divinity. You and I are not we but one.

In closing I would like to thank you dear Green Hope Farm friends.  How much sweeter our world is because of all of you.  You shower us in love, you share your lives with us in such a heartfelt way, you are kind when we need kindness and you help us evolve.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

And to you dear Green Hope Farm Staff Goddesses- Vicki Ramos-Glew, Jen Lenz, Sam Heaton, Elizabeth Sheehan, Emily McNamara, Anna Wolke, Sydney Johnstone and Indigo Copp.  I thank you dear ones for your love, zest, humor, curiosity, creativity, dedication, patience, thoughtfulness, initiative, focus and just plain hard work.  You showed such grace under pressure amidst our technology challenges this year and in every way rode with the adventure which is Green Hope Farm with wonderful panache.  

Love also to all the animals we get to know kindness of your stories and photos and a special shout out to our canine office mates, Bailey the sweetest pup ever and dear Sheba who just can’t start a morning without a bit of a bark. XOX, Molly