We have so many new Flower Essences to introduce this fall. I begin with the new ones made here at the farm this summer. I will do subsequent posts of all the ones Ben brought back from Ireland and then Emily’s collection from Sicily and Santorini. Emily and I are still finalizing her descriptions of her Italian and Greek Flower Essences so that post may be in a week or so. Ben’s fabulous Irish Essences are already flying out the door and we have their definitions organized. It’s just a question of getting the photos ready, so I should be able to post these new Irish ones sooner.

In any case, here are the new Green Hope Farm Flower Essences from the one and only summer of 2010.

BUNNY TAILS Lagarus ovatus From very ordinary looking tufts of grass spring these soft wands resembling bunny tails. As an Essence Bunny Tails helps us find within ordinary life magic, soft moments of happiness, comfort and joy, moments that elevate the whole experience of our lives into something refreshingly delightful. This one is especially good when we feel weighed down by the sameness of daily routines. I AM the magic of the ordinary.


COMTE DE CHAMBORD ROSE Rosa “Comte de Chambord” This is a large full soft pink Rose with a gorgeous bud and a very robust personality. Planted at the farm amidst a group of Rosa Gallica Roses and Rosa Mundi Roses, the Comte held its own with these vibrant ladies, demonstrating its energetic strength of self-determination. “ I have an ease and carriage not easily affected by others. 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. I would be good for situations in which who you are and what you represent threatens other people or situations in which you are placed in an environment that’s not in surface harmony with your values. I help you to be a full expression of your true self without garnering negative attention from others. For those who find themselves in worlds that don’t understand them, I am a bridge to freedom, a freedom to be self actualized without censure.


COSMOS, ROSE BON BON Cosmos bipinnatus “Double Click Rose Bonbon” Cosmos helps us speak from our hearts, and this particular Cosmos helps us refine and fine tune our self expression. Good for detail work, bringing a treasured dream into full articulation or illuminating your talents to a state of gem like clarity. This Flower is a real showstopper, and its Essence will help you be one too.

FLOWERING TOBACCO “HOT CHOCOLATE” Nicotiana langsdorfii Chakra cleanse for the first, second and third chakras. Helps move sludge leftover in the chakras from the necessary trial and error in relationship work. This is a particularly good one for those of us who feel we must hold onto our garbage even after we have learned what we were meant to learn from relationship experiences. It helps us let it all go and stop thinking we deserve the sludge because we made human errors.

PS I chose two photographs for this Flower because somehow I didn’t think the first one quite expressed the way this Flower reaches into our energy fields to help us clean things up whereas the second photo didn’t quite reveal the beauty of this Flower. Interestingly enough, I was just reading that this whole group of new Nicotiana langsdorfiis were found on the edge of the rain forest in Brazil, spilling out into a field. Once more, the rain forest brings us unmeasured gifts.

PINK FLOWERING ALMOND Amygdalus This Essence brought me enormous solace when a friend from Spain sent me a bottle many years ago. At that time, it helped me navigate the break up of my relationship with my family of origin and the scary circumstances surrounding that situation. Though Pink Flowering Almond is not considered hardy in New Hampshire, I decided to plant a tree , hoping it would grow and blossom here so that one day I could make a Flower Essence from its blossoms to share with all of you. Stranger things had happened at the farm than something not hardy to this region thriving in our midst, and the leap of faith paid off when this spring, our beautiful young Pink Flowering Almond bloomed for the first time. In a lovely bit of synchronicity, on the very same day that the first blossoms opened, my Spanish friend sent me a second bottle of Pink Flowering Almond Essence. The auspicious events encircling this Flower continued when later that week Emily returned from her sojourn in Sicily with several hand painted plates of beautiful Pink Almond Flowers! She had picked out the plates as gift for me with no idea they depicted Pink Flowering Almond blossoms.
Because of all these synchronicities, I was very excited to make our first Pink Flowering Almond Flower Essence, and the Angels were quick to encourage me to dive into working with this new Essence. They asked me to take the Flower Essence for a month, noting that at first it might feel uncomfortable to work with this Essence and that I might notice its effect most in my dreams. I did find myself oddly reluctant to keep taking the Essence but kept going and I did have many dreams involving my mother and grandmother. As I shared the Essence with you, many of you reported the same feeling that this was a challenging Essence to work with yet also a deeply healing one. Others, I am happy to say, report a surprising amount of joy working with the remedy. I began to feel these different experiences had a deep correlation to people’s relationship with their earth mothers.
What the Angels explained to me was that Pink Flowering Almond helps us release the cellular memory of our earth mothers in order to uncover our cellular experience of our eternal divine mother. In a way, one could say that it helps erase the transitory and illusionary experience of mother to reveal the absolute of divine love. While this will probably appeal especially to those who had complex or painful experiences with their earth mothers, this profound Essence offers its support to help all of us cut free from illusions of separation and to know ourselves more clearly as one with the divine- a divinity that loves us as itself. The Angels recommend people work with the Essence daily for at least a month in order to get the most from its vibration. They explain this helps the cellular release be as thorough as possible.
I asked the Angels how this Essence would work with someone who had a good relationship with his or her earth mother. They noted, “This Essence is for everyone no matter the kind of mother they had. It helps you to frame the goodness of an earth mothers in the context of the eternal and both releases all that is not permanent as well as strengthening what is, the love for your earth mothers and their love for you.” I AM one with the Divine Mother.


ROYAL PURPLE SMOKE BUSH Cotinus coggygria An ally of great strength helps us be seen when this serves us and remain unseen when that serves us.

RUDBECKIA, CAPPUCCINO & CHERRY BRANDY I noted in my first attempt to describe this Flower Essence that it helps us to shift gears more quickly and adapt better to necessary change. Since I was in the middle of many technology snafus when this Essence was first made, I noted that it helped me set aside my resistance to technology, eased me through some necessary technology upgrades and generally softened the whole process for me. This first plunge into defining the Essence proved a rather shallow overview of this Essences strength as we heard from those of you testing it that you felt it helped with transitions of a more profound nature. One of you explained that after decades of roadblocks in your efforts to move beyond an intellectual understanding of significant childhood trauma, this Rudbeckia Essence supported you to go to the heart of the wound, showed you the place where you went unconscious in dealing with the wound and helped you go into that place and breathe into it, thus bringing the wound into greater consciousness. So not only does this one softens our resistance to necessary shifts, ease our reactions to snafus, support with general translation issues and help us feel loved as we adapt and upgrade our inner software, but it helps us cross formerly out of reach healing thresholds.
When I went back to the Flower for a necessary upgrade to my first definition, this Rudbeckia Essence explained, “As two of the new hybrids coming forward in our family of plants, we hold different energies and help you do that as well. Some of our gifts will address more surface tensions like your aforementioned issues with advancing technology, but our real gifts in the times that lie ahead are in the way we hold energy about unlocking the keys to a number of change paradigms. If you feel the pressure to change but don’t feel the tools are quite in reach to shift gears, look to this Essence to help you make the transition.
I AM the spark that lights the fire of change.


SWEET PEPPER BUSH Clethra alnifolia Native of North America, this Essence helps us to get to the point. The photo shows Sweet Pepper Bush with Echinaceas.


WESTERLAND ROSE Rosa ‘Westerland’ The times are fiery with much new spiritual energy pouring into the planet. This energy brings wonderful gifts but also brings challenges. As we assimilate the gifts of the new higher energies, we can find ourselves overheated and raw, especially in our first, second and third chakras. These chakras take a hit during these fiery times because these higher energies work on issues of self-identity and personal power, encouraging us to change our mindset and our vibration around these issues. This, in turn, affects the chakras where these issues are seated in our bodies. Some symptoms mentioned by healers in particular during the summer of 2010 were feet and leg issues, fiery nerves, and general issues of overheating. This gorgeous orange Rose shows us a way to restore and rebalance these chakras during this sometimes fiery and tumultuous change process. It helps us find an elemental and strong experience of balance and physical health and vitality amidst these changes in our vibration. The Angels told us this would be an important Rose for humanity in the period after the summer of 2010. They also said this about the new Essence from Ireland: Giant’s Causeway.
I AM the embodiment of creative change.


WHITE SWEET CLOVER Melilous alba Much loved by bees, this six foot tall clover has delicate wands of white Flowers. White Sweet Clover explains, “I help you express yourself with love, fearlessness and a natural sweetness. I am especially good when you need to take your wisdom into alien even hostile territory and need courage to stand tall in your essential nature. I help you feel impermeable to other’s judgment and hostility. I am particularly good for sweet people who must face cynical audiences. I show you the strength of your position and help you speak without apology. I AM sweetness without apology.

WILD LETTUCE Lactuca candensis Resembling a canopy of twinkling yellow stars in the firmament, this amazing Flower orb lifts us from pedestrian concerns into an imaginative, expansive realm. As a Flower Essence it is good for dream work, creating in expansive ways, seeing the big picture, living outside the box, taking flight. It also offers a very consoling energy as well as an expansive one, like falling asleep under the stars, part breathless expansive wonder, part feeling this is my place, my home, my realm. I AM at home in the cosmos.


WINTER ACONITE Eranthis hyemalis Sometimes when we see an unconstructive behavior pattern in ourselves, we can find ourselves bogged down in remorse and a “how could I have behaved this way?” sort of regret when really the best thing for all concerned is to let go of the past, move on without self flagellation, and do our best to do better. This Flower, from the Buttercup family, blooms in the snow; its bold cheering vibration encourages us not to stay frozen in our regrets or an old dead season, but to cherish what we have learned by fully embracing a new way of being.

We pack in the projects this time of year: harvesting, planting bulbs, moving the greenhouse plants back into the greenhouse from their summer quarters outside and generally getting things ready for winter. We haven’t had a killing frost yet, but the weather forecast predicts we’ll get one tonight. It’s almost a full moon, and full moons almost always bring cold nights.

With frost danger so ever present, our main focus this past week has been to harvest our Red Shiso. It’s a really good crop this year with leaves a lovely deep maroon. This means our Red Shiso stabilizer should be nice and deep pink this coming year.

Here’s the last of the Red Shiso, covered last night with a generous amount of season extender cloth. Almost all the crop is already cut and hung in our Red Shiso building. This building got a face lift this summer when Jim, Will and Ben jacked up the building to redo the foundation, built a new set of steps into the building, and made repairs to keep the building watertight and animal proof. As Sophie, Lizzy and I hauled bundle after bundle down to the building, the joke was that someone is going to want to move into the Red Shiso palace, maybe soon. It looks beautiful!

In between Shiso harvesting, this weekend saw me beginning to prepare garden beds for planting fall bulbs. This involved moving a lot of compost to improve the soil before the bulbs get planted. Jim made me a great screen for compost sifting. Examining what’s left after I sift the compost has elevated this job to something rather fun.

As I shovel and sift I ponder long and hard about how on earth a bucketful of this:

gives me such beautiful soil but also so many strange lingering artifacts.

So many compelling questions like…
Have I really broken THAT many clay pots?
Do we really eat THAT many peaches?
Why do vegetable stickers never decompose?
And what is with the PINK MAGIC MARKER in the compost heap? Who composted that?

Ah yes…..Simple pleasures for simple people.

And given the number of compost nerds in my household, expecting us to properly sort and compost every last cupcake paper and dandelion root, its probably an excellent thing I am so easily entertained, because all this composting has left me with an awful lot of compost to sift and sort.

The Honeybees are also pleased by the fall Flowers.

It seems a shame to post anything after Ben’s Irish blog, but the seasons wait for no man and after a steamy summer, we have plunged into fall with its own particular beauty.

The sassy Rudbeckias match the season’s palette.

Late season spider webs decorate the Venus Garden.

In the kitchen, I am still trying to use 5600 cherry tomatoes a day.

The stiff winds of this weekend’s cold front blew over some Sunflowers, so I cut them up and filled the house with their sunshine.

Riley thought he was driving Emily back to college for her senior year yesterday. He would not budge from the driver’s seat. We all agreed that it was hard to be parted from our Emily.

In gardens that are looking crispy due to the drought, the life force tent still is wonderfully green from the inside looking up.

The outside of the life tent is pretty darn beautiful as well with its peak covered in brilliant Morning Glories.

I’m new to the gathering of flowers for Green Hope Farm essences, despite having lived in a home devoted to the task for 22 out of my 28 years. Thus I was nervous to perform properly for my Mother, Molly, when she sent me towards Ireland with a packet of blurry photos, flower names, and lots of stars and exclamation points around the words “Very Important.”

My trip to Ireland was based mainly on a mysterious prompting I saw in the ocean last summer, and even as I boarded the plane to fly to Dublin, I was unsure as to the purpose of my trip to the Emerald Isle. Upon arriving in my first destination, Ballybunion on the western coast south of the river Shannon, I had an inkling that I would enjoy this flower poaching business. I spent an hour searching the beaches, nestled between Ballybunion’s world famous golf course and the Atlantic, for Kidney Vetch, the first flower on my list. With my tee time quickly approaching and no sign of Kidney Vetch anywhere (***Kidney Vetch*** – VERY IMPORTANT!!!!) I paused to think about turning around and formalizing an excuse for returning to New Hampshire without one of Green Hope Farm’s must haves. It was at that moment that I looked to my feet and spotted a single blossom of what I was sure was Kidney Vetch, suggesting that it is not always the Green Hope Farm worker who finds the flower, but often the contrary. With that, I sensed a purpose for my Kerouac-esque journey.

Kidney Vetch

My trip in Ireland took me along the western and eventually northern coast of the island, through pockets of relatives in and near Clifden, into ancestral O’Toole territory on the ancient and tidal Omey Island, by (London)Derry and to the Giant’s Causeway near Portrush. I collected flowers along the way, including two from a town called Spiddal. While I wandered the rocky beach in Spiddal, I had an uneasy feeling, and was not sure any flowers I collected would offer beneficial vibrations. Upon returning to New Hampshire, I had a fitful night of weird dreams in which I was driving towards Spiddal, where I was to be burned at the stake for unclear reasons. These dreams clarified my uneasiness in Spiddal, and offered an explanation for the flowers that I had picked during my strange night in that little coastal town. Somehow I had tapped into a past life experience, and the flowers on that rocky beach understood how to navigate such a jarring and inexplicable sentiment.

Sea Holly on Omey

During my trip I felt a pervasive sense of depression across the land, highlighted by news reports of roadway deaths and economic gloom. Topics of conversation often included those already passed or those soon to, and for an upbeat American guy, the psychological climate was unsettling. Some called it “Famine Mentality,” and to this point, Ireland has lost millions of citizens in the last 150 years to death and emigration. Many of those who left were searching for a life with opportunities; opportunities that were unavailable in the Ireland of the 1870’s and 1910’s. A number of the flowers I brought back are helpful in protection against an overwhelming sense of sadness and loss. The island feels haunted by loss, both in the ether and on the sides of buildings: the Bogside murals below the Derry city walls depict victims of the Troubles for all to see.

Reward on a boondoggle

Near the Giant’s Causeway

Above all else, the Irish flowers I collected are about perseverance, whether dealing with loss, difficult connections to the past, or simply gray days with too much rain. The names are both mysterious (Bofin Unusual) and epic (Giant’s Causeway.) The places they represent run the gamut from cliff-side in North Ireland, to beach-side on Omey, to middle of nowhere gathered during one of my excursionary boondoggles, of which there were many. What has been so fascinating for me growing up around my Mother’s business is that often essences take on unexpected personalities because of customer reactions to them. I will look forward to learning about these essences through your collective eyes.