As we bring Gratitude, the new Venus Garden combination mix, forward to share, I find myself tongue tied about how to inspire folks to work with this marvelous new remedy.

In draft after draft of blogs, I sound like Pollyanna. In fact, just call me Mollyanna, because I am going to sound like Pollyanna here too.

But regardless of my tone problems, this mix deserves to have its praises sung. So, I am going to wade in. After all, Pollyanna would! And please, feel free to imagine sending me to my room like Aunt Polly did, if this sounds too much like the glad game.

In some ways, Gratitude is like other Venus Garden remedies. Several of these remedies address concerns that seem straightforward, but not terribly pressing. Take for example, Don’t Worry-Bee Happy. This remedy may seem trite since conventional wisdom suggests we can settle into happiness and leave our worries behind whenever we want, but for now, there are more important things than happiness to concern ourselves with.

The pursuit of gratitude can seem a lot like the pursuit of happiness. We all know what it is, but we think perhaps we can just save it for a rainy day- or for that gratitude holiday, Thanksgiving.

But then, Thanksgiving gives us lots of chances to spin out about stuffing recipes or brining our bird so even on gratitude day itself, the topic can get lost in the organic cranberry, citrus, and pomegranate compote with toasted pecans and star anise.

Yup. Gratitude has a marketing problem. And I doubt I will fix that, because if I looked in the mirror right now I would probably look like Hayley Mills meets Grandma Moses.

But before I give up, I will share one tidbit about gratitude that encouraged me when I realized it this afternoon.

I was out in the perennial beds cutting back plants for winter and I remembered this story of Meher Baba trying to give a blanket to the gardener at a place where he was staying. The gardener lived without any possessions. No bedding, no lamp, no furniture, nothing. But when offered the blanket, the gardener kept saying ” I have no need for this. God has given me everything I need.”

At first, I thought this was a story that left everyone with too enormous a gratitude gap, but today it occurred to me that one of the marvelous things about gratitude is that gratitude is gratitude.

Maybe all of us are a lot more materially indulged than this gardener and perhaps a lot less grateful….. BUT if we dive into gratitude we are in gratitude like a fish is in water. There are no gradations. When we plunge into gratitude there is no need to aspire to anything greater, because gratitude is gratitude.

And we can be in this state immediately without any equipment but a willing heart and perhaps a nudge from this Flower Essence mix that can show us the way to this state of being.

But why bother?

In addition to what Pollyanna would say, the truth is that gratitude is alchemy at its most miraculous. It turns our experience of our situation on a dime. No matter what is going on in our lives, gratitude takes us to that grateful and joyous state that the gardener lived in.

This little face. The ones with the soulful eyes. Sweet Reina, a name which in spanish means queen.

Only it was clear from hour one that what she needed was not to be Queen of us, but to have us, her new people, be calm assertive pack leaders to her and our burgeoning tribe of dogs, cats, and other creatures working and living at the farm.

Yes indeed……. Necessity is STILL the Mother of Invention. And this meant, as Reina entered our household….

it was time to make Pack Leader, a new combination Flower Essence.

So I sat with the Angels and had them compose this wonderful new Flower Essence mix to support us to be calm assertive pack leader to the tribe of animals and people in our care.

And how fast did this remedy come together? Lightning fast, as they always do when the time is right.

And I am in awe and wonder at the perfection of the ingredients. Take the ingredient Flowering Dogwood for example. The name is, of course, wonderful for a mix about being pack leader, but then so is its vibrational wisdom; “Flowering Dogwood Essence helps us express ourselves with measured calm, proportional reactions, emotional restraint and balance.”

That is being a good pack leader! And this Flower Essence is just one of the many helpful ingredients.

Typical of the Angels, they had people call immediately for this remedy, the very moment I had written down its ingredients!

But what always astounds me about this flow is that the reasons people need a new remedy are always so diverse. For example, the first person whom the Angels recommended I send Pack Leader to was a college professor dealing with a very unruly class.

The Angels describe Pack Leader as supporting us to anchor in our own inner authority and find within us the calm and confident assertive energy necessary to handle the animals and the people in our life with appropriate boundaries, clear expectations, and from a place of emotional balance. This made it PERFECT for this classroom situation as well as the more obvious pack leader situation in my life right now, the need to be pack leader for the three marvelous and spirited dogs here at the farm.

Reina with her number one pack leader, Elizabeth, in the rain at one of Will’s soccer games.

Pack Leader is made with grateful thanks to Cesar Millan who clarified for me the nature of a good pack leader. This new mix contains:
Ageratum “Red Sea”. Beech, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cardinal Flower, Cat’s Claw, Celandine, Chives, Corn, Cosmos, Delphinium, Dill, Dogberry, Eyes of Mary, Feverfew, Flowering Dogwood, French Grass, Ginger Thomas, Goldenrod, Gratitude, Indian Pipe, Lantana Involucrata, Lobelia Spicata, Maple, Orange Hawkweed, Partridgeberry, Red Chestnut, Teasel, St. David’s Rose, Snapdragon, Sunflower, Wintergreen

And it is ready to serve YOU and the pack in your care!

Since I last posted news, we’ve gone from a gray sulky fall to what feels like full blown winter, all in a snap of the fingers.

Late summer Flower in all their subtle glories

overnight frosted

And as I rush about outside doing jobs I thought I would have weeks more to get done, all I can say is, “Thank goodness for puppies! How they lift the spirits no matter the weather!”

In the aftermath of entertaining the bear, all thoughts turned to preventing a rematch. Conventional wisdom included installing electric fences, using a shotgun, moving our hives, but it occurred to me that the best way to protect our bees from further attacks was to ask the Angels and Elementals to keep the bear away.

I remembered that years ago we had a wonderful but directionally dysfunctional cat named Bebeto who constantly got lost in the woods. When he didn’t turn up for his supper, we learned to ask the Elementals to send him home. My mental picture of this was little gnomes scooting him on his way, but no matter how accurate or inaccurate the visual, whenever we asked the Elementals to get him home, he would shortly appear on the doorstep safe and sound.

So this time, I asked my beloved partners to keep the bear preoccupied so it didn’t find its way back here. I asked for help from the Angel of Bears, the Elemental of this bear, and the Angels and Elementals of Green Hope Farm. I also offered to pray for the bear’s well-being in exchange for the honey he won’t get.

Six nights later, we are still bear free and the honeybees are busy repairing their hives. Jim is beginning to turn off his instant alarm bell when there is any noise outside and we are all feeling most grateful for the intercession of the Angels and Elementals.

Because now we can get back to the very SERIOUS jobs in the office.

Remind me not to complain about slugs.

Last night at 3:30 am, I awoke to the sounds of munching, snuffling, and the clatter of wooden boxes being destroyed beneath our bedroom window.

I knew at once there was a BEAR IN THE BEE HIVES!

When I yelled “BEAR!!!!!” in Jim’s ear, he too leaped up and joined me to race downstairs, bang on windows, flick on every light, then tumbled out into the night.

Only to find we were too late to stop most of the damage.

What a mess! Frames were ripped, torn, and scattered all over the yard. Bees covered the ground where the hives had been and whirled in the air above their wrecked homes.

As we surveyed this scene of bee carnage with flashlights, we heard more snuffling.

Abruptly, a young brown bear climbed down out of the oak tree just twenty feet from where we stood. He blinked at us, then ambled off into the woods, but not before pausing to sit back on his heels with a look that said, ” HONEY, HONEY, HONEY.”

Quickly, I donned one of our bee suits and tried my best to reassemble the three hives. I was the better choice for the job than Jim, who reacts more to bee stings than I do. Because understandably, the bees were MAD and wanted to sting me any way they could.

And they sure could! They stung me right through the bee suit and especially on my ankles which were bare because I had pulled on my old hiking boots, instead of the more protective mud boots. Soon my ankles were so covered in stinging bees that I yelped at Jim to go find me some BOOOOOOOOTS!.

Better garbed, I went back at it.

One hive was so heavy with honey, it took every bit of my strength to get it back onto its platform. Somehow its two hive boxes had not fallen apart when the bear pulled it over and this saved it from the kind of damage the other hives suffered.

As I jammed plopped frames back into hive boxes and reassembled the hives as best I could, I hoped each of the three queens had somehow survived the raid and would live to keep their colonies together.

When everything was assembled as best I could manage, we went back to bed to stew about how we would protect the bees from another raid tomorrow night

WHEN SUDDENLY

we heard chomping again. THE BEAR WAS BACK and settled in for another serious meal next to a hive he had just destroyed AGAIN.

And this time, he would not leave. We yelled. We threw my hiking boots. We banged on windows. Finally, Jim went onto the roof above the hives and threw rocks at the bear until he took off with a new look that said, ” I’LL BE BACK.” I swear I could almost hear the Arnold Schwartzeneggar accent.

So Jim and I sat up ’til dawn, watching the hives and pondering our next move. Tonight we think we are going to try to build a natural barricade of wild rose canes. That should be fun.

So thank you Greg, for the tried and true caramel apple recipe! I need a sugar high as badly as the bear, especially if I am going to have to build a barricade of rose canes then spend the night in banshee bear yelling!