I just wanted to point out the current absurdity of life at the farm. As I have mentioned before, we are renovating our small barn into a cute and compact home for Elizabeth and her two children. I use the pronoun we loosely as Jim has done the lion’s share of the work, putting in 70 straight “summer vacation” days doing carpentry work before returning to his day job as a school teacher). Lizzie and co. currently live in the farmhouse with us, but once the renovation is complete, they will live fifty feet from us ( and here is the key point to the town’s zoning board) AND USE A DIFFERENT TOILET.

There will be no increase in toilet use or toilet “material” so to speak, but this move from one toilet to another means we’ve had to have our front gardens dug up, our side yard down by the blueberries dug up and our hayfield dug up for a new septic system- because new regulations require new tanks, new drainage materials etc etc.

As I type, two excavators, a bulldozer, a dump truck and a jackhammer are in use here. How do you spell SERENITY?

Here is the excavator poised to begin its work.

Here is the scenic view from the Venus garden overlooking the smaller excavator at work.

Here is the lovely pastoral view of the septic construction five minutes ago.

Here is an impervious Monarch butterfly giving me today’s moment of Zen.

The topic of resistance keeps cropping up. We need to be flexible and change our plans constantly right now, and in a big picture way, we must change our relationship to earth and all life. We need to let go and evolve, big time.

The change itself has its own challenges, but often it seems that it is our resistance to change that causes the most pain and suffering.

In 2020, our resistance to change has been akin to slamming on the brakes of a car while life floors the gas pedal.

Lately I have noticed that in my dreams there is a lot of imagery of lens, telescopes, cameras, screens. This led me to consider that maybe resistance is a perception problem.

We are one unified energy field, so anything we are asked to become, we already are. We already are part of fifth dimensional reality, so any fears we have that it’s too much or dangerously unfamiliar are erroneous perceptions from our limited third dimensional viewpoint.

If what we have to do as change sweeps over us IS change our perception, then how do we do this?

I’m sure there are a million ways but for me, I ask for help from those whose perceptual lens are A LOT bigger and clearer than mine like Divinity and the Angels. I specifically ask Divinity to help me release any resistance impeding my spiritual path or impeding the incoming higher energies. I ask them to help me open my lens to greater understanding as well. I also look to the Flower Essences in our collections that support going with the flow of change and broadening our vision from fear to love.

I asked the Angels to highlight some of the Flower Essences they feel are helpful for releasing our resistance to change.

Flow Free– Would it be a GHF blog by me without a mention of this one?

Vision– The Angels felt so strongly about supporting us to expand our Vision that they had us create an entire garden so we could make this Essence.

Dandelion– The Angels note that we store a lot of our resistance in our muscles. Dandelion helps us release this tension. Dandelion also has an immense energy of metamorphosis. Just think of its extraordinary change from Flower to seed head.

Mutabilis Rose– This semi tropical Rose from Bermuda helps us dismantle our fears that we can’t manage all these shifts. This Flower Essence knows we are made to brilliantly adapt and flow with these necessary changes.

Desert Chicory– With its I AM affirmation, “I AM relaxed in the healing flow of my life,” this one is especially good for those of us with PTSD from childhood trauma.

Omey Island– As a tidal island, Omey Island has times of being cut off from the mainland. It knows how to flourish within the constraints of these nature imposed limitations and accepts these nature driven constraints as part of its essential being. Omey offers to help us experience nature made constraint as part of the process and to help us relax into the unique flow imposed upon us right now by forces bigger than our personal will.

Balance in a Blue Moon– This Venus Garden Essence helps embrace the higher vibrations sweeping into the planet while also supporting us to balance and align our physical, mental, etheric and emotional bodies as we live through this rare and precious time of planetary and personal evolutionary leaps.

Red Flower from Santorini– This Flower Essence enhances our ability to thrive when things erupt and fall apart in our lives. This Flower, found flourishing in the crater of a volcano, reminds us how resilient, strong and courageous we can be as we adapt to a new world that has gone through its own sort of volcanic eruption.

Allamanda from Taiwan– This brilliant friend helps us end kowtowing to fear especially apprehensions surrounding change.

Amphitrite– This ancient Flower knows any release process may alter the surface of our lives but our souls remain intact. It knows that change allows us to connect and embrace our essential selves more easily. All I can say in response is, Yes, please!

Psychillis Macconnelliae Orchid– This very powerful Orchid helps those of us who don’t feel at home here to feel more comfortable while also helping all of us adapt to the rapid changes we are undergoing.

We have noticed a lot of Fodder Vetch going out the door and when the Angels suggested it here, I reread its description. I thought I would quote the whole thing because it certainly reflects why it has been calling to people.

Fodder Vetch– Fodder Vetch has a true sense of self. Its elegant blossoms rise up in a graceful column, each looking forward, unafraid of movement, change or what lies ahead. This Essence supports us to let go of fear as we continue forward. It helps us find and recognize our true course and then supports us in moving forward in confident alignment. Even in a strong wind, the blossoms don’t swivel or change direction. They stand strong and true in their course and help us do so as well.

In closing, the Angels nudge me to say once again that as we are all one already, there is nothing to fear from any change. We are always safe, always an indivisible part of the one, always loved in this one ocean of love we call so many names.

(and won’t it be great when we fully perceive this!)

Hello dear people! How are you? I hope that you are well and finding serenity and calm in this time of surface chaos/ much incoming Divine love and light.

This week our nights began to cool down. Early morning fog also joined us, another sure sign that the summer season is drawing to a close. This time of year I concentrate on making sure we have all the Flower Essences we need to keep our inventory stocked up. Making Wildflower Essences takes center stage in late summer. August is their shining hour. I just made Joe Pye Weed, Boneset, Jewelweed, Burdock, Meadowsweet, Hardhack and St. John’s Wort. Today I am making Red Clover and Goldenrod.

I hold such affection for Goldenrod. This was the very first Flower Essence I made when I was a little girl ( I didn’t know what Flower Essences were yet what a great support for any child with its energy of helping us trust and be true to our self!).

Nestled in the Lilac bushes with my dolls, Heidi and Wendy, I would mix these glowing yellow Flowers in a teapot of water and let them seep. I liked the taste of this brew and so did my dolls. At one point my sister and I abandoned the Lilac bushes to hold our tea party in a large clump of poison ivy . We christened our fort, “Fort Poison Ivy” and toasted with more Goldenrod tea. Needless to say, we suffered from that choice of locale. It makes me itch just to think about it!

This morning we have begun to brush hog our hayfields. In the photo above you can see a section that is done. I always find this a bittersweet moment. Yes, mowing the fields is necessary to keep them open, so they need to be mowed, but it involves cutting down some of the late summer Wildflowers I love so much. I let the Elementals know when this mowing is going to happen, so they can prepare the inhabitants of the field, but this doesn’t mean everyone finds shelter. At dusk after the fields are mowed, the coyotes come to snack on mice and voles. Our neighbor, Claude used to mow our fields. He described an evening when he had eight coyotes circling his tractor as he mowed our fields. He’s a big guy, but he said it unnerved even him.

In the midst of writing this, a tractor trailer arrived with a load of the colored boxes we pack our Flower Essences in. These are now all safely tucked into the storage building where they will ride out the winter months, ever ready to be used to pack your orders. Stocking thing like bottles and boxes is another thing we do before the snow flies. (Winter is always coming!)

Jim is still hard at work on the project to transform our original barn into a small house. Today he was repairing a water damaged board and caulking above the windows on the second story. This made us all nervous, and there was a collective sigh when he was down from this job. Everything is framed out inside, ready for the electrician and plumber. The front view here shows where some very big windows will slot in.

Here he is mid-caulking. The best moment of the day was when he was done standing on that ladder ( two stories up- gulp!) and was safely off the staging and on the ground!

Sending you all much love from the farm! Take precious care.

I have no poker face. Everyone in my family would tell you this. I am earnest even when it would help to have a little more guile.  

Here is an example from when I was a teenager living in Mexico. My family was staying in the gorgeous town of Oaxaca. We were sitting in the town square drinking café con leche when a rug seller came by with a rug I fell in love with. BTW I still have this rug in my bedroom so it wasn’t a tempestuous quick love but a long term one.

My father loved to bargain. He really was most himself in Mexico and loved everything about the culture including the give and take in the market.  Me, not so much. I felt like the poor rug dealer had worked so hard , and I had the babysitting money and well, it was okay to pay whatever the man asked for the rug.  However my father liked the game and he was going to play it.

Scenting a sale, the rug dealer circled. After all, how could he miss the signs of me telegraphing my desire for the rug so obviously, so earnestly. My father gave me a glare and went back to his coffee. Oh, how preoccupied he was with his coffee. Oh how he was enjoying the ambience of the plaza. He hadn’t a care in the world. And me? No doubt I was wringing my hands and completely giving my father’s game away.  And so the game concluded way too fast for both my father and the rug dealer, but I had my rug. I am sure in my father’s mind and in the mind of the rug dealer I overpaid for my rug, but what do you do with an overly earnest little thing like me?

Anyways, all this to say, when a number of you suggested I try and find something nice to say about Bindweed, I took it to heart. No way could I lie to you and pretend I had found peace and happiness with the Bindweed without TRYING TO DO SO. You wouldn’t have believed a glowing report about Bindweed after the last rant, especially from me, UNLESS IT WAS TRUE.  I needed to soul search and see if I could come up with ANYTHING nice to say from a genuine place.

But more importantly, yours was a valid and important request for me to look for the Divinity in Bindweed.  Divinity is a seamless unity of everything INCLUDING BINDWEED so Divinity had to be in there somewhere. As the saying goes, “If you can’t see the Divinity everywhere then you can’t see the Divinity anywhere.”

Thus began a couple weeks in which I have searched for something positive about Bindweed. I mostly thought about this as I pulled up Bindweed which didn’t help my search. Yes, it was getting me to slow down but in a tedious sort of way. Yes it was making me appreciate the places in the garden where there is no Bindweed, but I wasn’t getting to spend any time in them. Yes, it was getting me to consider radical reorganization of the gardens to deal with the Bindweed problem, and maybe that’s good, but it’s a BIG job to reorganize 35 year old gardens.

Then the Bindweed took a backseat to the deer.

Oh the deer.

They have been extremely voracious this summer. Nowhere have they done more damage than to the Day Lilies. Every time a Day Lily group is about to explode in a bounty of blossoms, the deer sweep in at night and take out all the blossoms. My expectation of glory followed by a complete loss of all blossoms is an emotional roller coaster I want to get off.

Me = The too earnest gardener

Deer = The game winners because deer got game.

And my pathetic effort to get game by tying up twine around and through all the gardens? This labyrinth of string was an abject failure. The deer just leap up and over the string like it is part of the fun. Let’s face it, to them it IS part of the fun.

My first realization vis a vis the Deer was that I needed to accept who I AM and take myself out of the game. I will need to either fence in another garden this fall and move all the Day Lilies into this space or put the Day Lilies in the already fenced in lower vegetable garden. There are a lot of Day Lilies. Several hundred plants. They would probably like a chance to bloom.

But even solving that problem I was left with both the deer AND Bindweed calling me to find a genuine silver lining. I will say that I deepened my appreciation for all Flowers not wrapped by Bindweed or eaten by deer. Furthermore, I am grateful deer do not like to eat Red Shiso or Calendulas or Zinnias but DO like to eat Bindweed.

Not ringing praise.

So, being the earnest person I am and ready to put aside my prejudice to seek an elusive AH HA moment about Bindweed, I decided a few days ago to make a Bindweed Flower Essence again. I had done this many years ago when we were better friends, but the inventory is gone.  Making the Essence again of this small white Morning Glory shaped Flower was sort of a moment of defeat.

However………as I went to store the Bindweed Mama Essence after its day in the sun, I felt an energy of such purity coming from the Flower Essence that I was stopped in my tracks. WOW!  If a Flower can take its basic bullying nature then bring forward a Flower and Flower Essence of such pure light, then we can all leave behind whatever good, bad and ugly things that went before and find a pure light within ourselves.

Oddly enough, this freed me up to laugh about the deer situation too. They just pushed me to lighten up and see the game as just a game. What a ridiculous moment in the game that today I am in the gardens searching for a Bindweed Flower to photograph for here.  How silly that I dwell on the eaten Day Lily buds and miss the abundance of Flowers everywhere else! In causing problems these two rogue elements broke me open to see the bounty in front of me.

So yes, I finally found something positive I can genuinely, earnestly say about Bindweed AND the deer. With Bindweed in particular, it embodies the truth that even in the darkest of situations or darkest of personalities, the light lives and can AND WILL prevail and rise up as the ultimate expression of all that went before. If Bindweed can give the world such a pure Flower then most certainly we can AND WILL transmute any situation or anything we have ever done or been to be pure light. And laugh and be grateful at the same time!

Not a bad place to land with Bindweed and the deer so I thank you for your nudges to reconsider my position! I’ll put the Bindweed on the additional Essence list for now- but don’t be surprised if after all this, it goes onto the main line up this fall. Won’t that be funny.

Lucky thing an earnest person like myself doesn’t mind eating crow.

Divine Light floods the planet. It flow into us. It even flows from within us. The Honeybees, the Birds, the Flowers all creation welcomes it. Except sometimes us people who get caught up in the snares of illusionary separation and not deserving.

As I work each day to keep the energy flowing in my energy system, it is interesting to note that sometimes the energy gets hung up in certain chakras. This is actually a helpful thing to notice as it means I can then look at what issues this chakra represents and therefore what issues I need to address. But actually, I think this energy is so at home within us that sometimes the work is simply asking for help to let it flow.  Maybe I won’t understand the glitch in a certain chakra even if I work on dissecting the issues it represents. At this point, the momentum of vibrational change is so immense that even a small effort to figure something out is rewarded with an immense amount of help and energy.

Over the years, my requests for help from spirit have sometimes been very itemized as I consider the blockage in terms of what the chakra represents. Say for example when I broke my arms. Arms are linked to our heart chakra and the giving and receiving of love. I don’t know more than a small amount of what my arm breaks were about, but looking back, I know some of the gifts. It was a time of understanding love could flow into me even if I wasn’t frantically doing more than my share. It was a time of rebalancing the inbreath and the outbreath, the receiving and the giving.

The arm breaks necessitated a serious time out from doing. This asked of me that I let go of my puritanical family of origin’s ethos of work. I had not felt worthy of love unless I was following the family dictum of “work ‘til the work is done.” This was an insane ideology to adhere to for someone with four children, a farm and a business. The work could never be done. So there I was flat on my back with arms shattered into so many pieces and me completely out of the loop in every area of my life- And weirdly, I felt whole. I felt open to receiving love. I felt the love of Divinity for me in the middle of this.

I keep coming back to how simple it can be to receive love and light because in truth we are this love and light.  I once had a dream in which I thought I had lost the garden.  I was searching desperately for the garden and a voice said, “You are the garden.”  Someone said that to me again in my waking life this week. It made me take notice to hear this again. I asked with more intensity for help from the Divinity within me to dissolve all beliefs and ego bindings that need to be cleaned out- anything that keeps me in the illusion of separation. What can I say but thank goodness for All Ego Contracts Null & Void and Flow Free! (and a whole lot of other Flower friends!)

I remember hearing one of the early astronauts talk about his heart opening experience looking down on Earth from space. The thing that struck him most was that there were no divisions, no borders or lines of demarcation. He saw we are all one.

For all my silliness about masks, one thing I have noticed is that I look more at people’s eyes. I had not really realized how often I looked at people’s mouths when they were talking. There is something clarifying- more straightforward and true about looking at eyes. It’s trite to say something about eyes as the windows of the soul, but it seems like the energy and the eye contact is clarifying who people are and our ability to see them truly.

Hopefully we are being kind to each other with our eyes and spirit. One of my favorite people is a cashier at the Co-op I shop at. Last week when I saw her she told me it was the last time she would be at the cash register. After many years there she asked to be moved from the front end because she could no longer handle the rude, uncooperative and unkind behavior of the customers actively unwilling to comply with the few rules in place to make shopping safe for everyone. 

May we all find within us the ability to act as if we know we are all one until we truly know it!

This is a big bold journey for all of us and one that is taking us into new and unknown territory. A dear one noted, “We are like kindergarteners in the realm of spirit- Beloved ones but kindergarteners none the less.” And we are on the spiritual move! As this same dear one pointed out, about this year’s Venus Garden, “The plants being in pots makes me think of “transitional time”- and being able to be moved as required.”

And so we need to go with the flow, move as required and be kind to ourselves and each other as we stumble forward.  I am grateful for the Flowers, the Flower Essences, the Angels, Elementals and the still small voice within me that keeps rooting us on. And I am grateful for you all who have shown me we can do it.

While all Flower Essences have connections to the chakras and our electrical system, some work in particular with certain chakras. I thought it might be helpful to make some links for you to Flower Essences for specific chakras. If you go to the link for a chakra, it will show the Flowers that are specialists for this chakra. There is also information about the specific issues of the chakra and a general discussion of chakras as well.

If you want support bringing the new light energy into your crown chakra, check out the tabs for our Flower Essences linked to the seventh chakra. Go with what calls to you but know that the Angels suggest in particular for the current energies, Fireweed, Ruby Moon Hyacinth Bean, Niella and Sunflower.

If you want support for keeping the new light energy flowing in your third eye/sixth chakra, check out the tabs for our Flower Essences linked to the sixth chakra. The Angels suggest in particular Queen of the Night, Eyes of Mary, Breathe and Lauriana Rose

If you want support for keeping the new light energy flowing in your throat/fifth chakra, check out the tabs for our Flower Essences linked to the fifth chakra. The Angels suggest in particular for the current energies Alex Mackenzie Rose, Cosmos, Milkweed Sacred Tobacco and Pink Yarrow from the Cliffs of Moher

If you want support for keeping the new light energy flowing in your heart/fourth chakra, check out the tabs for our Flower Essences linked to the fourth chakra The Angels suggest in particular for the current energies Mehera, Purple Flowering Raspberry, The Mary Rose and Black Eyed Susan

If you want support for keeping the new light energy flowing in your third/solar plexus chakra, check out the tabs for our Flower Essences linked to the third chakra. The Angels suggest in particular for the current energies All Ego Contracts Null and Void, Shrimp Plant, Self Heal and Dandelion

If you want support for keeping the new light energy flowing in your second sacral chakra, check out the tabs for our Flower Essences linked to the second chakra The Angels suggest in particular for the current energies Bee Balm Bells of Ireland Asclepias, Corn and Pomegranate for women.

If you want support for keeping the new light energies flowing in your first /root chakra, check out the tabs for our Flower Essences linked to the first chakra. The Angels suggest in particular for the current energies Red Mangrove Inner Child, Redwood and Calendula

In closing, I also like to mention the general category of Chakra Alignment which has its own page. These Flower Essences and Flower Essence combinations help line up and integrate the whole system of chakras including those above and below our physical bodies. They are dynamos!