Wild Valierian - From Basilius Besler’s Hortus Eystettensis
A New Moon Harvest
This long weekend, I took a little more time to get my New Moon download than usual. Now it is already Wednesday and the moon is a swelling crescent in the sky. I harvested Valerian on Friday, when the New Moon was exact, and my house is filled with the smell of drying leaves. The root, white and tangled, smelled pungent and ripe like Spring. Some people hate how it smells. I loved it, and loved harvesting it. Let us know over at Flack Family Farm if you would like some! You can also just email me. Valerian is wonderful for sleep and relaxation, perfect for these anxious times. In my last post, I talked about how she helps us see the connections between the dark and the light. This week she teaches us how to heal our disconnection from the Earth.
A particularly beautiful Valerian root - you can order some from me or Flack Family Farm
Venus Retrograde in Gemini
Since Venus retrograded in Gemini, I have been social distancing from social media, contemplating how I want it to serve me instead of feeling like a slave to it, and I feel like as a result it is taking me a little more time to know how to share what I want to share. Venus is in her dark phase, no longer in the night sky, completing her 8-year-long flower dance, and like her, I wanted to delve into the darkness of my own sky, to see what there is behind the veil, and disappear for a while.
A Planetary Download
To get my cosmic insight, I took a bath just as the New Moon was exact. I actually took two baths for this one (baths are my grounding portals of planetary intuition - make an appointment with me to talk about how you can tune in!), one the day before, with salts, and one with my Valerian harvest. What came up for me was the theme of disconnection. Choosing to disconnect from the internet may be a way of coming back to ourselves, to draw ourselves within, and this has been particularly necessary at this time of social distancing. Meanwhile, disconnection is another type of pandemic, one perhaps more damaging to our world than the virus itself. Disconnection could be at the root of its spread. How did we forget, in our race to be more connected, the life-giving connections that sustain us, to the water and land, to the plants and the animals around us? When did we forget the care that is necessary to maintain them?
Disconnection
I believe that disconnection is fundamentally an ecological problem. That is to say, because we are disconnected from the Earth - as humans we experienced at some point in our long history the Earth as hostile to us and survival as a challenge - all other disconnection followed. The patriarchy arose, and we became disconnected from the Earth, from the feminine, outside of us and inside of us as well. We reject parts of ourselves, and disconnect from them. We disconnect from feelings, feel overwhelmed by them, and are no longer able to process them in the body. We disconnect from the body. We don’t want to feel the suffering of the past, in our own lives and in the lives of others. We experience “species loneliness”, which Robin Wall Kimmerer discusses in her book Braiding Sweetgrass. As a society of the industrialized variety, we no longer feel connected to beings outside of our own species. I remember the feeling when I first starting working more intimately with plants that I was never alone. My loneliness disappeared. I was surrounded by an abundance of green friends.
Gemini Energy
Gemini is an energy I am familiar with because my natal moon is in Gemini. I want to learn a lot, I want to do everything. I don’t want to focus. You could call it the attention deficit disorder sign, and though I’ve never been diagnosed with that “disorder”, I do relate to how the brain functions with a multitude of sensory inputs. This Gemini energy can make me feel disconnected, with too many choices, and too many things I want to do. I am curious and a fast learner, but I can get overwhelmed by all there is I want to know. This New Moon was illuminating this energy for me. Mercury is also in Gemini, where it was conjunct Venus last week. My mind rattles with questions. What do I want to do? How will I choose? Why am I doing what I am doing? Disconnection is also a mental energy. We disconnect when we activate our rational faculties, when we analyze, when we ponder. And I wonder, do we have to? Is there another way of thinking that doesn’t disconnect but connects?
A Pandemic
Within the context of our current pandemic, many of us have disconnected from our routines, our daily lives of hustle and bustle. I was already pretty disconnected from this mode of living, and I don’t think I could go back to it, but not everyone can choose to do anything else, and this is part of the problem. Our current workaholic world of disconnection is the norm, a fait accompli, without which the economy and the society it feeds would crumble, or so many believe. What are our options? Throw out your TV? Get off the grid? Go local, local, local, that is what the books I am reading say and have been saying for years (see Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy or David Fleming’s Surviving the Future), and I see the signposts in my immediate surroundings too, in a sign in my small town telling us to stay safe and buy local; in the the way people are leaving free stuff out everywhere instead of having yard sales; in those giving away masks and making sure their neighbors have enough to eat. We need to learn how to grow our own food and eat the food at our doorsteps. We need to help and support each other. These changes are now happening in real time, and that must be how we change the larger paradigm. These are my Gemini thoughts, like so many shivering, shaking leaves.
A bath with Valerian
A Bath With Valerian
In my second bath, with Valerian, I asked the spirit of the plant about disconnection. It showed me a bed. There is nothing you need to do to feel connection in this time of separation, it said, except for to allow yourself to pass through the veil, to sleep, to feel your connection to everything that is outside of yourself, to feel connected to the non-human realms. Perhaps this is the ideal time to do so, to acknowledge all that surrounds us, in the dream time and in the forest, in the park and down the street, in the square of grass (for more on this listen to this recent David Abrams essay on the Emergence podcast).
Heart Thinking
Later I felt into the fact that often my feelings of frustration, of longing, of separation, come from my feeling of disconnection. In other words, I wouldn’t feel frustrated if I felt connected and remembered that I am always connected. What kind of thinking allows me to remember this? I feel this when my thinking is not just mental but heart-centered. Some say the heart thinks too, some argue only the brain thinks, but whatever science decides, I know that my understanding grows along with my capacity to use both in my daily life. My feeling of connection is only as expansive as the size of my own heart.
An Expansive Heart
Lately my heart has been expanding. Venus’ dance has brought to me a unique experience of love and balance, and that is what I am seeding with this New Moon, balance between the heart and the brain, the masculine and the feminine. I am reminded of how potently the world can reflect our own cycles of healing and growth, and that we are not separate from the Earth. She is always reminding us.
As long as we see the earth as something other than ourselves, we forget that Gaia herself is conscious and intelligent, carrying the instructions we need for restoration and healing, for creating a human presence here on earth in service to all life. - Chameli Ardagh
How do you get connected when you feel disconnection? Write to me, I’d love to know! I’m observing, loving and releasing doubts about my purpose and self-worth and moving beyond the idea of disconnection in my head and my heart, thanks to the flowers.
If you’d like to discover how flower essences might help you do the same, make an appointment with me here. With a flower essence consultation, you will receive your own personal essence, but you can also browse my flower essences and their beautiful messages here.
During this cycle the plants helped me understand that as we live sometimes in duality, we may find ways of embracing our polarities and those around us or in others. For another good read on the separation that currently surrounds us, and how to transmute it, see Charles Eisenstein’s latest article, “The Conspiracy Myth”.
I had lots of reading and listening suggestions for you this week! Maybe that is also because I am spending less time thinking of what to share on social media. The internet is a magical place when it comes to in-depth and inspiring content. I hope you enjoy them.
Would you like to discover how the flowers might help you on your own creative projects? Make a free appointment with me here to talk to you about it creative coaching with me and the flowers. I only have a few more weeks of an open calendar before I begin some temporary summer work, so book an appointment with me now. Here’s a testimonial from a satisfied writer I am coaching:
Imagine if you had your own personal guide to help nurture your creativity, build your resilience, pursue your passions, and address the challenges standing between you and your goals? As a creative coach, Amy is unlike anyone you've ever met. She combines ancient wisdom with cutting-edge practices. She distills her deep connection with nature into a tonic for the human soul. She has an extraordinary intuition for what we need to hear, how we should learn, who we can call on, and where we can go.
Guided meditations with Amy have breathed new life into my creative process, and she has helped me to remove obstacles in my daily life that were impeding my progress. Her gentle suggestions, practical guidance, and astonishing insights have changed not just my creative output, but the way I approach my life. Amy's respect for her clients' dignity, privacy, and trust is a reflection of her grace, humility, and values.
If you find yourself at a crossroads, at a stop sign, in a dark tunnel, or on a long and winding road, Amy will light your path -- and help you go farther than you could imagine going alone.- Amanda in Geneva, Switzerland
That’s all for now I think. I can’t wait to see what this cycle will bring for you and for me. With green love,
Amy