Plants Have No Past: Plant Wisdom for 2021

Showing up for the plants
I haven’t written a cosmic blog post since September and the New Moon in Virgo. Since then, I’ve had many new beginnings. At Halloween, the Celtic New Year, I got engaged. A few weeks later I started a full time French teaching job in two local public high schools. Since then I have been adjusting to this radical shift in my use of energy! No more endless days to contemplate my next steps as an entrepreneur! Time to tackle that lethargy that has kept me away from my goals! Teaching and a full time job was, ironically, perhaps exactly what I needed to take my online business more seriously. Here I am, showing up for the plants, after a few months of intense adaptation to my new role in the outer world.

Reassessing self-care
My work with plants has been on the back burner, but I’ve felt them with me and had some beautiful experiences and conversations with the people I’m working with. I’ve also had to radically reassess my well-being and how I manage stress. I’ve had to make some changes in what I eat and drink and how, and the plants have helped me along the way. Most of all, I’ve had to reconnect again and again with my inner knowing of what is best for me. I think this is necessary for everyone amidst rapid and profound change, and we have all been experiencing that.

Wondering at the New Moon
And now, this New Moon in Capricorn! The first of the year! Conjunct Pluto! I have been feeling the heaviness of the Capricorn moon for a few days. When the moon traverses Capricorn, this is my least favorite moment of the lunar cycle, whether waxing or waning. I feel heavy and burdened, and the smallest things annoy me. I’ve been journaling a lot, and feeling and wondering where this year is headed, for me, for others.

Watching Giants Collide
Cosmically, we have seen huge encounters, shifts and movement. At the Solstice, Saturn met Jupiter in what is known as the Great Conjunction. I didn’t get to see the encounter on that day because of cloud cover, but I watched their approach to one another on the days before. As you may have heard, this encounter in Aquarius marks the beginning of a new era which I think we all feel we sorely need. Aquarius will bring some air to Saturn’s heavy convictions, allowing us all to innovate in order to make the world a better place for ourselves and others. Right now this probably did not feel particularly airy and light, however. In November, Pluto was conjunct the two giants, for the third time, and Mars joined in as well, squaring Pluto three times this past year (I made a special flower essence to mitigate the influences of this particularly sticky alignment - Dark Hollyhock!).

Melting Beeswax
Today I’m writing from a snowstorm, as I melt beeswax and put away the Christmas decorations. The mice have taken on my sugar addiction, so I’m cleaning up after them too. The shell of a green Hershey’s kiss. A chewed open packet of Swiss Miss. We will all be cutting back on sugar in the coming months. I’ll be drinking and communicating with Cedar, part of our monthly devotion in the WEALTH community, that, as usual (synchronicity!) fits well with my current desires. I wonder what Cedar will tell me. I’ll be able to tell you about it at the Full Moon. I am also connecting more with the stars with a coach of mine Jocelyn Mercado, and her course The Music of the Spheres. Yesterday, walking down my cold hill in the dark, they told me to trust the process as the current chaos unfolds. Trust the process to see what comes, for better things will rise, though it seems impossible sometimes. Courage!

Listening to Plant Wisdom
The last strong plant wisdom I got in 2020 was that plants don’t have a past. I was in the bath. It was at the Full Moon eclipse in Gemini in November. I saw the plants all around me, supporting me. The flowers showed me how they don’t have to release the past because, in fact, they have no past. They grow from seed, always present in the moment of growth. Their energy is always at their growth points. They are always growing in the now. They have one growing cycle, then down and around again. They don’t shed skin as we do. As I write, I realize trees have a past. They shed their skin, but perhaps that is why we have an easier affinity with them. Flowers say, live for the day. This realization helped me move gently into change, for what am I, if not constant growth and change?

Taking a Ritual Bath
Though the New Moon is now slightly past, might I suggest a ritual bath for digging up and integrating the past? As you run the bath, think of all the bits of you that you want to slough off. Plant them in the water of the bath, like the ash of an Alchemical process. After 20 minutes or so, let the water run out, imagining that you, having dissolved them, you are releasing them. Your past has vanished, and you rise from the bath tub like some strange plant, new to the world, feeding off of air.

Dissolving into the Air
If you feel some fear at dissolving, at seeing your false sense of self drop away to reveal your inner, green, shining core, I’ve just posted a new Flower Essence up in my shop for you, White Foxglove. This beautiful shadow essence eases the way for us on our shadow path, allowing us to disperse, be everywhere, and find that the answer to our fear resides in the expansiveness of our imagination.

I wish you great expansion during this time of great change. Be light on yourselves!

Love,

Amy

P.S. I have a few spots open for one on one creative coaching with the flowers. You can make an appointment for an exploratory session with me here. I’m also offering some flower essence consultations if you would like me to make a blend for you. You may also browse the essences in my shop (and shadow shop). I also will soon have some exciting news about some new blends that will be available soon on a beautifully curated platform for healing products from Vermont! Stay tuned!

Zero Gravity: Lessons for the New Moon and Mercury Retrograde in Pisces

A New Moon in Pisces with Mercury retrograde in that sign, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so slowed down. I’m swimming in the unconscious and sleeping a lot, embracing my darkness, taking a trip on the self-love underground. I’m listening to the water drip and the clocks tick. Something is coming but it is still incubating. I’m watching for its slow emergence.

I’m taking care of four cats and a dog, noticing how animals are naturally slow. Cats sit and stare, becoming agitated when they think a meal is coming. The dog rests until it is time to come rouse me and go for a walk. I like letting their rhythms rule mine for the weekend. I’ve put my agenda on hold.

In the house I’m taking care of, there is a zero gravity setting on the bed I am sleeping in. I’ve been putting myself there to write down dreams, to rest. It feels so relaxing, and very Piscean!

A new moon is a new beginning. I’m planting the seed of myself, deep down under the Earth. My sun is in Pisces, so I’m already naturally in these slow, deep waters, but this moon feels epically so. I’m tracking my dreams, both those that come when I’m sleeping and those I make with my eyes open. I practice, like the cats, keeping my eyes half closed, to see the space in between the sleeping and the waking, the way reality comes together like two eye-lids, half closed.

Animal Emotions

Animals are naturally emotive in an uncomplicated way so spending time with them can help us be too. One cat likes to sit on my gloves on the table. Another sits on my chest while I knit. Another curls up in a box to hide while another one wants to play. All of them are in and out of emotional states rapidly and gracefully. They hiss, then cuddle. I blink my eyes at them.

Emotional Awareness

This season is asking us to become more aware of our emotions, and more patient with them as well. Mercury retrograde can make us feel stuck with them, but I’ve noticed that as I breath, listen to music, talk a walk, they flow. Maybe the flow is a bit slow, it’s still icy out there, but they do flow. Like icicles gathering then disappearing. Sometimes they are like reverse icicles growing up from the ground, coming from some deep space I don’t even know, reaching for the light, bringing me back to situations I thought I’d already said goodbye to, but in the dark they appear again so that I can let them go.

Dream Work

Neptune is also in Pisces, so I’d like to take a moment to talk about dream work. I’ve learned so much by simply writing down my dreams every morning. If I don’t remember them, I write down that I don’t remember them. The dreams get clearer with this practice, though there are still times when they are cloudy. When I write them down and talk about them with friends, I can get perspective on my life. I can take symbolic action on them. This is a way of showing myself that I am listening to myself. Synchronicities start to arise. I know which paths to follow, instinctively. My intuition gets stronger. Tracking dreams is a way to commit to a fruitful dialogue with yourself. It doesn’t always have to be profound. Taking action on a dream can be calling up a friend, buying a book, eating a certain meal.

As a Pisces, sometimes my dreams seem more real than reality, so I can go deep with them. I can dream in a dream. I can dream in a dream when I’m awake too. Right now the Piscean waters are so deep that I can get perspective. I can be miles below myself or miles above. I like playing with these distances. They are not getting me anywhere, but I know that such explorations will help me feel more here, in the moment, in my dream time actuality. Zero gravity.

Zero Gravity

What are the ways we can be zero gravity with ourselves? We can go there with our bodies by feeling how supported we are in our environment, even if we don’t have a zero gravity bed. Any moment has zero gravity potential. I’m resting into the way things are. I feel safe and held.

Datura

I did a flower essence attunement today, with an essence I made in the Fall, a beautiful, dark and strong flower spirit, Datura. When I made her she communicated with me her rage at not being seen. I felt immediate recognition of this feeling in myself. What are the parts of yourself that feel this rage at not being recognized or acknowledged?

Today her message was more gentle, but still had to do with finding constructive expression for this rage. I remembered all the ways my purest essence was silenced as a child, and all the ways I silenced myself.

A white trumpet at the top of my spine
a back bend in time
reaching back to meet myself
I am whole unto myself
a circle in time
I have clarity in all situations
clarity of vision
I see myself as I truly am
unabashed, unashamed
I own my experiences
I come back to myself,
again, again, again.

What a beautiful message to be gifted on this New Moon.

Let me know if you would like this essence, part of a line of shadow work essences I am developing. They aren’t up in my shop yet, so just drop me a line.

If you would like to explore working with me to learn how to connect to plants, get your own messages from the flowers and improve your relationship with your truest self, make a free appointment with me here.

Love and blessings unfolding in deep waters,

Amy

Eclipse Season Drama: The Ending of the World and a Prayer for Summer

I’ve been waiting to post since the New Moon because of the eclipses. What do they want me to say? It has been a rich few weeks and I haven’t wanted to say much. I had a very deep essence making experience with Cramp Bark the weekend of the Solstice at a Flower Essence training and since then I have maintained a feeling of permanent connection to the green realm. As a result, I’ve felt disconnected from this one. Making the magic with plant connection lifts me up and sets me down differently. Cramp Bark essence will be part of a line of essences meant to aid shadow work. It isn’t up in my shop yet, but its message is about helping us embrace our whole selves, dark and light. Let me know if you want some. I call it Erasure of Duality. It helps us own the darkest side of ourselves, integrate our most difficult experiences and calm our harshest judgments which depend on our belief in polarity. I shared the poem she offered me with the second tier and up of my Patreon supporters. You can get the full download here. I’d love it if you wanted to join me there!

So I’ve met myself whole, with the help of the plant realm, and I’m looking for words to describe what that feels like.

But this New Moon Solar Eclipse in Cancer has me also searching to answer other questions. Within this unity, who am I? Who am I without my stories and my past? Cancer is about home and mothering and I am home with my mother, watching how she mother’s herself, how I mother myself, and the connections between the two, seeing the old patterns of feeling and relating with my father. Who am I without the stories of my parents? I learned that until we are three, we share our energy centers with them, so any insecurities or lack of self-love of theirs become ours. Ancestors pass things on to us too, down the gene lines, the DNA chain. Who am I without the steps of my ancestors? Depending on how far back you go, we also share our DNA with the trees. My wholeness resides there I think, back in the time of slow plant evolution, back to soil and bark and loam.

A total solar eclipse feels like the end of the world in some ways. Slowly the sun goes dark. I remember a children’s book I had when I was small about some farm animals who become increasingly panicked at the growing dark. They gather together and tremble. And eclipse season is a time of deaths, people go, we let go. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my very elderly rabbit, and Cramp Bark showed me how death is inside all life. I am constantly dying to outdated versions of myself. It feels good to let these selves go, but then arises the fear of the unknown. What if the Sun doesn’t come back? In Cancer we can feel like children in need of safety and reassurance. Especially today. If I watch the news, it feels like we are only minutes away from certain and complete disaster. Yet I wake and the birds are singing. I feed them and I eat and sleep and dream. I meditate and write.

With these thoughts in mind I wrote a prayer for summer. Feel free to recite it daily to your garden, and to add your own stanzas.

An Edward Burne-Jones Tapestry

A Prayer for Summer

May there always be
an abundance of birds
and the small insects
and larvae and caterpillars
they eat. May they always
mate and mate again,
nest and wait and feed
and nourish their young.

May there always be
moths beating their wings
at my window and
fireflies winking me to sleep.

May it always be hot
in the sun and then cool
in the shade or the lake
or river or pond or pool
before bed at twilight.

In the morning,
may the dew always come
to water the petals of my dreams.

May all things be allowed
to ripen and flourish and live.

May the peonies and the
lupines and the mallow
and the roses always say
there is more to come
more to come
more to come.

Cancer season also has me remembering and reading of how, as children, the gateways of our perception are open, and as we choose to open them again today, as if for the first time, there is the same awe and joy at what we find and see. This feeling comes first. I hope it still comes first for you, these ripening days.

Much love,

Amy

Sensuality, Clarity and Transformation: Drinking Chamomile Tea with Pluto and Saturn on the New Moon in Taurus

Last night I dreamt of bulls, red bulls, pulling me into my sensuality, grounding me.

Last night I dreamt I had a hat that I received in the form of a crown; it came floating down to me out of the sky. When I put it on, it magically changed shape, becoming a red felt cloche, a flowered knit beanie, in accordance with how I was feeling. I felt it adapt and shift to the contours of my head. This hat was a marvel; I was a little girl living in a dystopic future, in a house patrolled from within by a security guard with dogs.

Awake to my own desires this Taurus season, the New Moon feels like a reminder to express myself, to put on my best hat, and to let this hat be what it wants to be, without censoring myself, as visible as a red bull in the world. With Pluto and Saturn on the South Node of the Moon (not an object in the sky but an astrological point, this one related to our pasts), both squaring the New Moon, it feels like Saturn is the guard, patrolling my insides, making sure I do what I need to do in order to grow up, while Pluto is the dog, looking for all the forgotten bits of soul I’ve left behind, sniffing them out and calling them home. He bundles them up, makes something beautiful and throws them away. I love it when the planets show up in my dreams. What’s outside is inside. I know I am okay. The past is cleared away. I feel like a new lover to myself.

I have been drinking chamomile tea everyday for two weeks, a plant diet, going deep into what her lesson is for me. What I keep coming back to is clarity: the clarity of her colour which is also the colour of my hair - the clarity of how she allows me to see - the improved clarity of my perception. I realize how clear and bright everyone’s eyes can be, the dream shining back to me my own light, which is everyone’s light, a feeling of wholeness and unity as her golden essence flows through my veins, cleaning my blood. I feel enveloped in a new way of perceiving that is free of judgments, free of my own thinking, in some sense free of me, full of golden tea. She shows me (and I already knew it but we need to be reminded of it) that I am 100% responsible for how I choose to see the world and what I choose to do in it.

I put on my best hat for the day and go out to meet the forces that play with me. They are inconstant, a running stream beneath me. I am not afraid to wade in. I go out with words. I leave a trace, a filament across the sky, my feet on the ground, in the water, my head in the stars. It feels good to be alive.

I’m encouraged by all the positive change I’m seeing in the world. More and more people are connecting to the Earth as a living organism, more and more conversations about plant communication (I’m dreaming of teaching an online course on that!), more and more stores without plastic, more and more countries banning it, more and more - like the inverse of progress - going back to a reciprocal idea of sustainable nourishment and love, and it all starts with ourselves. Pluto is also linked to love and death, two of the greatest forces of transformation. I’ve always been more interested in that for myself than in security or stability, and this explains many of my (sometimes unfortunate) decisions. This interest in transformation can be challenging for human relationship, but it poses no problem with the plants. Maybe that is why I get along with them so well. They are here to help us transform. Sun at my back, warmth in the cold Spring air, I am here to change and to change the world along with me.

If you would like to talk about how I could help you connect to the plants to creatively own your own transformation, you can schedule a free exploratory session with me. I’d love to talk to about how you are feeling your Earth connection in this sensual season and what kind of expression this connection is asking of you.

I made two essences at the New Moon yesterday, Dandelion - my long time ally and supportive friend - and Bleeding Heart who gave me the following lines (we’d been communing about the transformative power of heartbreak over the dark moon week which was quite emotional for me):

My bleeding heart
bleeding all over
onto the ground
healing and feeding the soil
my bleeding heart healing the soul
a white drop from pink
fertile milk of heartbreak
seeding change
and transformation.

And I’ll leave you with that.

You can read more flower essence messages in my shop on this website. A good way to browse: click on the picture of the first image which draws you in when you look at the page. I’m sure the message of the flower will speak right to you, clearly.

I hope you had a wonderful May Day - Beltane- Easter or however you choose to celebrate this season of change. Stay open and loving and I hope to connect with you soon.