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!

The Beans Inside: Finding Inner Peace with the New Moon in Virgo

Beautiful heirloom runner bean blossoms - Scarlet Emperor - will turn to magical, large purple-black beans in long hairy pods.

This New Moon in Virgo had me in quarantine. I got to go back for one afternoon to my garden, gather some squash, check on the blossoms and the beans before returning to my partner’s house where we were sheltering from the world in case we had the dreaded virus. I felt a little trapped. My own sovereign maiden of autumn did not feel resplendent in colorful leaves. She felt a bit imprisoned. The news came pouring in like so many gusts of ill-fated wind. I couldn’t do anything and I felt nervous at every unnecessary interaction. I found it hard to relax, though I had all the time in the world and all of my needs were being met.

On the day of the New Moon, I played the role of the grumpy maiden. I could not see clearly enough to write my lunar download, but I did take a bath and I did sit in some mists which ultimately lifted, or are lifting, on my way to composure and peace. How are you currently finding peace?

Mars Square Saturn and Pluto
Mars is currently retrograde, moving backwards towards ever closer squares with Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn. These aspects were trine the New Moon. A trine is a gentle aspect, and this one probably shed a gentle shadow on how the Mars Retrograde square might be affecting you. I hope you had the time to reflect on this and see behind the veil you may have felt with this New Moon. I have felt the Mars/Pluto square generally as a kind of ennui; j’en ai marre, you would say in French. A fed-upness with the way things are yet an inability and an unwillingness to take action. This has forced me to consider my own patterns of self-sabotage and unwillingness to seek help or take advice. I’ve focused on finding enjoyment in this feeling of stuckness. A few weeks ago, when the Mars/Pluto square was first exact, I made a Hollyhock flower essence which helps me see these patterns of resistance to positive action in myself and in others.

Hollyhock Flower Essence, made especially for the Mars/Pluto square, up in my shop soon.

How am I getting mired in shadow? What do I need to do to move forwards? How can I help others? As usual, the flower brings clarity when I take this flower essence - I’ve taken it as I write this! Let me know if you would like some to work with during this transit.

Heavier and Heavier
Mars square Saturn bares down on us heavily as well, maybe even more so since the planet Saturn is closer to our Sun. We will feel this pressure through October. It’s been a while since I’ve focused on my own Saturn work, necessary work I think for all those of us incarnated here in the material. Saturn represents Time and reminds us of our limits. We can work with him by developing a pattern to our activities. Lately though I have felt like I don’t want to be too strict with what I require of myself. Saturn stifles Mars’ natural energy for action. How can I work with my limitations in an encouraging way?

Inner Child Work
Lately a new friend in a tarot session suggested that I touch base more often with my inner child, to make sure she feels okay about the actions I am taking (the session was lovely! Thank you Holly! Find her on Instagram @rainbow.time.apothecary). Maybe I can temper a conflicted Saturn, who feels somewhat bound in Capricorn, with my childishness, with playfulness? Maybe I can add variety to my days, even if I am stuck at home or limited because I need to make money in certain ways. Maybe I can just approach my whole life more playfully, as a game I must play. I can follow the rules of course, one must, but I can also take pleasure when pleasure becomes available, or make my daily grind pleasurable by perceiving it that way.

Change Within Change
So much change reverberates right now through the world, and within this we find ourselves in a season of change. Summer cools and fades to Autumn. I recently learned that the colonizers of the “new world”, which we now call New England, renamed Autumn “Fall” because the leaves fall, and they do, dramatically. Currently they are just beginning to blush to red. Fire lights the trees. In the West, fires are still burning, in brighter colors, more alive, ushering in rapid change. This feels painful, like molting skins in a molten land. I think anyone who feels connected to the land feels this too. I want to trust the Earth and where we are all going, but I feel raw and stripped, with not much to hold on to. I think of the seeds that will grow, their hard casings released by fire, and know that this season fills a necessary role in our planetary evolution. We just have to tow the line. And harvest. We must harvest.

Harvesting Beans
As I sat down to write today, a day after the New Moon in Virgo when she is already waxing in Libra, I thought of the peas in their pods, of the purple pole beans that are still growing and swelling outside on their vines. They are still flowering, offering their small red cushions to the bees. I sit writing in a careful, protected space I made during these indoor days, a place to write and read and knit and meditate. We all need this kind of inner sanctum. I know how to build one no matter where I am because I built one in my own breast. Just like the beans that are still swelling in their envelopes, we need to build ourselves safe spaces in which our seeds may grow.

Inner Work, Inner Peace
Summer teaches us how express ourselves while winter teaches us how to move inside. From here, we can observe ourselves, our mental make up, our neuronal connections, and decide which ones to favor and which ones to lay aside. We can also play with them and change them! In June I joined an online community called WEALTH, run by Caroline Elliot and her husband. I learned an amazing and enjoyable form of shadow integration from Carolyn called Existential Kink. She has written a book on the topic and started this community for other thought leaders who want to work with inner alchemy to change themselves and ultimately the world. I highly recommend getting involved if you want a wonderful platform and new friends to play with. You can apply to join now. This kind of inner work, no matter the situation you may find yourself in, brings a sense of inner peace because it teaches you how to, step by step, embrace all your inner shadows, all the little complex beans and seeds that line your being. I can just do the work and watch them swell. I don’t need to stress about outcome, I just know that the more I plant myself, the stronger and more true to myself I will become.

If you enjoyed this essay and want to know more about my work, make a free appointment with me today. I help people who grieve their lost Earth connection find their creative flow again.
You can download my free guide to plant communication here.

Two Deer in the Dark: A Full Moon Eclipse in Cancer and the Saturn Pluto Conjunction

My body has felt heavy for days. I can’t blame it on the holidays, which I had trouble getting through, physically: a bad cold, a sprained wrist. I couldn’t DO. I could just be, and watch those around me, and sleep, and drink liquids. I couldn’t lift. I had to be careful with the wood I needed to move to feed the fire. I had to do things with my right hand. I couldn’t write. My body was heavy for days. It reminded me of periods of grief I’ve lived through, but I wasn’t grieving, I was sinking and slowing. Who was I? What was it? Something was changing.

Then the Full Moon came last Friday and I started to see. Veils were lifted and I was exposed. Fires were burning, animals were dying. Here it kept snowing, and I wrote even though it hurt. I wrote poems, about the fires, and the deer I saw in the dark, and the fire I tended here. What was far felt near. I took a bath and scrubbed away all that I know needed scrubbing away. And it feels like what was personal last Full Moon - the dropping of identities I no longer need - was true for humanity. The appearance of what we are - selfish capitalists bent from greed destroying the planet for things we don’t even need - drops away to reveal something sweeter. We help each other. And now when I read about the fires in Australia, that is what I see, stories of people helping animals and each other survive in this situation we’ve created. It doesn’t make it better, but it makes it easier to move forward and to change. The Full Moon in Cancer, eclipsed, made me feel mothered and mothering in the dark. I felt immense sadness, but also deep compassion.

The weight of the darkness and also the embrace of it represent the Saturn Pluto conjunction to me. It is heavy. Saturn makes us feel the weight of time and death and Pluto demands that we become intimate with it. But like a veil, or a thick dark shell, maybe we are breaking out of ourselves and the darkness we have carried all these years. The last such conjunction was in 1982, and on the day of the conjunction, as I meditated with it, I literally felt drop away from me a childhood trauma that has haunted me since I started to be able to see it.. Maybe the fires and destruction we are witnessing are like this too. We have started to see the harm we are doing to the Earth, and the burning is killing, but it is also perhaps the first steps to break free from the destructive habits of consumerism, to break free from wasting energy, to break free from burning our one little blue planet, so precious and alive in the dark. In a way we are breaking through. I like this image anyways, as if humanity, shining as it truly does, is encased in a hard, black shell, and all we have to do is push our way through to become who we truly are.

My hearth fire continues to occupy me. In addition to being relatively immobile, I was also out of wood. This Friday though two neighbors came to help me take down a dead Hophornbeam tree from the woods behind my house. I did not know this tree, but it was carefully chosen by my friend because it was more than ready, and I think it had reached out to him. It had probably been dead for five years he said and it was waiting for its next life in the fire. It warmed me twice, or five times over as I dragged the logs through the snow and down and back again, following deer trails.

I am getting to know this tree now that its wood is warming me. I lugged it over snow in a sled to my wood shed while my hardier neighbors, in full use of their wrists, split it for me. Since warming myself almost exclusively with wood from the land around me this winter, I am endlessly amazed at the abundance the trees give to me, especially since the White Pine fell behind my house and supplied me with an endless amount of needles for tea. And here was this second gift of wood, gift of body. My wish for 2020 is to be always aware of this abundance around me. The quantity of nourishment the animal gives. They way I ate that venison stew for days, made from a two pound gift of a hunter friend who shot it in the ravine behind my house. The way the Christmas ham lasted weeks and we just finished the post-Christmas turkey. It’s unbelievable really. And yet we are fed this story of scarcity which makes us box and package it all and feel poor. Well, I dream of another life for me and the trees. We dream of it together as the Hophornbeam, also called Ironwood or locally, Hardhack, keeps me warm. It smells sweet and burns long. My nights aren’t cold anymore.

I met two deer in the dark.
One stayed, one ran.
I stopped. I sent out
gratefulness to the first,
I thanked her for being there,
We felt our hearts expand.

The second turned and ran
as I kept walking up
the hill in snow.
The moon was out,
more than a half,
my shadow fell.

The trees creaked.
I caught the white of tail
as the second deer ran,
a flash in the moonlight.
I wonder when
we will connect again.

Here is to what you may meet in the dark and the clarity that comes. I hope you have a fire or a candle to stare into and I hope you dreaming is long and your being as true to you as you can muster. I’m looking to work with some new creatives who want to explore their connection to plants, so if you are called, make an appointment with me here. Would you like a Flower Essence to accompany you through the remaining darker days? You can find a selection here or make an appointment with me to see which one might be right for you now.

Stay well and strong.

Amy

Goats in the Tree: Slowing to Eclipse and Surrendering to Capricorn in 2020

The Tree Climbing Goats of Morocco

Since the Winter Solstice, I’ve been going slower and slower, surrendering to this time of the year and to the demands of my body. On one side of the December 25th New Moon and Solar Eclipse, I fell on the ice and sprained my wrist. On the other, I got a cold, caught from my wonderful, visiting nieces and nephews. I felt depleted, underground, depressed. I lost sight of my purpose and felt pain. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t do much of anything. I had to surrender. What did I surrender to?

First I surrendered to the New Moon in Capricorn. Capricorn energy is a goat scampering up a huge mountain, from the depths to the heights he strives, but the going is tough and he doesn’t have much room on the ledges he chooses to pause on. During a climb, there is always that part of it where you have to surrender to the fact that you are climbing. I read that it wasn’t a good New Moon for making intentions and for manifestation and I felt this too; it was better to observe. So that is what I did.

Uphill, downhill. I trudged and drove up and down, back and forth between my house and the house where my family was gathered. As happens when family is about, I had to see and surrender to the things in my life that I don’t like. If I am a goat, it means I don’t mind going where it is hard for others to go. I’m climbing towards the sun even when it is dark. I’m climbing out of the cave, off of the page. Restrictions. I think this was all good practice for the year to come. It will be a year filled with this Capricorn energy. We’ll have to adapt as best we can as Saturn conjuncts Pluto in Capricorn. Right now, as I write, Jupiter is there conjunct Mercury. The Sun is moving through it towards Saturn and Pluto which are almost conjunct. I don’t know how anyone can imagine moving quickly. I can barely move at all, what with all these goats trying to climb and so little room. I’m left laughing though, with that image in my mind of the goats that climb the tree. Maybe that is a better image of the year for me. The tree the goats like to climb is an Argan tree, which grows in Morocco and produces one of my favorite oils. It whispers to me of abundance in aridity and longevity; it’s known for keeping the skin youthful. I’ll keep that message with me.

I’ve been thinking about what an eclipse is. In expressions, to eclipse something means to leave it behind, in the dust, to make it disappear. Literally an eclipse means that darkness, the moon, covers the light, the sun, leaving a halo before moving on and revealing the light to us again. This ring of fire exists because of the darkness, reminding us of the sun and how it will come again. On this side of the Solstice, though we are still deep in Winter, I know that the buds on the empty trees are already getting ready, beginning to swell, light yellow on the horizon amidst the grey. But first there is more to let go of, and often an eclipse will help release things we have been unwilling to release.

With letting go we find restrictions too. Sometimes I feel bound by the things I want to keep. Yet what is hardest to let go of? I realized this season that, ironically, what is hardest to let go of is what I don’t like about myself. These parts are hardest to let go of because I haven’t owned them yet, I don’t even want to see them. How can I accept these parts of the real me that I don’t like? I found that just being with them, instead of fighting with myself about them, or thinking about how I could change them, made them fit to my skin, and though itchy at first like a wool suit, I found I could adjust to them and then slough them off, letting them drop in the fire, like the thoughts that come unbidden in the morning, reminding me of my failures or shortcomings. I could befriend them. I could even feel happy and content with them. I could enjoy my family gatherings with a cold. I could be with people and not have to do anything. My hurt wrist prevented me from overdoing, trying to please, or even doing the minimum to help. I had to sit back and surrender to the restrictions of my injury. It wasn’t so bad actually. Everyone helped me and no one complained. I even got to be a little bit princess-y. So though I felt down, I also felt held in the dark, thankful for sleep and rest. These days I wake up in the mornings thrilled to be in my warm bed, with no thoughts at all in my head. I’ve taken the time to do nothing.

So as we move into 2020, it’s heavy there on the South Node, with all those goats in the tree. Maybe that’s you and me. Maybe the smartest thing to do is not to move at all, for we might fall and I don’t think I can catch you. But if we balance, if we let things be, we might get through, and hear the wind in the trees, and what the essence of the tree is telling us to do. I’m starting to get an idea. Are you?

If you want to talk about the cosmic energies, and the ones the plants might be whispering about to you, make an appointment with me here. I’m currently accepting new creatives who would like to deepen their creative practice by honing their Earth connection with the plants for three or six month online, one-on-one programs. What would it be like to work with me? Make an appointment for a free consultation to find out!