I was thinking about my time at the beach on this cold blustery Colorado morning. There is something about the sand and the ocean. How it all comes together, the waves crashing up against the shore. The shore collecting sand, bits of tumbled rock, and presenting washed up treasures from the sea. I keep wanting to go back. Something keeps calling me there. Last year I made a promise to myself to spend every New Year at the beach. I know this year, I won’t be able to go.
Sitting with it now, I will miss the serenity and symbolism the ocean shore holds for me. The continual cycles, waxing and waning like the moon. I am drawn to the primordial constancy of the ocean and shore interplay. It is soothing to know this dance has gone on for as long as the earth has been in existence. Something constant and ever-changing in a chaotic world. I probably long for it even more with the election and a pandemic showing us just how chaotic and divided we are as a nation.
My hope for the future is healing and reconnecting to our humanity within ourselves and in our communities. I wish everyone could see all parts of themselves having value and then being able to see all humans as having value. Once we can value our life and the life of others we can extend kindness to plants, animals, and the earth itself.
In the past, kindness has been seen as a weakness, but it is quite the opposite. Kindness requires vulnerability. It takes strength to understand the back story of a person to honor different opinions. Vulnerability is one of the great strengths humans possess.
One great example is the Human Library Organization (https://humanlibrary.org/) a group headquartered in Denmark focused on “unjudging” someone. The basic concept is getting together and picking a person, a living book, based on a sign labeling them with a common stereotype. You have a chance to sit down with them, ask questions, and hear their story. Stereotypes such as Muslim, refugee, homeless, alcoholic, polyamorous, and body modification are a few of the many stereotypes represented.
When I came across the Human Library Project, I teared up thinking this is the way forward to heal our world by practicing vulnerability and connecting with our common humanity. No matter what nationality, religion, or political affiliation, we all have something in common. We are all worried and fearful about the future, we all love our families and want to have success and security in life.
The path forward requires us to embrace our own humanity. The word humanity encompasses both human beings collectively and also the characteristics shared by all humans such as kindness, mercy, and sympathy. An example of humanity is treating someone with kindness. ( https://www.yourdictionary.com/humanity) Feeling safe and empowered to be vulnerable is the secret ingredient to respectful, meaningful, and kind interactions with people from all different backgrounds. We are all on this planet together, it can’t be us vs them. It has to be all of humankind together.
I’ve found plant essences to be most helpful in healing our own woundedness around being human. Common issues that disconnect us from our humanity are being judgmental toward ourselves and others, disconnecting from yourself, believing you are not enough, attempting perfection, or past traumas making it feel unsafe to be openhearted or vulnerable. Healing our own wounds leaves us more able to interact with others from a place of kindness and less reactivity fostering healing within families, communities, countries, and the world.
The following are excerpts from plant essences found in my book Honoring the Wisdom in Nature: Messages From the Plant Kingdom. If you feel strongly connected to the plant’s message, there are many ways to interact with the plant and receive its support: sit with the live plant, take the liquid essence for a 28 day challenge, get a greeting card to put on your fridge or bedside to remember the affirmation, wear a pendant to receive help from the plant all day. Purchase
Nasturtium
Nasturtiums have beautiful saucer-shaped leaves and bright orange flowers. Nasturtium works best if you feel disconnected from your heart, looking for happiness outside of yourself, pushing out of self in order to feel powerful, or needing to feel superior to others to feel valued.
“Nasturtium help you awaken your own source of inner radiance. A place of shining freely, openly, supporting growth and strength. Stay in your own power. Be true to yourself. Practice having faith and trusting. Practice compassion for self. Lose the judgment. Focus on connecting within yourself. Believe that life offers exactly what you are looking for. Keep growing, see the light. Enlightenment is the ability to see the light in each living being, human and all of nature.”
Affirmation: “Power comes from owning your truth and expressing it in all that you do. The place you long to connect to is within yourself.” Read more
Parry’s bellflower
Parry’s bellflower is a tiny bluebell flower on a single stock. Parry’s bellflower works on healing self-judgment, over-responsibility, striving for something unattainable for self and others, and believing that you are not enough spiritually. It helps you accept yourself and others issues and all.
“See the divine light shining through each life regardless of choices. The divine light cannot be snuffed out or die. Know that life provides the perfect blend of experiences for each person. Let go of trying to change other people. Accept and trust the flow of life and the flow of the divine in your daily life. See how much easier life gets when you release over-responsibility, judgment, and striving, especially in spiritual matters.” Read more
Prairie coneflower
You can’t miss prairie coneflower with its signature flower growing in clusters on the sides of trails here in Colorado. Prairie coneflower addresses placing others needs before your own, being codependent: gaining self-worth from helping others when it is detrimental to yourself and feeling other people’s stress in your belly.
“Give yourself a big hug. Feel the love, the strength, and the support you have within yourself. Prioritize your own needs before others and see what problems clear up in your life. Ask yourself what you really want to do and then go do it. No need for reason or rationale. Put yourself first. Feel the strength and support of self-love and see how it feels in your body. Love people unconditionally because you love yourself unconditionally. I heal all wounds with love. I am the one that will take time to listen no matter how many times the same things come up. I will not fail you in my presence and love. I give you hope that this love is present in human interactions: unconditional support, kindness, and unwavering solace.” Read more
Affirmation: “Let the power of love heal you.”
Tea rose
Tea rose is a hybrid rose with big beautiful fragrant flowers. Tea rose focus on issues around lying to yourself because the truth seems too hard, ignoring or compartmentalizing parts of yourself you do not like, or believing mistakes are weaknesses.
“Mistakes are what make us human. See the value of experience. The love that flows from expressing yourself. The beauty is in truth, awareness, and awakening of self-knowledge. Tea rose peels off layers to get to the heart of the matter. Find what feelings are raw and vulnerable and start the healing process.”
Release past justifications and uncover deception. Peel away past grievances still held in the body. Fill up with unconditional love to see the truth and release the layers without it crushing you. Tea rose helps you go to deeper places that you have been afraid to see. Love all your parts even when what is mirrored back is not pretty. Within your environment, Tea Rose encourages beautifying your surroundings and in return, the beauty responds in bringing you peace, joy, and contemplation.
Affirmation “Let your mind go and receive help from all that is around you. Find peace and know.” Read more
Vicia
Vicia are delicate purple flowers growing close to the ground. Vicia excels at break free from past control, roles, judgment, and morality, living life based on things passed down from generation to generation, or making choices based on what other people want for you.
“Clear out past memories and emotions stored in the body. Once you are clear from past baggage, you are able to connect to free choice, direction, and the path to take in life.
Vicia clears by freeing you from the past so that you can make choices that support who you are now. Know yourself freed from the past held in your body. My task is great as all humans hold so many memories in their bodies. I speak the words of free expression through movement, song, and dance. I release you from the hold of others: the path others chose for you, the meaning in your life laid out by others.
Vicia invites you to sit and take another look. Find unexpected beauty with something or someone if you take the time to look.
Affirmation: “Reclaim your power by clearing out the past, and prepare to live life in full revelry and joy. Know that the path is yours!” Read more
Wild geranium
Wild geraniums are bushy plants with light purple flowers with deep purple veins. Wild geranium addresses issues with fear, lack, despair, desperation, perfectionism, a closed heart, and looking for people to take care of you or comfort you.
“Be an example of generous gifting. Have an open heart even if no one else does. Apply the same generous softness to yourself. Wild geranium provides a template that we can all win. We can all support one another. Be still and know the beauty of life is in the little moments. Each sacred and deep connecting us to life, to purpose, to our senses, and to deep knowing.
Wild Geranium transports you to another place. Find the place inside yourself available at any moment that transcends thoughts and emotions and reminds you that there is a peaceful, comforting, knowing available anytime you need solace: to be held, to be told, to be saturated with the feeling that everything will be all right. In this place, sitting here, your purpose and goals begin to unfold, quietly, subtly, and with all the force of your essence. All of this will happen internally, outwardly unaware to others and inwardly a magnificent transformation, an infusion of life force. Read more
I hope you have found inspiration in the powerful messages from these amazing plants. Check out Honoring the Wisdom in Nature: Messages from the Plant Kingdom to learn more about the healing properties of plant essences and get to know 54 plant essences. If one of the plant messages really spoke to you, try taking the plant essence for a 28 day challenge to change the patterns you wish to heal, buy a pendant to wear as a reminder of the healing affirmation, or purchase it as a greeting card to put on your fridge, mantel or give to a friend. Click here to purchase.