After Sunday night, I have reconsidered my idea of a sure thing.

I have settled on seed catalogs. All those gorgeous shots of plenty. Close ups of melons larger than small children and pumpkins larger than small trucks. People so pumped up by heritage seeds they are singing old time music out in their fields. Cherubic children walking through gardens with every inch of space awash in perfect blossoms.

It’s very restful.

No hint of late frosts, early frosts, too much rain, too little rain, too much heat, too little heat, things that didn’t germinate, weeds that germinated too well or pesky insects of any sort.

That’s all saved for later. That’s saved for game time when I am actually out in the gardens with whatever did or did not grow.

And somehow, when I get to be up to my elbows in earth, I find myself able to be more philosophical about the ups and downs, the crop glories and the failures. I don’t really care that my Cosmos don’t look like the ones in the Park Seed catalog or that I get two small melons versus forty five hundred like the photo in the Bakers Heirloom Seeds catalog. If one crop is meager, something else is usually flourishing. We get to wallow in turnips instead of potatoes.

And if everything was to go wonky, I would still get to smell the earth.

There’s a lesson for me in all this. Let’s just hope I can remember it next time something goes south in some other part of my life. (What do you guess? With UPS as well as computers in my life a window longer than five or ten minutes between some sort of glitch is unlikely.)

Anyways, back to the point.

Gratitude. There is always so much to be grateful for.

Even when the Patriots were on their slow march to defeat, Megan’s fried macaroni and cheese was bringing pleasure. And that awful book about the knitting club? My gyrations to avoid an unhappy book have me laughing still.

Onwards! Adventures ahead! Bring it on! But don’t expect me to chose a mid life career change to Vegas odds maker. I think I will retire from predicting sports outcomes right now………

CRASH!

From downstairs the Sheehan men could hear the noise. And they probably knew what was happening too.

I was throwing a book against the wall. Again.

In my effort to stop caring about things that don’t matter, aren’t real, and are not my concern, I have stopped reading books that demand a pound of flesh and six hours of my tears.

You would think this would be easy to do. All I need to do is find happy books.

Now I wonder, is ANYONE writing happy books?

Take for instance the book that hit the wall today.

It was about A KNITTING CLUB.

You’d think a book about a knitting club would be a safe bet for a happy read. It might be dull. It might be trite. But unhappy? How much violence, death, disease, heartbreak, and gratutious pain to the reader could a book about a knitting group bring? Apparently ALOT.

Three quarters of the way through the book, I thought I was home free.

All the members of the knitting club, a motley crew who had begun the book with their lives in knots, were experiencing improbable, but refreshingly happy plot twists. It was a very restful unravelling. Then the author pulls out the old “Love Story” land mine and blows the book and my heart to smithereens.

After I had fast forwarded through the last hundred pages in which the heroine dies unexpectedly after reuniting with the love of her life, I looked at the cover for hints that this book about yarn was going to hold such a cargo of angst.

Buried in the pages and pages of upbeat praise for this “impossible to put down” book was the clue I had missed that indicated this would not be a frothy romp about expensive skeins of cashmere or gauge mistakes made right.

“A Steel Magnolias for the twenty-first century.”

The old Steel Magnolias reference was a dead give-away and I missed it the first time I was vetting the book. I had only myself to blame, which is really why I threw the book.

And those listening to my book bashing? It was the male equivalent of a knitting club, a huddle of assorted men and boys draped over the couches downstairs, relaxing before tonight’s superbowl.

My irritation about yet another bad read did not phase them at all. After all, they have a venue for tonight’s game that includes a large enough TV to meet their needs, an apparently unbeatable team, and the promise of fried macaroni and cheese made by Ben’s girlfriend Megan to keep them fueled for however long it takes to get their happy ending.

They were in football la la land, the kind of la la land I was trying to achieve with my knitting club nightmare book.

Seeing them in a happy mass in front of the TV, pretending that they aren’t really planning to watch eight hours of pre game hype, I made an executive decision. Maybe they are on to something. After all, the Patriots and Tom Brady are about as much of a sure bet for a happy ending as it gets on or off the playing field.

Yup, I am watching the game tonight. I am going to pretend I care a lot so I can catch a bit of that happy ending euphoria they’ve all had during the Patrioits undefeated season. I only hope that my attention to the game doesn’t bring a freak twist to the proceedings.

Nah, I think we’re safe. I am sure I haven’t heard any of the sportscasters call the Patriots a bunch of Steel Magnolias for the twenty first century. Well not yet anyways.

Super sleuth Ben has been here to weigh in on why the photos are not going up on the blog.

He also fiddled around to fix the problem to no avail. Theory number one has to do with the comment section after each blog.

You may have noticed that I have never gotten a handle on sorting and posting the comments. The main reason for this is that we get so much spam in the comments section that I can’t keep up with sorting the spam from the genuine comments.

Like right now. I have 161,476 comments awaiting my attention. This is the actual number there to sort.

When I started today to delete these in groups of about twenty, which was all the blog program seemed to allow for, Ben did a quick calculation to see how long that approach was going to take me.

He said it was going to take me 67 hours to delete the spam at the rate I was going. This sort of took the wind out of my sails.

Ben is going to research how to do a big dump of this spam, because he thinks that perhaps the spam is taking up so much room on the blog that I no longer have room to post photos. He explained to me that words take much less cyber space than photos, hence I may have enough space for these comments but not for any photos.

Ben has gone back to his world with a promise of trying to figure this out sometime this weekend when he has more time. Probably not during the Superbowl I would guess, but hopefully before the game.

Thanks for your patience and please continue to send any blog feedback to the green.hope.farm@valley.net email address versus commenting on the blog. That way I will actually get to read your thoughts!

After many days of mysterious technical difficulties with the New St John Flower Essence blog and many fruitless hours of me rebuilding it and reposting it to no avail, I am going to try and get Ben to come help me figure out why the photographs are failing to post. In the meantime, I am just going to leave up this modified version that has no photos. Will hopefully fix this soon. Thank you to all of you who alerted me that there were still problems with the posting! It continues to take a village!

Here is the Calabash Tree I have been studying for a decade.

FABULOUS PHOTO COMING SOON!

Here are some Calabash fruits beginning to grow on some of the main branches. They can take up to seven months to mature to full sized fruits. The Flowers are wide open cup shaped blossoms in pale green with some slightly maroon stripping,

ANOTHER PHOTO TO COME!

Here is my Flower Essence definition for Calabash:

Calabash Crescentia cujete
I am thrilled to offer Calabash Flower Essence. For a number of trips to St John, the Calabash blossoms appeared to be just past when we arrived, with blossoms on the tree shriveled and beyond use in a Flower Essence. This year there were still some blossoms coming along, but when I returned to check on them, they would be shriveled as well. I grew more determined to figure out how I could make this Essence. I studied the plant books I had with me and learned that Calabash is a night bloomer, pollinated by bats. Each blossom is only opened for one night. This meant I needed to look for blossoms very early in the morning before they finished their bloom cycle. And so I finally landed this Essence, collecting its beautiful soft green Flowers early one morning before the blossoms had closed.

I was interested in this tree for many reasons. There were silly reasons, including the fact that I love saying the word CALABASH! Another reason I looked so hard for Calabash is that I have noticed that trees that are a vital part of human community often have great Flower Essences and Calabash has a long history of close connection to humans. Throughout the Americas, Calabash is the source for maracas and many other gourd creations including bowls, water jugs, sacred art, and masks.

Another reason I was drawn to the tree is that it has an unusual configuration of fruit and Flower placement and these kinds of difference often mean unique Flower Essence strengths. Calabash unusual configuration gives it a very distinctive look with its Flowers and green fruits hanging right from the trunk of the tree and its angular main limbs instead of off smaller branches as is the case with most fruits. This Flower and fruit placement is an unusual adaptation for a plant, brought about because Calabash fruits can get to the size of basketballs before falling from the trees and these fruits are too weighty to be held on the tree by smaller branches.

I also noticed that Calabash is much beloved by epiphytic orchids and bromeliads and I was interested in what that plant association suggested about Calabash.

Calabash interested me for one last reason. Traditional herbal uses for Calabash included giving roasted Calabash pulp to newly delivered mothers to help with the delivery of the placenta. This, combined with the fact that the hard shelled Calabash fruits are so sturdy that only horses can crack open a ripened fruit, suggested to me a protective quality to Calabash as it relates to the feminine and issues of creativity.

Even since we first started sharing this Essence a few short weeks ago, we have gotten much feedback from you as well as more data from the Angels about the importance of Calabash Flower Essence. The feedback and insights from the Angels has been linked in particular to the plant’s signature of impenetrable shells and the use of Calabash inner pulp post partum.

The Angels are adamant that it is time for women to get clear about what is their true calling as opposed to what they are being told is their work in the world. The Angels have used the word hemorrhage to describe the current situation of women leaking of their life force energy and creative energy into projects, lives, and situations that are not their responsibility. Just as we must sustain the placenta while giving birth, we must let it go completely after birth. This complete cut and dried necessity underscores Calabash’s great support to help us get clear what is and what isn’t our work in the world. The time has come to know what we must let go of, even though these things we must release once served us and those we love.

It is time to radically improve our boundaries.

Calabash speak for itself to underscore and better explain its myriad vibrational strengths, “I AM a nurturing vessel. My ability to cradle water for civilization, my tenderly yet strongly held fruits generously offered to the human community, my soft green Flowers and green fruits all indicate my essential vibration as nurturer and sustainer. As a Flower Essence, I bring you generous support and sustenance for your spiritual journey. I help you make it a practical journey, a well stocked expedition, and one in which you feel amply supported. I embrace you and help you carry on. I AM good for the weary and foot sore. I AM good for those birthing new creations, offering much needed support after the birth. I help you jettison all that you don’t need after a birth process, helping you know it is safe and necessary to let go of things that once served you, but no longer do. I AM both a comfort and a rock of strength. I help you feel strong and able to keep on keeping on. I AM for you. Avail yourself to me and feel my bedrock love for you.”

I AM a Wellspring of Love.

SOON THERE WILL BE a photo of Cat’s Claw, sadly a bit out of focus, BUT HOPEFULLY VISIBLE RIGHT HERE!

Cat’s Claw Macfadyena unguis-cati
This gorgeous yellow Flowered vine is one many of you have requested we make into a Flower Essence. When I met it for the first time along the Leinster Bay Road in St. John, I was most delighted to make its acquaintance. I made the Essences in the sunshine of our tent’s small deck, poised about thirty feet from the beach. While this Essence sat in the sunshine, I had to guard it with great care, as local birds would just not leave this Essence alone. Their relentless interest in the Essence indicated to me that Cat’s Claw was going to be a vibrant and helpful healing ally. After all, if the bananaquits and pearly-eyed thrashers needed this remedy so much, even while living in a tropical paradise, what a source of helpful information it must be for animals and humans more removed from nature, like us humans of the modern world. This conclusion was backed up by the Angels who again, directed me to bring back as much of this Essence as I could.

Cat’s Claw is a tendriled liana, a vine with hooked tendrils resembling animal claws. These hooks help the vine to grow upwards. The Angels of Cat’s Claw and Flower Essences explain, “One gift of cat’s claws is the ability to smoothly engage and disengage as needed. This Essence supports us to move forward in a situation with both appropriate holding on and appropriate letting go. Many difficulties faced by humans and animals alike come from misunderstanding when it is time to let go of a situation and when it is time to hold on. This Essence brings its wisdom of discernment to this issue. Consider Cat’s Claw for all the situations that this discernment would be helpful, such as when embroiled in any situation without clarity about whether it serves you to stay in this situation or leave or when an animal in your care is engaged in a counter productive pattern that it cannot seem to abandon. Holding the image of the engagement and retraction of a cat’s claw will help you know when this Flower Essence will serve you.”

I AM the balance of engagement and retraction.

Below is Christmas Bush, followed by its Flower Essence definition.

MISSING PHOTO!

Christmas Bush Chromolaena odorata
When I met this Flower for the first time on my 2007 trip to St. John, I suspected this would be a marvelous Flower Essence. Its presence was sparkling and its Flowers closely resembled Boneset, a veritable font of healing energy and information. The Angels asked me to make a lot of Christmas Bush and so indicated that Christmas Bush was an important Flower Essence to bring into our collection.

When I went to research this plant, I found it is a well known healing plant, used in topical creams throughout the world and studied by many scientists. It is used clinically in the treatment of soft tissue wounds, burns, skin infections, and for plastic and reconstructive surgery. Its leaf extract has anti oxidant, anti inflammatory and anti staphylococcal properties. It enhances the growth of fibroblasts and endothelial cells. Fibroblasts provide a structural framework for many tissues and play a critical role in wound healing. Endothelial cells line the entire circulatory system and reduce friction of the flow of blood allowing fluid to be pumped further.

As a Flower Essence, Christmas Bush will do what all Flower Essences do. It will offer a road map for healing without bringing the actual chemicals of the plant to bear. It offers a tutorial to our own electrical system about how to do maximize our own wound healing, circulatory flow, and viral and bacterial resistance capabilities.

Christmas Bush clarified that its wound healing gifts extend well beyond the physical body and that this should be an Essence considered for emotional wounds as well.

At the Angels’ behest, we have already added Christmas Bush to our Healthy Coat mix, but of course it is available as a separate Flower Essence as well.

I AM the safe closure of all wounds.

Here is Coco Plum with Flower Essence definition to follow.

MISSING PHOTO

Given its definition, this was a very appropriate and sweet way to take its picture, though at the time Elizabeth and I did this because we could not get a picture in focus any other way, not because we consciously knew what it was about.

Coco Plum Chrysobalanus icaco This was a Flower I noticed for the first time this trip. It was the honeybees that called me to Coco Plum. They obviously liked the small slightly greenish Flowers of this small beachside tree. Coco Plum tells us, “ I AM for healing the particular. My small green Flowers cluster round to offer their vibrational wisdom about healing and nurturing in the particulars of life. I AM for the little things, the small insults, the little hurts, the insect bites, the tiny discomforts. I work on the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical levels, offering ways to soothe discomfort in the particulars.

I AM a soothing balm, mending and healing the discomforts of daily life

MISSING PHOTO is of Inkberry Flower.

MISSING PHOTO is what Inkberry looks like growing on the beach. What a view this specimen has, looking out across a lovely passage toTortola in the British Virgin Islands.

Inkberry Scaevola plumieri
Also known as Fanflower, Beach Lobelia, Sea Lobelia, Gullfeed, Half Flower, Waxy Bush and in Ghana, West Africa, it is known as “blue fruit of the spirits.”

Native to Western Australia, this plant is rarely found outside Oceania. As a drift seed, Inkberry will occasionally drift to Africa, the Pacific, and the Caribbean after a journey of tens of thousands of miles. Drift seeds account for .1 percent of the 250,000 seed bearing plant species on earth. Half of these drift seed species will not last for more than a month or so in ocean waters. Inkberry is a valiant and tough exception in the seed bearing world. It can withstand the many months, even year long, journey to new shores before establishing itself on new beachheads. Somehow an Inkberry seed found its way to the beach where I have always gone to look for Painkiller Plant, Red Mangrove, and Bay Cedar and established itself convincingly since my last trip to St John in 2005.

The Flower resembles other Lobelia Flowers though it is larger with soft striping on white petals. Its fruits are a dark inky purple, giving rise to the name the Angels chose from amongst its other common names. Inkberry’s wide open and spreading bottom petals resemble the open tailgate on an amphibious vehicle that allows vehicles onboard to drive onto the sands. So too, this plant lands and colonizes on shifting sands.

Once ashore, Inkberry forms many spreading branches anchored deeply in the sand. It traps the sand in this many branched configuration and thus creates and stabilizes dunes, all of which contribute to land formation. Once Inkberry is in place and has stabilized the terrain, other plants are able to grow.

Inkberry tells us, “I AM for grounding new ideas, new visions, new ways to solve old problems, and new intellectual properties into daily consciousness. I support the bringing of new thought forms out of the unconscious and then grounding these ideas in a way that others can grasp and then make use of. I offer my support to innovators during the transition from idea into form and will serve anyone who is part of a paradigm shift, big or little.”
I AM the indelible manifestation of the new.
This is Madagascar Periwinkle, followed by its Flower Essence definition. The Flower in the far left that is the deeper pink is the color of all the blossoms. This photo was washed out and I did not get another shot, because I was keeping a truck load of people waiting while I scrambled around in the underbrush (my children would tell you this is the story of their lives).

MISSING PHOTO

Madagascar Periwinkle Catharanthus roseus
This is a Flower I hoped to make into a Flower Essence for many years. During all the years, I have made Flower Essences, the Angels have asked us to sending healing love to the island of Madagascar, source of so many healing plants not found to naturally occur anywhere else on earth. This Flower is a shining example of a healing plant originating in Madagascar. When a St. John friend driving us across the island from Salt Pond Bay stopped at the Love Market Mini Mart in Coral Bay, he gave us a chance to hop out and buy a bottle of water. Instead I high tailed it through the underbrush when a glint of this Flower showed its bright face.

Why the desire to bring this gem into our already burgeoning collection? Extracts from Madagascar Periwinkle have been used for centuries to treat diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, constipation, and menstrual problems. More recently extracts have been shown effective in the treatment of various kinds of leukemia, skin cancer, lymph cancer, breast cancer and Hodgkins disease.

As a Flower Essence, it offers a tutorial on igniting our own healing capacities around these and many other issues. The Essence will not offer the same gifts as the extract but will offer instead a comprehensive roadmap of what exactly Madagascar Periwinkle has learned on its way to becoming such a profound healing plant.

Madagascar Periwinkle speaks for herself, “I know how to break up recalcitrant thought forms and other stuck energy. I am both precise and complete in my healing movement. I have a great deal of star energy and while this may be a rather obscure reference, what I mean to suggest by mentioning this is that I bring higher dimensional healing energy to earth and can help you utilize this energy through exposure to my vibrational matrix. I AM a force of illuminating star energies and my Flower Essence is a very potent way to access my wisdom.

I AM illumined by starlight.

Here is Nicker Nut, followed by its Flower Essence definition.

MISSING PHOTO

Nicker Nut Caesalpinia bonduc “I AM another drift seed like my counterpart on the beach, Inkberry, but we have different trans-global missions and move about the oceans of the world bringing different gifts to the same shores.

I offer gifts of discrimination. My upright wands of yellow Flowers suggest my embodiment of this wisdom. My chosen territory on the between world of the beach, a place that is neither land nor sea, suggests the terrain of my wisdom. When something is being born, be it a project, a new idea, a new way to live, a new understanding of your life purpose, I AM adept at supporting you to know if it is something you want to continue on with. I illuminate the change process so that you can move forward or let go with much greater confidence. As my travels suggest, I also support you to find the courage of your convictions. I help you do what you are deeply called to do. Then I help you know how to protect your new creation. My seedpods are so spiny and sharp that very little gets to my nut, my kernel of manifest wisdom, until my say so. And my nut is a gem of resilience, beauty, solidity, and presence. Once a path is chosen in all your wisdom, I support you to bring it to fruition safely and surely.”

MISSING PHOTO of Spoon Wood, with its Flower Essence definition to follow.

Spoon Tree Bourreria succukenta For clarity of creative vision. Creativity comes from many places, within and without. It springs from the interface of objects, mediums, personalities, as well as from a place deep within each of us. Yet creative acts call us to refine our own distinct voice out of this welter of stimulation.

An artist recently asked me what Essence might help when a creative person is feeling “too porous”, when creative juices get murky, when there is too much stimulation to sort the wheat from the chaff. The Angels offered up Spoon Tree, an elegant white blossomed tree. Each blossom has a noticeable clarity. Other kinds of Flowers sometimes blend and merge in color tones and petal divisibility. Some, like Spoon Tree blossoms, seem particularly articulate in their self definition. I had wondered why the Angels chose Spoon Tree as the common name they wanted us to use for this Flower Essence. There were so many other nicknames for this tree to choose from. But as I thought about this in light of Spoon Tree Essences’s mission, it made more sense. Just as a spoon allows us to take a separate bite, so too Spoon Tree Essence allows us to initiate an unique expression of creativity out of the creative soup which is reality.

I AM the clear expression of my creative self.

Women are beleaguered right now with unrealistic cultural expectations and demands. And for most of us, these demands have been internalized into an unrelenting inner pressure to overfunction.

No terrain is closed off to women any longer, but now we are expected to spread ourselves way too thin across way too many terrains.

We are expected to perfectly juggle jobs, relationships, family, household chores, fitness, our spiritual lives, and in our spare time, save the planet. This is not a recipe for health and is not an approach echoed in nature.

A Flower knows what it is and what it isn’t. It doesn’t expect itself to be all things to all creation or to inhabit every kind of terrain on earth. This isn’t about limitation, but a reflection of self identity. Nature does not move from this principle of self definition. Nothing except the out of control geneticists have told a strawberry that it must be a fish.

Yet that is what women are being told. They are expected to be strawberry and a fish and a whole bag of other groceries. And now a generation that was told, “Isn’t this exciting you can be a fish as well as a strawberry?” is followed by a generation that is born thinking that is must be a fish, a strawberry, and the rest of the groceries all at the same time.

As I look at the Flower Essence mixes I have been drawn to make and the Flowers that I am attracted to, such as the new wonder Calabash, its hard to miss that I am working to support my own journey to a self definition where less is more and that I am also interested in supporting other women to drop the yoke of too many expectations.

All Ego Contracts Null & Void

Carry Less

She Changes

The Sacred Feminine

Flow Free

These are Flower Essence mixes supporting us to let go of bindings that hold us to exhausting lives of unreasonable demands.

Yesterday, as I reread my definition for Calabash, I thought it sounded maybe a tad judgmental, like I was blaming women for doing too much and not tossing the old placenta out fast enough. I don’t mean to sound that way. I love how much women care. I don’t blame us for being in over our heads, but I do think we are the only ones that can fix our own situations. We are the only ones that can choose to live with more discrimination about all the demands being made of us.

In the quiet of our hearts, we do know what we are being called to do and what is simply not our work on earth.

The work is different for each of us, yet the culture would like all of us to do everything. It is better for the economy if we don’t listen to our hearts and if we don’t discriminating between what we are genuinely called to do and what others want us to do.

We are much more kindred spirits of the Flowers that know who they are than one with this crazy culturally imposed definition of “all things to all people”.

Just as each Flower has a terrain that works for its self expression, so each of us has a habitat for our true Flowering. It is time for us to get serious about knowing our terrain and knowing who we really are. It is time to get serious about backing ourselves up as we try to live from this self knowledge.

Only we can decide what to listen to, our heart’s voice or the clamoring of a culture that wants to use us up and spit us out.

Flowers not only know who they are and what their terrain is, they know how to maintain themselves in their territory. They create good boundaries for themselves and don’t get confused about their right to be exactly what they are. If a Flower cannot maintain the sanctity of its growing space, it doesn’t survive. It doesn’t wobble from its I AM.

So too, we must own our heart’s calling and then stand behind what we know to be our truth. We must give ourselves true sanctuary. We must declare to ourselves, “this is why I am here and that is not. This is my purpose and the rest I let go of.” and then live by what we know, one choice at a time.

It is making none of us happy to do the endless bidding of a culture gone crazy. It is time for right relationship with ourselves. It is time to live our truth, not our culture’s.

May the incredible wisdom and clarity of all the Flowers in your life serve each of you to blossom as the uniquely beautiful being that you are.