All posts by Molly

Report on Flow Project #1

I felt kind of embarassed uneasy after posting my last blog. I found myself second guessing my word choice desireless when maybe detachment or simply no mention of any goals would have been a bit less grandiose better. Checking in with the Angels right after I posted the blog, they said they liked the word choice go figure and to just leave it be. I guess that was my first moment of arguing with the flow and then rather ungracefully surrendering to it.

One thing is for sure. Having such a silly impossible goal keeps me laughing. Without even taking into account real challenges, just flowing with the little mishaps of life is keeping me feeling flustered by my hubris on my toes.

Take for example this blog. You may have noticed that recent blogs have been short on photos. This is because though there are eight computers at Green Hope Farm, none of them currently allow me to take a fresh photo or any photo for that matter and put it up on this blog. We’ve all been there with inexplicable technology snafus in which one day everything is working and then the next day nothing works. We’ve all been there with wondering if the upgrade made things better or worse. I imagine we all those of who grew up without computers have moments when we wondered if all this technology is in any way making life simpler or better or aligned with our skill set. Then of course, I may be misinformed about those of us who grew up without computers. Maybe its just me that likes pens vaguely remembers how to write in cursive would prefer less technology.

Just an aside about my first interaction with a computer in 1979 an incident which sets the stage for much of what was to come. I was a first year English teacher at Kimball Union, and it was the end of fall term. Like every other teacher in the place, I had to type my grades into a computer terminal in the science building. The one and only school computer filled many rooms in the building. The machine creeped me out. I thought I had entered all my grades correctly and fled left the building confident I had done what I was supposed to do and relieved to put the first term of overwhelm in the classroom behind me.

And so the data was run and shared with the entire school community as to class rank, grade point averages and all the other details on which the organization hung. Then it was discovered I had entered the data incorrectly and EVERYONE yes, every last teacher had to re-enter their data including me who was heavily supervised during my work in order to have correct data for the school community. You can imagine how popular I was at the holiday party.

But back to the here and now in which eight Green Hope Farm computers take up virtually no room except in my head where I wildly scramble try problem solving approachs to my photo problem including airdropping photos to all eight computers, downloading photos to said eight computers, moving photos from one desktop to another, fixing the problem with “preview not responding” on my favorite of the eight computers, buying more icloud space in case this is a factor etc etc etc. Are you asleep yet?

How ironic that I am the mother of two sons who write code for a living. There really is no explaining their gifts in terms of my genetics. My skills remain rudimentary. Meanwhile Will’s podcast on his crypto currency analysis company Parsec Finance includes zero words which I understand and I do worse comprehending the full sentences. I follow his posts on Twitter. I ask questions although usually my brain melts when the words block chain come up. I listen to Will’s podcast as much as humanly possible. I liken it to listening to ancient Greek, restful once I accept that I will comprehend nothing.

But I digress once again on this report on the Flow Project. So how am I doing? Let’s just say its a good thing I am not expected to grade myself right now or put the data into any computer.

A Flow Project

This week, a young friend gave me a shining example of going with the flow.

Her baby was born with mouth challenges including a very high palate that made nursing impossible. Medical and alternative intervention was sought and still the verdict was that the baby had to be bottle fed. For this mother, it was a deep disappointment, one I remembered from when my own child was born with a cleft palate forty years ago and she too was unable to nurse.

However this young mother turned on a dime to figure out a way forward that involved both pumping breast milk night and day while also bottle feeding her newborn. When I saw her yesterday she was wearing portable pumps that gave her a Dolly Parton profile. She spoke about her new life with such humor and grace that it would have been hard for anyone to guess that this wasn’t exactly what she had hoped for. I had been thinking a lot about the topic of FLOW even before our visit, but afterwards, I felt impelled to put more thoughts about flow into a blog.

I know I have written about flow and Flow Free, our Flower Essence to support flow, in so many blogs. Today I feel even more strongly than ever that learning to flow with life is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. If I have any resolutions for the new year, it is to work more on flowing with what is and to also take on the related project of letting go of desires.

I’ve mentioned this goal of desirelessness to a couple of people who have all looked horrified. This is not a declaration that I am going to enjoy life less. It is more a declaration I am going to try and fight with life less. I actually think that cultivating fewer and fewer desires, expectations and demands of life will mean more happiness not less.

Desiring things to go a certain way ties up so much energy and impedes flow. Life can never be contained or constrained by our desires, yet we spend so much time trying to squash the immensity of life into the forms we desire. Flowing with what is means letting life be what it is and not wasting any more time trying to shape life to my desires. I want to pursue full faith in life just as it flows and embrace this flow instead of fight it.

I wonder what would happen if we all had more faith in life and let it flow without wasting energy trying to make it conform to our expectations. When I look back at my life, it is so often moments when I went with the flow, even a flow that my personality did not like or desire, that left me the most present, the most at peace and the most happy.

Yes, it’s human to want life to go a certain way both in its little moments and in the big. I was heartbroken when my child’s birth defects left her temporarily. unable to hear or eat. I was mad at life. However this was not life punishing me. Life was just being life. And when I let go of my expectations to accept the reality of what was happening, I learned so much. I do not think Green Hope Farm would have happened if I had not gone through these challenges with my daughter. As I’ve heard so many others say, I wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone, but it was so meaningful even essential to my life.

So here I go- embracing the flow more fully in 2024.

Just one more thing. I picked up my knitting journal where I write notes about projects I have knit and various other random stuff. It’s a scrawling book where I note what needles, yarn, patterns and sizes I used to make hats, shawls, mittens and sweaters for myself and the little people in my life. The journal gives me information to correct my mistakes for the next project or repeat a project that has gone well. As I went through the book to plan the next project to cast on, I found I had written this quote from the movie Dune, a quote that seemed to encourage me to go with the flow of my flow project.

“The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to experience, a process that cannot be understood by stopping it. We must move with the flow of the process. We must join it. We must flow with it.”

Post Holidays Flower Essences

A friend told me about a dream she had last night in which every relative in her life came to visit. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, cousins, siblings and parents were all looking for beds in her home which abruptly turned into the home of her great grandfather. In the dream she was trying unsuccessfully to appease the demands of this hoard of family.

Holidays can feel like that, even if we find ourselves alone. Holidays bring up old family business, and sometimes it can feel overwhelming to process all the material surfacing.

Ours was a holiday stretch almost devoid of traditions, company, big family meals or any activities from years past. My dear husband had vertigo, and that kept things simple. Yet even as our holidays were very quiet, I too felt my house was occasionally invaded by unexpected guests. Big personalities in my family of origin stamped holiday activities with their mark and insisted on how even the smallest details of the holidays should be done. So even as these traditions are gone from my life, old opinions of “the right way to do things” occasionally rear their ugly heads.

I have spent decades sweeping these old chestnuts from my life, but housekeeping remains necessary, especially as I run into the same dogma coming from new directions.

And why am I surprised that the same dubious holiday ideas have sprung up like mushrooms again? One has only to turn on the TV for ten minutes to see the collective brainwashing we all endure this time of year. It’s no wonder a dismantling has to be done again each and every year. After all, the cultural pressures to conform to holiday dogma assaults us from Halloween onwards.

Thank goodness for Flower Essences. Here are a few that were in my holiday spritz bottle that might free up more inner and outer space in our lives if we use them in January and beyond!

The Family River Trio is a threesome of Flower Essences that helps us clear out old family baggage so we are unburdened. The Black Currant in the trio helps us release many generations of counter productive habits, opinions, traditions and anything else that is stuck or obscuring truth or not serving our light. The Bloodroot reveals the core strengths of our family line, because underneath all the mistaken ideas there is always something of value. The third member of the trio is Borage for courage to do the work. To sort and discard is tough. It is ultimately freeing, but it can be exhausting.

This time of year there are so many voices in our heads and all around us telling an old story about how things should be done. I appreciated the back up of my Flower Essence spritzer bottle to support me in what felt like saner choices. For example, we had a Christmas without the giving and receiving of presents. This felt like a big relief. However I needed to be vigilant about the occasional voice encouraging guilt that I had let go of this tradition so central to my childhood. Hyssop helped with the guilt. And Flow Free helped the Family River Trio with the whole letting go process. Flow Free remains an essential ally, here amplifying my efforts to be free of old holiday shoulds.

My mix had many other Flower Essence friends in it, but I think I will stop there as these seem most centrally supportive to the work of finding inner freedom from the cultural demands of the holidays.

PS When I went to ask the Angels and Elementals if they wanted me to add anything else they asked me to mention one other Flower Essence in my mix: Don’t Worry-Bee Happy. They have been talking a lot to me about how worry does such damage to the tranquility of our inner self and never accomplishes anything. They note, “The cultural pressures about the holidays leave everyone worried they are not doing enough, and we want to say to you, let go of your worries, you are always enough.”

Thembi, the Movie

If you have been a part of the Green Hope Farm community for long you may remember former staff Goddess Sithembiso Mulhauri or Thembi as she is called. Thembi joined our staff after leaving her home in Harare, Zimbabwe. Her husband, a famous soccer coach, was put on Mugabe’s hit list, and the family had to flee the country.

Today I learned that a movie is going to be made about Thembi’s husband, Charles, and the Zimbabwe soccer team he founded, AmaZulu FC.

If this was my movie, I would turn the camera to Thembi.

Here some scenes that would be in my BioPic.

Scene at the US Embassy in Harare: When Charles departs Zimbabwe, it is in a big hurry. Thembi is left behind with their four young sons ages 4 to 14. She spends months gathering the paperwork to be able to join her husband in the US. Things like DNA tests are required. She has done this on her own as her beloved mother has recently died.

Thembi enters the Embassy with all the necessary documents. She shows them at the gate and fortunately this moment is filmed by the Embassy, because by the time she crosses the lobby of the Embassy to go into the right office, she has been robbed of all documents. Her plane leaves in a matter of hours. Will she be believed that she had the documents? Will she and her boys make the flight? They do, but it is a miracle.

Scene as Thembi and the boys get off the plane in Boston Thembi is wearing heels and a beautiful dress. The boys are looking sharp. Bundled into a car, city girl Thembi looks briefly at the skyline of Boston before she finds herself on a long drive north to the deeply wooded hills of New Hampshire. Harare and her city life are seriously in the rearview mirror. As she gets out of the car in front of her new home, her heels sink deep into the grass. It may be the last time she ever needs heels in her new life in northern New England. She is shocked by the trees. There are so many of them. This is an alien world and not just because no one is speaking her language.

Scene as Thembi cuts her dreads. Thembi’s beautiful long dreads hold all the memories of the life she has lost. Her family and friends are beyond her reach. She cannot go home. As she gets her boys settled into their new lives and begins to work at Green Hope Farm, she needs all her energy to move forward and not look back. She cuts off her dreads and lets go of all she can no longer hold onto. Her new haircut reveals her beauty even more so than the dreads. In the movie, she should play herself.

Scene at a Green Hope Farm party. Thembi has brought her favorite foods and brought the fun. All the too serious New Englanders find ourselves dancing all night with Thembi. She’s always made us laugh, now she gets us dancing.

Scene in Thembi’s kitchen Her older kids are playing soccer now at Kimball Union Academy, and her husband is coaching legions of elite soccer players. Thembi’s kitchen has become a hub for college and prep school soccer recruits from Africa who need a taste of home. The kitchen is packed and will remain so for many years.

Scene when Thembi’s house burns down Early one wintry morning, Thembi’s house burns to the ground. Everyone gets out safely but all their possessions are gone. Thembi collects her family and the soccer players staying with her, and they camp out at the Kimball Union guesthouse. While the town community kick in to help, it’s really Thembi who does the lion’s share of rebuilding their lives. In short order she finds them a new house and elegantly furnishes it on a shoestring budget.

Scene yesterday I text Thembi to tell her I think she should be the star of the movie. Lots of laughter emojis, then Thembi tells me she is starting another business. Since she arrived in America a dozen years ago, she has gotten her business and hospitality degree. Two of her children have graduated from college and are off in the world teaching and coaching soccer. Two more are going to college next year and Simba, her fifth child born in New Hampshire, is happily launched into kindergarten. Thembi runs this household of boys and men and also runs two Airbnbs, one in her home and one in the house across the street that she bought. She also owns and runs a daycare center. She tells me yesterday that she is going to buy a children’s gym.

With or without the movie, Thembi will remain one of my personal heroines. And yes, when the movie about her husband comes out, I will greatly enjoy it, but I will also be thinking of the movie that should have been.

Flower Essence Support for Healers of all sorts

A few wintry days ago we made up more Mother Flower Essence for one of our bespoke combination Flower Essences, Hesperides’ Gift.

Some combinations are created in the garden. The Arbor Garden, for example, is created in the Arbor Garden each growing season from all the Flowers in blossom there on the day the Angels choose to make the mix.

However, most combination Flower Essences are mixed by us from Flower Essences Mothers in our collections. We have about a thousand Mother Flower Essences in our Mother Essence room. Combination remedies like Hesperides’ Gift or Golden Armor are created from these Mothers. Building from the resource of this Mother Essence inventory means our mixes can have much relevant Flower wisdom. For example, they can include Flower Essences from many geographical locations as well as Flowers that don’t bloom at the same time.

We are guided by our Angelic partners about the Flower Essence ingredients in these mixes. It’s an ongoing process in which we check in when making new inventory to see if the combination remedy needs tweaks. The Angels recipe and subsequent tweaks result in combination remedies that have great depth and complexity as well as a vibrational strength revelant to this precise time.

When we work with a combination Flower Essence, we may just feel the overall vibrational effect of a combination. When I mix the mix I get to see why a combination works in such a deep way. As I add one Flower Essence after another, I get to consider why the Essence was chosen in the mix and how it supports the overall braid of Flower Essences.

So let’s consider Hesperides’ Gift. This Flower Essence was originally created two decades ago for a group project at a school for energy workers. A healer asked for a Green Hope Farm combination Flower Essence to be created to support the extensive healing community of her school for a specific healing project.

Our charge was to make a mix that would support healers who were feeling burnt out, overwhelmed by the gravity and volume of work they were doing, feeling in need of restorative love and new inspiration as well as support for the boundary work so necessary for all healing tasks.

After we created the mix, many hundreds of healers both current students at this school for healing as well as graduates took Hesperides’ Gift simultaneously to activate a group healing. It was a joy to send hundreds of bottles of this mix off across the globe each day, imagining the web of light Hesperides’ Gift helped to create and sustain in this wonderful community.

Twenty years ago, one thing I puzzled over as I created the mix with my Angelic partners was their choice of the name, Hesperides’ Gift. Even after looking up the mythological references, the name felt a bit obscure.

Twenty years later, I wondered about the name once again. Was there more that could be said about this name? Why this reference to the goddesses who protected the apples of immortality? And another question came up for me. We have continued to send this Flower Essence out for many years to so many. Was there anything the Angels wanted to say about who this mix might serve in this current era? I was asking the Angels for their thoughts on who are today’s healers.

After framing this question here, I got called away from the computer to do another task. This gave the Angels the opportunity to answer my questions in a different way.

While doing this other task, I was considering how I define healers in a much broader sense than when we first created the mix. I think of healers as anyone who brings love and light to any situation. As I was thinking this, someone across the room from me read out this Charles Dicken’s quote:

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.”

How I love the way Angels support us in such unexpected ways. This quote felt like the Angels affirming the idea that we are all healers, each in our own way.

I wondered a bit if this was taking the idea to far to say, ALL of us, then I paused and found myself glancing at the December calendar on the office wall. I hadn’t really noticed the calendar’s Meher Baba quote but read it then:

“The unfoldment of the divine in life is a common enterprise and not an exclusive achievement.”

I felt this supported my conviction that we are all healers. As I returned to the computer, I asked the Angels to share more. Here is what they said,

“This mix, Hesperides’ Gift is protected by us and is our gift to you. You are both the gift giver in your work as healers and you are the receiver of our gifts as you do this work. All to say, GIFT in this name is not an accident.

Today we call a spade a spade. The Hesperides were a group of women goddesses who guarded Gaia’s gifts of life force energy. In mythology these gifts were described symbolically as golden apples, gifts of an energetic nature brought down into form.

Existing in the realm between the unseen world of Divinity and the seen world of earthly life, the Hesperides were guardians of these energy gifts. Our intention in invoking this mythological framework is to suggest the significance of this remedy and to honor you who do healing work.

Like the Hesperides, healers bring the unseen world into the seen world. We are talking about how you bring light energy through the veils to offer to those in need. Words cannot contain the multitude of ways you healers do your work. We see it all and help you all.

There are so many kinds of healers and places of healing. If you count yourself out because you are not working in a conventional healing milieu or doing what others would say was healing work, please don’t. A smile can save a life. We want you to know you matter. Yours is sacred work. Love is total significance. Your efforts are total significance. Healers deserve to understand themselves in these terms. Healers do sacred work. It is not like other work. When a healer opens to receive love and light to direct it to another soul, it is a great gift.

We felt in giving the Flower Essence this name that we indicate the sacred and invaluable work of healers. We honor you with this name. We also want you to understand there are no boundaries between you as healer and us as healers. You and we are not we but one. We work in oneness.

With this name we share that in this Flower Essence mix and in so many other ways, we bring you gifts of support. ALWAYS and CONTINUOUSLY. Together with you, we bring to earth a golden light of love that heals all. We kid you not.