Healing With Flowers Conference Coming in September

Another wonderful event coming up for those of you who love flowers, energy healing, aromatherapy, and flower essences. The event includes workshops and ceremony.

Healing With Flowers Conference

Rowe Conference Center
Rowe, MA
September 25 - 27, 2009

Steve Johnson, founder of the Alaskan Flower Essence Project, will be our special guest and keynote speaker.

Other presenters include:

Jane Bell, Jane Bell Essences.

David Dalton, Delta Gardens.

Carole Guyett, Derrynagittah Herb Centre.

Kathrin Woodlyn Bateman, Flower Essences of Fox Mountain.

Tony Lemos, Blazing Star Herbal School.

Fearn Lickfield, geomancer and flower essence practitioner.

Jasmine Hurtak, plant spirit healer and flower essence practitioner.

Pam Montgomery, Partner Earth Education Center and Sweetwater Sanctuary Essences.

Mark Carlin, Partner Earth Education Center will lead a sweat lodge ceremony.

For details and registration information visit:

Healing With Flowers Conference

Vanilla Orchid Blooming at the SF Conservatory of Flowers

In a couple of weeks it will officially be summer. Hopefully I will be out of my cast and able to get outside. (I broke my ankle 6 weeks ago and have not been outside since then).

My garden has been neglected, only getting watered once a week by a friend. I miss my plants so much.

I receive email from the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers. For those of you who can get there and love flowers and exotic plants, it's a must see. Since it is a large greenhouse, they can control the environment and so grow rare and exotic plants from all over the world. It's fantastic.

Right now the vanilla orchid is blooming and what I wouldn't give to see it. To read more about the edible fruit of the vanilla orchids and their culinary uses, click I use vanilla in my B.A.D. cordial. It has a way of softening and relaxing. Vanilla absolute, is quite expensive, but you don't have to use much. A Vanilla 'substitute' that I also use in perfumes and salves is Tonka Bean. It has a similar scent although milder and is affordable. I use this in my new Sacred Substance flower essence spray, part of my new 2012 line of products. I have made a flower essence blend called 2012 and the scented spray Sacred Substance. For more on 2012, go to my 2012 blog.

I feel that one issue that we all must deal with is learning to relax and soften. I know there are so many events going on that are causing us fear and stress, but as Caroline Casey says we need to slow down in order to speed up. For more on astrology, go to my astrology blog.

For culinary recipes using vanilla click

And for recipes from Sunset magazine with a Hawaiian theme, click

Speaking of Hawaii and relaxing, Jane Bell is giving a workshop this Saturday, June 13 featuring her new Hawaiian Flower Essences. Click here to go to her website.

Plant Spirit Healing

You can see many titles by Stephen Buhner in my Carousel of books on sale at Amazon. If you have never read him, I highly suggest you do. Since I have been focused on herbal medicine in the past 15 years or so, my ideas and attitudes have been radically affected by Buhner. Now, when people ask me if I am a healer, I have to say "No". My role is more like a witness, a conduit, the mediator between the 'patient' and the plant kingdom.

It was at a Bioneers conference several years ago that someone said that plants have an intelligence far greater than we can imagine. This idea blew my mind. Then at a basic plant science class in Santa Rosa Junior College a few years ago, the teacher explained photosynthesis and I got it on a whole different level. I realized I had 'learned' this in the second grade, but somehow the magic of it had evaded me. Imagine, these 'little green men' chloroplasts, in the plant cell, can take sunlight and turn it into food! Talk about advanced spiritual adepts. This food, made from sunlight, makes all other forms of life on this planet possible.

Now I am learning that plants can manipulate their chemistry as needed to create their own anti-biotics and pain killers. Traditional healers have been saying this for years. You ask the plant to heal a particular illness and it modifies itself for the patient. Huh? Now science is proving this to be possible. I got an email from a friend today related to this. Check it out at Livescience.com Plants Make Own Painkillers

My role in this process became clearer to me when I started the flower essence training with Jane Bell last January. More and more I realized that 'I' did not choose flower essences for my clients. The plants chose. I merely went through the motions - the ritual, if you will, of asking for the connection to be made. I had already had this experience when working with essential oils. I would sometimes smell the essential oil that was appropriate for a condition. Then, not trusting my intuition, I would look in the book. Perfect choice!

I find it awkward to say this when I am at a fair selling my products. Most of my formulas come to me by inspiration. I feel something, smell something, get words. I have to hurry and write it down. Sometimes I actually hear a voice telling me to make such and such an item. I ask what it is for and may or may not get an answer. Two of the items for sale in my Etsy store were 'downloaded' in this way. The Solar Salve and the 7 Rose Heart Chakra Rub. Sometimes I get part of the formula and when I ask if it is finished, they say "not yet. Wait for further instructions." When a customer asks what the products are for, I sometimes find it hard to communicate an answer. I know that the 'heart chakra rubs' are to increase 'rose resonance' which is the expression given to me - that means increasing our coherence with the heartbeat of creation. Changing our frequency so that it is more in sync with Nature. Read Buhner to get a handle on what this means. The Solar Salve, first in a trilogy which will include a Lunar Salve and a Stellar Salve, have not been fully communicated yet. They have to do with the three mystery schools of ancient Egypt.

Some people refer to this type of herbalism as plant spirit healing. It is a form of communication I guess. I have a master's degree in Linguistics. I have studied many languages. I had no idea that I would be learning the language of plants, or that there was a language. Interestingly, as I learn more about communication with plants, I find simultaneously that my ability to communicate with animals is increasing too.

So does that mean you can use any herb, flower essence or essential oil? Well...... sort of, but not exactly. A very important part of the process is intention. The intention must be clear. What are you trying to accomplish. Also, there must be an attitude of humility - surrender - acceptance, all words that most of us in the west do not like. What I mean is that to some extent, we must accept both the wisdom of the 'illness' and that we may not know what healing looks like. That there is a power greater than us at work in all this. Amen

Issue of the Week - July 21 - 27

Embodied Peace

I was called to one of essences from the new collection by Jane Bell. The collection is called Bali Essences and they were made on a trip she made there recently.

The one that spoke to me is called Embodied Peace.

Here's what Jane writes about it:

"This was made at a very peaceful area in the North of Bali. We were there a week and each day my body and senses relaxed more and I slid deep into a restorative response. There was such immense pleasure and enjoyment in letting go into peace. Feeling peace in our bodies....a wonderful antidote to the frenzied rushing around and overwhelming pace we usually go at and the anxiety, restlessness and sleeplessness that can ensue. There was an amazing sense of timelessness - of being outside the traditional time/space boundaries - a sense of being in and embodying a new dimension of total safety, peace and well-being. I spray this before bed to unwind and drop beneath the radar of all there is still "left to do". Choosing to be peaceful instead of worrying about doing more."

Contact Jane Bell through her website

To make a spray from a flower essence:

Unscented:

Get a 4 oz. spray bottle of your choice (glass preferred)
2 - 4 drops from your stock bottle of flower essence
fill with pure water

Scented:

Same as above
Add 6 - 10 drops of your favorite essential oil(s)
1 tsp. of Vodka
Shake each time before you spray
Avoid your eyes