Finding Grace
The light and warmth of the sun continues to ebb in the Northern Hemisphere as we approach the longest and darkest night… the Winter Solstice.
Personally, I am feeling the growing darkness to be deeply comforting. Like crawling wearily into bed at the end of a long day, I feel my body surrendering to its embrace. It is truly time to rest and… to dream.
As we enter the season of goodwill to all I am still spending time with my last moon cycle plant spirit guide Milk Thistle (FORGIVENESS) and feeling extra tender from many weeks of what has felt like an “exam” or a “growth spiral” review of the last decade.
I feel like I have been revisiting and reliving, in short form, so many stories from my past and in the process have found myself having to return over and over to the medicine and practice of self forgiveness in order to bless and let these stories go…again.
We don’t know what we don’t know until we know it! And there is no end to the transformation and growth of the soul. Instead, I feel growth moves in cycles— there is the out-breath, and the in-breath—over and over.
The Winter Solstice is a still point—the bottom of the in-breath of the Earth—a pause before we begin the long slow, out-breath, expanding our consciousness with the light and warmth of a new season of growth.
And so, as I rest in the dark I am aware that on an individual and collective level, who we are, how we think we should be, and how we believe the world works, is no longer true. My truth a decade ago is not my current truth.
Milk Thistle has been asking me to consider all the ways I have given and continue to give credence/energy to beliefs/narratives/stories that no longer resonate.
And, most importantly, can I allow space for forgiveness of self and others when I become aware of habitually “feeding” what no longer resonates?
Forgiveness is powerful medicine.
I’ve shared in the past about my discomfort and fear of the deep, dark, powerful ocean while simultaneously feeling completely disoriented if I don’t physically live close to her. (I’ve also shared about the cosmic joke of marrying a boat builder…)
I see this last decade, with the mentorship and loving guidance of the Soulflowers, as being a long inner journey of facing my fears, and deep diving into the dark, scary waters of my own unconscious in an effort to understand myself better. This takes brutal honesty and heart work but I am fully invested in this process… fully dedicated.
My headaches have been, and have always been, an invitation from my wise body to uncover, witness and release all the labels, stories and beliefs about myself, my life and life itself that are not in alignment with my heart and soul.
I would have thought, by now, they would be over. But no. My headaches continue along with my inner critic, inner judge and jury. With each new episode I immediately go to a place of questioning. What is wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? What am I missing?
Well, here’s what Milk Thistle (and my beloved Dandelion) have been saying, “There is nothing wrong with you. You are doing nothing wrong.”
I have so much resistance to this message...
“Yes.” Says Milk Thistle, “That is what your body is sharing with you.”
It makes me laugh (and cry) at the simplicity of this truth and all the inner and outer resistance I create around it.
What if I could hold this truth in my heart, and more importantly in my mind and the way I talk to myself.
There is nothing wrong with me.
There is nothing wrong with me.
The flowers have gently mentored me in this innerstanding for over a decade… for my whole life really. And yet I have still not fully integrated this truth. There really must be something wrong with me!
Nope.
This is the process of awakening. We each have our own timeline. We each have our own cycles of becoming. Like the flowers. Like all of Nature.
There is much talk in the world of “awakening” and that we are in historic times of great change on Earth. In my bones I feel this to be true. I suspect that because you are reading this… you do too.
What I “know” is that I AM a divine soul having a human experience. I AM fully human and I AM fully soul, matter and spirit, particle and wave. And Soulflower is an outer expression of my inner soul journey of remembering, healing and awakening to the truth of who I am.
What Milk Thistle has been highlighting is:
Once you awaken to the truth of who you are…
Once you accept your true Nature…
Once you deeply feel and know and remember yourself to be a divine eternal soul, a fractal of Source, held in the arms of the Divine Mother/Father having a human experience, you then have to allow yourself to drop all the stories and beliefs—all the defensive/protective armor—that you have embodied and created in your life in order to keep you “safe.”
You have to surrender ALL of your resistance to the truth of who you are and simultaneously find acceptance for all the things that make you human.
Forgiveness and acceptance go hand in hand.
It’s the most exquisite (and often fleeting) feeling of sublime surrender and extreme vulnerability to know and lovingly witness yourself in this way. And to simply be with what is… headache or not.
I am witnessing myself, as a vast, energetic being of light, with a human tendency to overthink and attempt to “control” and “figure” things (life) out in order to find inner peace, grace, while simultaneously very aware of the need to trust the process and allow myself to flow with the ineffable quality of the mysterious cosmos.
If that doesn’t give you a headache I don’t know what will!
This is a pattern/story/frequency that I believe so many of us hold (and perpetuate) that is rooted in our collective belief of separation and our attempt to make some sense of our existence and experience. This is cause and effect, linear materialistic thinking and, well, I’m pretty sure the Universe does not work in this neat, rational way!
And yet… I still fall into forgetfulness and allow myself to be overcome, and swept away, by the stories and fears I have embodied for so long. Habits can be hard to break. Especially when these habits have been ingrained into our DNA for millennia.
Milk Thistle reminds me that our fears bend and distort us out of our true shape.
“Stop interfering with your core vibration!!!” she lovingly admonishes!
I don’t know what is next.
I don’t know what is coming. Personally or collectively.
I can see and witness around me, and within me, what is, and it is often an uncomfortable and scary place to be. There is much pain and suffering. There is also so much beauty and joy.
When I am in fear I resist “flow”, I resist What Is, and that creates even more pain.
“Let go!” says Dandelion. “You know this!”
“All suffering comes from resistance to the truth of who you are. All suffering comes from resistance to What Is.” Milk Thistle adds.
Let that truth bomb sink in.
“All suffering comes from resistance to the truth of who you are and what is.”
And so I inevitably come back to trust. I have to trust that I will know what I need to know when I need to know it. Because in truth, over the last decade, that is exactly what I have experienced!
I KNOW THIS!
Every day, with every conscious breath, whatever is happening within me, or around me, I have to practice self love and self compassion for my humanness.
Over and over I have to witness and forgive myself for creating more resistance, more suffering, for myself and therefore for the collective.
We are not separate. We are a part of the Earth.
I keep thinking about the perfection of Nature and the self indulgence (ego nature) of the constant judgment we humans inflict on all of it—and the folly that we ever even believe there is something wrong with any of it, or us.
Do we blame a volcano for the devastation it can unleash? Do we shame a flower for not blooming? And yet we humans are the “scourge” of the Earth? That’s a lot of judgment for any soul!
All the wars, ecocide, division and human devastation— all the extreme darkness that humanity creates and plays with— is born out of complete disconnection from the truth of who we are. We are creating our human story from our pain and suffering and collective amnesia.
And humans do love to create self imposed prisons and perpetuate needless suffering rooted in stories of good and bad that’s for sure!
Have you ever stepped barefoot on a Thistle?
Instead of screaming and yelling at the plant (and the pain): “Why are you here?!” We have an opportunity instead to bless her and remember that everything, all of life, All That Is, is here to serve our growth.
Always our beloved Mother Earth, my garden, the Soulflowers, all of Nature, reflects the truth that there is a Divine intelligence at play. A life force inherent in all, always flowing towards balance, always holding space for and creating the best conditions for our growth and re-membering… even when it hurts like hell.
The truth that Nature shares is that we are all Divine beings that can do no “wrong.”
Ouch! That is a prickly thought!
“You are always forgiven, always loved. There is no judgment other than your own.” reminds Milk Thistle.
Humans are storytellers creating the story of Earth through each of us.
We are the Earth dreaming.
Forgiveness is the powerful medicine that energetically supports us to let go, to detach from the old and redirect our precious energy towards what we all truly want to see and create in the world.
As we grow, as we collectively awaken, as we expand our consciousness, which is inevitable and the true Nature of things, we will come to realize that there is nothing to forgive.
I’m not there yet. But I am leaning in...
And so, as we go through a collective “dark night of the soul,” waiting for the light to return, as it always does, slowly awakening and integrating the polarities of soul vs. flesh and energy vs. matter; we are being reminded, encouraged even to flow with all of life…
To allow life to happen FOR us...
To surrender to the intelligence at play…
To be with what is without judgment…
…and in so doing surrender our suffering.
This is what I am dreaming into this Winter season. This is what I desire most for myself and for humanity.
Peace within and without.
Grace.
One by one may we surrender to the mystery and take our place as unique drops in the great ocean of creation.🌸
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Also in Plant Spirit Deep Dives
Wintering: Coming Back to Life
Over the years, the Soulflowers have lovingly helped me to understand change to be the natural order of things. They have helped me to trust completely in the inherent intelligence of Nature and the necessity of all the seasons to support life, sustainably.
We are cyclical beings. Life (life force energy) is never lost—it is only constantly changed, transformed.
White Pine: Response Ability
Karen
December 18, 2023
Wow, perfect timing!
Milk thistle is a plant that I made medicine (tincture) a few years ago from her seeds, I made way more than what my family would ever use. I didn’t know why, but when a plant calls to me and wants me to use it, I listen.
A few weeks back I was invited bring my medicines to a wise woman holiday shopping event. I decided to I limit my inventory of tinctures to 7. The basics that most people have heard of: Motherwort, St John’s Wort, Hawthorn, Elderberry, Catnip, Echinacea angustifolia, and Dandelion.
As I was preparing my boxes of bottles and labels and all the things I’d need, I kept getting the pull, back to my medicine cabinet. “You need one more, look at your inventory one more time” I heard. “Ok, I’ll look…. Who is this?” I asked. A prickly voice said “Just go look! Eight is a better number for this event”. I thought, Jeez… Ok, one more, eight is better.
Well, you guessed it, it was Milk Thistle. A plant I know much less about than the other 7, I’d never used it myself much at all. And you probably also guessed, MT tied with one other plant as my top seller that day, one I expected, Elderberry! Milk Thistle came out of the blue that day and people wanted to know more about her. So thank you for this deep dive, at I said, very timely for me and I guess everyone else.
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My Soulflower replied:
Thank you for reading and commenting Karen! Milk Thistle is such powerful medicine and I am so glad you listened! Your sharing highlights for me the constant guidance and presence of the plants that are "gently” guiding and supporting us always. 🌸