The joy of medicinal plants!

There’s many things that bring joy in my life, but I have to say that these Echinacea flowers are bringing enormous joy as I walk in and out of the cottage each day. I’m so grateful I thought to plant them here, so that I have to walk past them, they are without doubt my favourite of all the medicinal plants, because you can see their inherent energy, it’s no wonder they are so helpful at boosting our immune system.

I’d been putting it off for a good while because I love them so much, but the time had come to harvest a few of the flowers so that I can make a tincture for the winter months. It’s a little early, you should wait until the plant is three years old, or so I’m told, and these are only in their second year, but I’m keen to work with their medicine this year.

I have a ton of St John’s Wort this year too, which is wonderful, but my goodness, the picking is relentless! The flowers bloom over night so each morning I am greeted with this lovely yellowness, which I’ve been picking to make old and teas and now tinctures.

It’s been a little relentless these last few weeks, and especially since returning from Sark. I’ve gone through a significant amount of organic olive oil, soaking the various flowers, not only the St John’s Wort but a lot of lavender, Oil of Evening Primrose and Calendula too. I’ve also been drying a whole heap of plants for teas, not only the ones I’m growing, marshmallow being my favourite at the moment, but also out foraging for nettles and blackberry leaves and drying blackberries themselves to sweeten teas.

I’ve got a whole heap of gypsy wort and mother’s wort that I wasn’t sure what to do with, but I’m told that the best thing is to work with their medicine individually, to really know the plant and the reason that it’s come into my life. So watch this space. More often than not, this is the way to learn. I’ve found the same with Bach Flower remedies - while I’ve looked at doing more formal training, just working with them has helped me to know more of them and use them with other people in an effectual and helpful way.

Anyway, I hope that these photos bring you joy too, we should all be growing Echinacea, and brighting our collective landscape!

Love Emma x

It was a let go and go with the flow moon

In the end, the moon’s message was simple - go with the flow and let go.

There’s been change this last moon cycle for many people, and more ahead to come. I mean obviously life is always changing, but I mean more so in terms of perspective and making different choices, sometimes a complete change of heart choice. Sometimes, from nowhere, or so it seems, we do see things differently and the way we choose to live has no choice but to change to reflect this.

I’m seeing it in my life and I’m seeing it in other lives too.

Meanwhile my herbs are doing well. I’m up to my eyes in picking and drying and infusing oils. Tinctures and salves next. It’s non stop at this time of year as those of you growing will know only too well. But there’s always time for the beach and for the sea, and the sunset was beautiful this evening , as is moon rise right now.

Enjoy the wane, and the last week of August, let’s hope the weather is kind!

Love Emma x

Full moon crystals, potions and reminders

This is our second full moon in the sign of Aquarius, the last one was fairly potent for me, as was the new moon sandwiched between them. I’m hoping this one might be calmer and thus far it does seem that way…albeit there’s still time!

The message coming through is one of receptivity, trust and gratitude. I’ve felt in clients recently too.

This is receptivity as part of the whole, of unity and oneness. Often we can be much better at giving rather than receiving. When faced with receiving we may get embarrassed and automatically feel that we have to reciprocate without appreciating that sometimes just have to accept. Sometimes, underneath the resistance to receiving is a lack of self-worth and self-love. Some will feel more comfortable giving for this very reason. but as we know, each half makes a whole and each whole therefore comprises the balance of halves - give and take, inhale and exhale, light and dark, new moon and full moon, high tide and low tide and on it goes. Thus to appreciate our WHOLEness, we need to be open to giving and receiving and being OK with that. Easier said than done!

I’ve been noticing this in my yoga practice. There’s a sense of the thigh bone deepening its connection to hip joint. Can the hip joint be a comfortable and supportive place to receive? Can the knee joint both give and take? Can it straighten and bend? Can it find the dance to support the flow of life and find the humility to bend down if needed, the strength to straighten and allow us to stand up for what we believe in, and the movement to allow us to follow the path of the heart when called to do so without being stuck by fear, grief or sorrow? Can the foot receive the earth? Can we allow a resting after movement and movement after resting? Can the crown receive the support of the divine and trust in that?

Trust is another huge one. This is trust in the primordial support of the universe. Trust that all our needs will be met as we follow the path of the heart. Trust that every perceived mistake is actually another opportunity to learn and expand. Trusting in the divine (or whatever name you wish to us, universe, God etc) is not easy. It requires faith and a sense that whatever happens is happening for the highest interest of all levels of your being. Trust asks that you take a leap and fly without any certainty of outcome, letting go of any need to control this either. Fear keeps you stuck in the rational mind, trying to control and make certain.

The most life changing events happen without us having any seeming control over them, at leats that’s my experience. I write more about this in my new book, about to start it’s professional edit…life is made up of moments…the only thing asked of us, is to keep laughing and aligning and realigning to heart.

Gratitude of course comes next, or maybe at the very beginning. This isn’t wishy washy love and light gratitude, you know, listing things without really meaning any of it. I have a very bad habit of focusing on what I don’t have rather than what I do, it’s a hangover from the ‘achievement-focused’ education that conditioned my mind a certain way, well towards achievement and box ticking ultimately! I’ve been trying to change my mind and release this conditioning, but I still notice it and gratitude has come in on this full moon as a needed reminder. Gratitude alone, when practised with meaning, changes things.

I’m increasingly grateful for my health, which I often take for granted, especially as more and more friends tell me how they’re suffering from this ache and pain, or hormonal issue as they get older and blame it “on old age”. I don’t seem to be suffering in quiet the same way just yet, so I am very grateful to yoga, Ayurveda and Reiki for that. I’m grateful for E and my family and for E’s family too. We spend a lot of time together and our boys are growing up with three devoted grandparents, which is amazing - let alone the support E and I receive and the support I receive from him.

I’m grateful for so many things really, my friends, my home, this island and it’s safety - I sometimes think us Guerns must have done something good in a previous life to end up for here, when we could have been born in Afghanistan or Syria for example - for fresh air and the opportunity to experience so much freedom - mind, speech, thought, even travel to a certain extent (mainly because I don’t want to go further than Sark even if the whole world was open to me at this time, well OK, I’d still like to get to Nepal, but heck, Sark is amazing and on our doorstep!). There’s so much to be grateful for. Always someone else worse off, someone who can be helped, always there’s that motivation, because life is so bright really, even if it doesn’t feel like it at times.

But that’s life. Our mind’s are tricky things and much of our suffering is self created. I don’t know how anyone survives without a spiritual practice, the pace of life makes it tricky at the best of times, and there’s huge stresses out there at the moment. But you know, gratitude. It could always be worse.

So I’ll leave you with that as I’m heading out to catch the waxing moon, we have a date.

Don’t forget to get yours crystals out, and any potions you've made.

Love Emma x

Sark

It’s simple,

Sark equals nature, healing and freedom.

Love this island. Each trip reveals a new spot. Yesterday a seal. There’s serpentine in the rocks. Quartz, pyrite, Jasper too. There’s a ton of blackberries. The land is alive. The trees speak. There’s a Goddess and lots of remains of dolmens. There’s a lot of fairies. Dolphins too. Yoga, Reiki and massage. Incredible local chocolate at Caragh’s. Fresh produce. The winds of change. Fresh air. Swimming in the sea on your own. It’s the most healing place I’ve ever encountered.

Thank you Sark.

The changing Way

Well that was a potent new moon and star alignment wasn’t it! When the new moon peaked at 2.34pm I was out walking with my Wiccan cousin who was feeling new moon agitation whereas I was feeling relatively calm and thinking I may have gotten away with it, but alas, about 20 minutes after the peak I received a message which triggered an old pattern and that was the beginning of the end!

I don’t know why I was surprised. I’d spent the morning recording some videos for the online Reiki Level One training and was fully powered up on bio-dynamic exercises, Gassho meditation, sharing Reiki, to say nothing of the checking-in. That and the visit to a moon-aligned sacred site the night before and I had unwittingly set myself up perfectly.

I should have known it would be potent, 8th of the 8th, 8th a significant number, the infinity sign noels, as above so below. The ground dropped away for a time and clearing out a couple of dolmens that evening provably didn’t help matters. I was so tired and I know I was not alone, others have said they felt extraordinarily tired Sunday evening too.

Monday wasn’t much better, there was a heaviness and a weariness as the wheels fell off so to speak and this continued anon to Tuesday as the revealed pattern played out, the inner child was held, the Leo new moon rumblings rumbled on and the hard to face truth dawned. Yikes. It’s so uncomfortable when we see the way we create our own chaos, and the manner in which we hold on so tightly to it too, defending it, believing that it is THE WAY.

This is when LEO revealed itself, not least the rage that had accompanied the energy shift, but the courage of the lion, the roar as we are told a few home truths and finally take ownership of them, rather than allowing ourselves to play the victim. Urgh. So very uncomfortable, but a necessary part of the process to re-orientate the Way.

You see the Way changes and it is knowing when we need to bend to accommodate the change, and allow ourselves to be transformed into something else. It’s about letting go (always blinking letting go) if the way that we define ourselves as much as anything else, and it is this that is difficult because we define ourselves so rigidly at times, that it’s difficult to break this down comfortably.

Ultimately it’s about disintegration and stripping away the layers down to core essence. Unity is the greatest illuminator and this can help to transform patterns and indeed structures, freeing us from things that no longer serve us (it can be as simple, or as difficult as a thought pattern) and that get in the way of our wholeness.

Upon reflection, the new moon was really asking us to look at our cherished beliefs, ideals and identities and examine, reexamine, illuminate, release and transform these. Are we really who we think we are? Are we really those labels with which we identify? Or is there more to us than we allow? In our quest to follow THE WAY do we limit ourselves because we’re not open to there being another way?

I’m really aware of this in the spiritual field. You know how we might separate and divide things - one’s spiritual, ones material, one’s therefore good, one’s therefore bad, without appreciating the goodness and badness in every thing and the spiritual and material in everything too. Once again it comes back to perspective and how we perceive ourselves and the world we live in.

I' remember my earlier days as a yoga teacher and feeling that I had to behave a certain way, that I had to have all my crap sorted if I was to be a sincere teacher. I’ve mentioned this before. The problem arose in my false perception of believing I needed to behave and be a certain way because of a label given to me. Ultimately all I can ever be is me, with all my vast imperfections. Being a yoga teacher changes nothing and more fool anyone for thinking that a label all of sudden means that you are sorted and - careful, careful - that you are better than others, all of a sudden wise, for example.

Nope, we’re all in this together, all muddling along as best we can, doing our best for our children, for then planet and for ourselves. We can only ever work with where we’re at, how we came in and the level of consciousness that we now bring into this world, and that will be dependant on all sorts of things. The moon is always trying to raise vibration, she picks us up and throws us around when she knows that it is time for us to wake up a little bit more and make changes. She takes no prisoners. It’s not an easy Way following her, because she’s not constant, or consistent, hmm, sound familiar, invite the moon into your life and you’ll know what I mean!

So the new moon encouraged us to examine dissonance in our lives and to let go, embracing (with courage) the really tricky disintegration process without resisting it or judging it - or judging yourself. Anything that is over-defined or inflexible needs to change! It’s an amazing time - the portal is open - to strip away anything that defines and limits you. Be free. Create a new WAY. Some fo you will find that you have no choice, that the universe has intervened.

As you let go so you create space for the new, and it will come, but it will be subject to divine timing. There may be more letting go first, more release of rigidity, more breaking down, more darkness to sit in first, more loose ends to tie up, more order brought to the chaos. As the walls come tumbling down (and it will absolutely feel like this, all the walls you have built around your heart especially, and your solar plexus, to protect your vulnerability) so the true YOU can burst through, with vision of a NEW WAY and a new direction.

Some of you will have felt a tuning to your third eye. Others will have felt an agitation deep inside. Others will have felt the endless tears and not known the reason for this. And others will have felt nothing at all. It’s our experience, our way, but it’s a helpful idea to open up to all other possibilities and ways…

The new moon showed the way. It was time. The stars and planets were aligned. I’m grateful for that. I finally moved forward with publishing From Darkness Comes Light, I couldn’t help but laugh at the timing. While the disintegration feels like a death, the space it creates feels like calm and gentle, it’s a relief!

Happy wax!

x