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Healing & Alternative Health:
Flower Essences |
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Excerpt from Donna's new ebook:
Flower Remedies--How Plant's Energies Can Heal Us.
For the Love of Lilacs
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by Donna Cunningham |
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For the Love of Lilacs is a combined flower and environmental essence made at a very special farm where lilacs have been adored for nearly a century. The vast Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Woodland, Washington, are the pride of that small community. They are maintained by volunteers as devoted to lilacs as the woman who founded them. From 1905-1960, she lovingly developed many new varieties, drawing on the work of Luther Burbank, a pioneer in conscious co-creation with plants. For three weeks in May, while the gardens are ariot with blooms, droves of visitors pay tribute to Hulda and her creations.
Besotted with lilacs since childhood, I was excited about my visit to the gardens coming up on May Day. A few days earlier, my guides insisted that I was to make an essence there, not of a single lilac bush but of the collective. I have made only a few essences over the years, always at the behest of the plant spirits themselves. (See here for this month's article on how to make an essence, and here for an essence making project you can do yourself.)
Guided by them through the process of making each essence, I do not use the sun infusion method but rather step aside and ask the devas to imprint the spring water with the plant's energy directly. I learned this method from the makers of Living Essences in Australia, but it is also used by makers here in the Pacific Northwest, where a day without sunshine is commonplace.
It's fortunate that I am comfortable with this method, for it rained throughout the visit. In fact, the rain's cleansing and healing properties seemed part of the essence's gift. Recently, I had been working on forgiveness and praying steadfastly to develop a forgiving heart. Among the properties attributed to Lilac essence by various makers is an easing of resentments, so communing with such a heady collective seemed likely to help the project along. Sitting by bush after bush of Hulda's flowers, attuning to their devas, I was given many helpful insights into forgiveness.
The first to contribute to the mother essence was a unique pink lilac with huge blossoms called Pink Elizabeth. I had brought gifts of crystals to give the plants in return for their input, and this heart-stopper got rose quartz. Both the color pink and rose quartz are related to the heart, and Lilac essence is often said to align the chakras. Putting such suppositions aside, I meditated on the flowers themselves, bringing their energies into my heart center.
In the warm silence of that communion, I prayed once more for a forgiving heart. The blossoms assured me that love is universal and eternal, our natural state before wounding, and that we have the power to return to that state if we will but forgive. During this exchange, as with the others that followed, a stream of energy flowed from the bush to the bottle in which I was collecting the mother essence.
Next, I was drawn to Martha, a variety with big, white blossoms with a tinge of gold at the center. The pristine white seemed to signify purity of heart, so I surrounded myself with white light and infused the mother essence with it as well. In the meditation that followed, Martha said that the pure of heart have nothing to forgive. In many situations where we are left with bruising resentments, we have been less than pure in our motives, deceiving the other and ourselves about our intentions as much as we have been deceived. Clearly, there would be much to ponder from the lilacs' teachings!
Fritz, a tall, upright bush with an almost military bearing, called to me next. Its vivid, burgundy-purple blooms in stark contrast to the white and pink lilacs recalled the slow-burning, often intense fires of resentment. Fritz said that so often the seat of resentment is grief over the loss of something or someone we hold dear. If we can but process and release our grief, resentment will take care of itself, and forgiveness naturally follows.
Fritz also used the growth cycle of the lilacs to illustrate how to love and let go graciously. He pointed out that the volunteers at the farm work nearly year-round to cultivate and protect the plants. The bushes bloom riotously for three short weeks and then are gone again. Rather than collapse into grief, the volunteers carry on their work with devotion, confident that the plants will flower again next year.
I briefly collected energy from the many shades of lilacs in Hulda's gardens, then sat on a bench surrounded by them. I asked that the plant and human entities who had collaborated over the past century to create this incredible lilac love-feast also infuse the mother essence with their energies. I seemed to see ladies in long dresses with parasols visiting the gardens years ago.
I was reminded that May Day, the day of my visit, was--not coincidentally--a day of joyous celebration for various nature religions. I was also reminded that Mother's Day always came during the lilacs' glory days and that we should celebrate the love our mothers expended in co-creating and raising us.
I was told, finally, that For the Love of Lilacs is an
essence not just for forgiveness but also for helping gardeners heart-bond and co-create with their gardens the way Hulda did. I left the farm uplifted and determined to make a return pilgrimage next year.
For the Love of Lilacs can be found from Pegasus and many healthfood, vitamin, and alternative health stores.
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Donna Cunningham,
Astrologer
& Healer |
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Donna Cunningham is an internationally respected astrologer and the author of 13 books on metaphysical topics.
Donna Cunningham has a dual background in astrology and psychotherapy, with a Masters in Social Work from Columbia University and over 30 years experience as a professional astrologer. She considers doing the astrology charts of children to be a sacred trust. It is a way of knowing who these Indigo children are on their own terms rather than as their families, teachers, and society expect them to be.
In these sessions, she focuses on typical childhood concerns such as family and peer relationships, the best educational approaches, and the child's special gifts and abilities. She can be reached for consultations at (503)291-7891, by email, or at her web page. Ask about her special rate for children's charts.
Donna is also co-editor of Vibration and a frequent contributor. She has written fourteen books on astrology and other metaphysical topics, including her Flower Remedies Handbook. Astrologers who want to know the special considerations involved in doing children's charts can read the chapter on this topic in Donna's text, The Consulting Astrologer's Guidebook.
Listed in several Who’s Who volumes, she has given seminars on astrology around the world and won the prestigious Regulus Award at the 1998 UAC.
She teaches astrology classes online at: astrocollege.com
You may reach her for long-distance astrology consultations at her web site:
DonnaCunningham
MSW.com
by email:
moonmaven @spiritone.com
or by calling:
(503)291-7891.
For the past 20 years, she has worked with the flower remedies, and she is co-editor of Vibration Magazine, a free online educational quarterly at:
essences.com/vibration/
For information on Donna's online classes about flower essences, visit her website:
DonnaCunninghamMSW.com
"Donna's first astrology ebook will be available in March.
For more
information go to her web page:
http://www.donna
cunninghammsw.com
This series is reprinted with gracious permission from Donna Cunningham.
©2002 Vibration Magazine/The World Wide Essence Society
PO Box 285
Concord, MA 01742
978 369-8454
If you are interested in ordering a copy of Donna's new ebook:
"Flower Remedies--How Plant's Energies Can Heal Us,"
It is $15, available at Moon Maven Publications:
www.moonmaven
publications.com
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