Show Notes:

Have you ever wondered what it is like to make a flower essence? In this episode, Rochana and Kathleen share their stories of essence making and connecting to the plants. Nature has a sense of humor and when you are working in partnership, things don’t always go according to your best laid plans.

Audio:

Video:

Flower Essences discussed during the show:

• Sweet Chestnut – available from Healing Herbs
• Western Heart’s Ease – available from WiseFlower
• Purple Sage – available from Flora of Asia
• Yarrow – available from FES
• Yeddo Hawthorn – available from Flora of Asia
• Calypso Orchid – available from WiseFlower
• Artemesia – available from Flora of Asia
• Poke – available from WiseFlower

Our Sponsor:

Ruth Toledo Altschuler’s Deepening Circles

In her own words Ruth says:

“Serving as an Educator and Mentor helping the evolution of our field of Flower Essence Therapy is something I do out of a spirit of Devotion and Inspiration. 

I have lived and breathed in-depth Flower Essence Therapy for three decades now, having gathered a unique combination of experience unparalleled in the field.

From my time based in Brazil, all the many years sponsoring and translating classes by the most important Mentors in the field of Flower Essence Therapy, has given me an intimate insight into their understanding and approach. All the while, when preparing my own classes, I am always committed to deepening my studies even further, to offer renewed perspectives.”

Here are some highlights on Ruth’s unique combination of experience in the Flower Essence Therapy field:

• Ongoing effective work with great numbers of clients over more than three decades
• Multiple opportunities of learning directly and working alongside our contemporary researchers and founders
• Educator in the field of Flower Essence Therapy for three decades
• Experienced in teaching online using technology for bringing beauty and healing to this world

Show Transcript

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:00:18]
Hi, flower lovers, we are back. Today, I’m really excited about this topic that we’re going to tackle. It is going to be– we’re going to share our stories about making flower essences. And this is such a funny topic because everyone that I’ve ever talked to who makes flower essences has an assortment of wild and crazy things that have happened to them as they were making essences. And whenever you’re in this magical, liminal state, working with the intelligence of nature, very interesting things happen. And I’m really excited to share my stories. And I know, Rochana, you have some stories ready to go. And we’re going to dive in in just a minute. We wanted to share a new piece of the show where we are highlighting a beloved friend of ours who will be sponsoring this episode.

Rochana Felde: [00:01:36] Yeah, we are having Ruth Toledo Altschuler from essencecircles.com sponsor this episode, and she has a unique community of Essence Circles that she facilitates that deep dive into flower essences and flower essence therapy. Specifically, she’s offering these Deepening Circles, which is an in-depth study program for both professional practitioners and dedicated students to further our relationship with the plants, the essences, and each other.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:02:13] Now, Ruth has been a mentor to both of us, and studying with her is a unique experience that we both really deeply value. We’re both enrolled in the Deepening Circles’ class and we absolutely love the quality and the depth of her program. So get ready for inspiration and reading the flowers on a whole new level and find out more about Ruth and this offering at essencecircles.com. We’ll put a link in the show notes.

So the first part about making, in essence, is I know that this is really important to me and I know it’s important to you as well, Ro, this quality of connection, this quality of relationship. We live in such a commercial culture and we tend to have a colonial attitude that’s just– it’s just part of how we’re built, where we just think we can just go and buy something or we can just go and get something. If it’s just sitting there, we can take it. And nothing could be further from the truth when we’re working with nature, we’re working with the intelligences of nature. We have to join in a sacred relationship with the plants that we are interested in working with. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve been interested in certain plants for years sometimes before I get a yes that they want the– that the timing is right and that they’re ready to work with me, making an essence. So it is part of a lot of essence trainings where you learn how to make flower essences. But I would certainly say if you’re asking and you’re not getting a no on a regular basis, you may not be really asking with the true openness to receiving a true yes. I think consent goes over throughout all species and throughout all kingdoms. This is something that’s really important to me. And I think that you too have a very similar perspective.

Rochana Felde: [00:04:25] Yeah, absolutely. And even more so coming from a herbal world where foraging is sort of a hot new trend, it’s very Instagrammable and bloggable. And people post a lot of pictures about going and collecting plants for medicine. And this is– there’s certainly a romance to that. And we’re all, gosh, so attracted to doing that. It’s like deep in our soul and our hearts and our bones going back to just our DNA of how we as humans have evolved with the plant community and the environment here on this Earth.

However, it’s not that simple, and there is harm that can be done not just to the plant, but to the whole ecosystem as well. So things like foraging take not just learning how to identify plants or even not just how to take a certain percentage of the plants to– there’s just so much more nuance to it and so much more study. So the good thing about flower essences is they are the least amount of impact to the plants and the flowers because we’re not taking the whole plant. We’re just taking a flower or a couple of flowers. But there’s still considerations. Is it a rare plant and all of those sort of logical things that you want to think about.

But on top of that, there’s also the non-linear permission that, Kathleen, you were talking about, which is, is this the right time energetically to make a flower essence? And what is that all about? So there is definitely building that relationship with the environment, with the plant on those levels that I talked about, and then also on that energetic level, because it needs to be sort of like a two-way communication for we’re not just asking to take the plant. We’re also communicating the whole time we’re making the essence and sort of hearing or channeling its messages to us. And so we have to make sure that it’s the right time to do that.

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Kathleen Aspenns: [00:06:48] Mm-hmm. And also because like you’re saying we’re not just working on the physical principle of the leaves or the roots or what have you. We have to be working in full co-creation with the plant, with the spirit of the plant, the deva of the plant. So it has even a higher bar to creation because it’s not that you’ve decided to do this thing and you’re taking the body of the plant, you need the spirit of the plant to be fully on board with what’s happening in that moment, in that moment of essence making. So it’s I think, and I don’t know if this has been your experience also, but there’s this moment that happens. There’s this special time, and you can’t schedule it and you can’t decide this is the day, week, month, or year that I’m going to be doing this thing. You’re entering in this, I don’t even know how to explain it, but it’s so non-linear. It’s so non normal reality. And so you’re looking for that when you know that it’s– when you know that you’ve been working with a plant and you’ve been wanting to make in essence, perhaps, or you’ve been struggling with an issue and you’re looking for a plant partner to help you with that issue, something special will happen. They’ll step forward for you in a way that’s not a normal– not a normal reality kind of way.

I think that when you’re in the essence state and this is something that Jane Bell, my primary teacher shared, is you’re not in normal reality anymore. And it can start days before you make the essence. It can start when you have a plan to go somewhere and you might be making an essence. Who knows? But things will start to happen that will trigger your– hopefully will trigger your awareness and realize, “Oh, this is part of the remedy. This is part of what’s happening.” And they’re not just like you have to be watching for the synchronicities and for the odd little events or funny things that happen or things that show up in your awareness or in your car or in your bowl. Different experiences will happen on the way or even before you get the bowl out, let’s say.

Rochana Felde: [00:09:11] Yeah, absolutely. And I think a big, big part of it is learning to– I mean, it’s a practice. It’s just a lifestyle even that is about paying attention to the signs kind of endless. So it’s not just as you say about when you start making the essence, it’s that thought. It’s like you’ve maybe been visiting that plant for a while or you’ve walked past it or it’s in your garden. And for me, I’m watching these plants and monitoring them every day for years, seeing how they grow. Just it’s this curiosity of their personality, of how they are in their environment. And when you do that, all of a sudden, there’s a time when they start to flower where the whole plant just seems to like glow and that glow, maybe some of that is on a different plane. But when I see that, when it looks like to me, when maybe it doesn’t show up for other people, but because I’m in that sort of relationship, there is a glow that it has. And that’s how when I know that it’s ready for making an essence.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:10:39] That’s intriguing. I like that you brought that up because that’s a little different than my experience. I will often feel called, but my intuitive skills are not usually very visual. So it’s really cool to hear how your talent for that intuitive quality has more of a visual tone to it, because mine is more like the clairsentience or clairaudience where I’ll hear things or I’ll feel things really strongly. And I think that’s another really great note because not everybody’s experience in making an essence is going to be the same. Some people get a visitation and they get this whole download and not everybody gets that. When you’re making an essence, you’re looking for all the different possibilities and different– at least in my experience, different essences feel different. I get different information. Some are more chatty, some don’t tell me a thing. Some, I have this huge physical experience, some, all sorts of weird synchronicities. It can be anything. So when you’re getting interested in this, think about the possibilities that you could be getting information in ways that are not the obvious way, let’s say.

Rochana Felde: [00:11:58] Yeah, I would say, like everything you just said is exactly my experience, too. It’s so different between the plants and the glow isn’t necessarily a huge visual thing. It’s more like it’s calling to me, and it’s a combination of it’s catching my attention. And then I look at it and I notice the light glinting off of it in a certain way or something like that. And just somehow it’s calling out to me and maybe it’s so hard to articulate, but maybe it’s a combination of the visual, even though normally I don’t have visual as part of my sensitivity that much, it’s more, like you say, the knowing and the downloads once I start working with them. So, yeah, it would be different for everybody, I’m sure, depending on where your extra sensory capabilities are.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:12:53] And also with the different plants too, because they communicate with different skills. What my experience with working with some of these really ancient plants like the Magnolias, the family is 100 million years old, and they’re not as wordy necessarily as some of the younger plants that have more experience. So bringing that information through as an essence, it can sometimes be more kind of meta information rather than in a plant.

Some of the plants that have been used as herbs, I find tend to be a little kind of chattier. They’re more sort of human scale. They understand like, “Oh, yeah, I get how these humans work and I know how to talk to them.” 

Rochana Felde: [00:13:42] That’s my experience too, and the herbs are so much more like, I guess, approachable might be. I don’t know if it’s quite the right word, but they know how to work with humans. And so I think they have an easier time communicating with us.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:14:02] And that’s something that’s been my experience, but I never heard anybody talk about it before. So it’s really a hoot to hear that you’ve had that same experience, because– and I guess that would get into one of the things that is something that’s been my experience making essences. And I’ve certainly seen some people talking about making essences and it’s all wonderful, expansive, and light and all the good side, all the sort of the positive manifestations of an essence. And a lot of times when I’m making essences or in that essence experience, and I’m going to embrace the full scope of nature that’s going on around me all the time. The weather right now is so springy, and I think I have a nesting set of birds in every single eave outside my window and my birds are just chattering at the birds outside. And there’s a lot of nature sound in this. It’s part of the soundscape we’re creating for you podcast listeners. So I’ll apologize and pretend that it’s intentional.

So the experience of making essences is, for me, not all sweetness and light. I oftentimes will really experience the even shadow side is too weird. It’s almost just like you get both polarities of the essence when you’re making it. And I appreciate it, even though it’s not fun. I appreciate it because then it helps me recognize who this can help. And when I have a client come to me and express the state, I’m like, “Oh, I know the plant for you.” Is that something that you’ve experienced also?

Rochana Felde: [00:15:44] Yeah, absolutely. So it’s funny. Well, I have all these journals and these are all– I’m pointing out on the video, I mean these and a few more are basically all the writings from all the plants I’ve sat with, I don’t know, around 200 at this point. I totally lost count. And many of those journal entries start out with, “Oh my God, I’ve got a headache. I feel like crap today. How am I going to do this and sit here for two hours and make this essence?” And I don’t even know if I could do it because something or other is happening. And part of it is really sitting with that, sitting with the observe– getting into observer mind about the experience instead of identification mind and just kind of going, “Oh, that’s interesting.” And I write through it, I write through those feelings, I write them down. And then when I kind of– it’s like almost like if you’ve ever heard of that practice the artist way where that is a practice of writing a–

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:16:52] Daily pages.

Rochana Felde: [00:16:54] –certain number of daily pages before ever trying to write anything creative, because you just have to get out all the gunk out of your brain and your psyche. And I feel like the beginning pages of my essence journaling is that. It’s exactly that. It’s like I’m going to get out all the things that are bugging me that are in my mind and just clear myself of that. But in that process, I observe what is happening because that’s a clue. Everything is part of the experience. And then when you look at that later, after getting even more information much more direct from the plant, it’s really interesting to correlate and see, “Oh, that’s interesting,” because that makes sense. I was feeling that way. And this plant is saying, “Hey, it can help for people feeling that way.”

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:17:40] And that’s part of the stories around Dr. Bach learning about the essences and making the first modern series of essences was the legend, I don’t know, it’s not in his own hand, but it’s the stories that have been passed down that he experienced the worst state. He would experience the negative polarity of the essence, and he would go out for a walk and he would look for a plant that would make him feel better, that would meet that in him.

So I’m familiar with this scenario also. There have been times where I was on the way to the garden and feeling all sorts of funky feelings. And I’m like, “Okay, well, there’s an essence happening today. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m on my way.” And for one, the Sweet Chestnut, and I made a species of Sweet Chestnut that’s not the same one as Dr. Bach made it. This one is one that originates from Japan and the experience of making the essence of just trudging up the hill and like, “Oh, God, I feel so depressed.” I just get even like, “Ugh,” half of me is doing that and the other half of me is watching me do that going, “Yeah, this is part of the story.” And then just walking up to the plant and seeing and I’m like, “Oh, obviously. Sweet Chestnut,” where you get that pull, you get this magnetic pull into the direction of the plant. And then even the whole time of making the essence was just this dark end of my rope kind of scenario. And I’m sitting there and I’m sitting on this little ledge looking down onto where the tree is growing. And I have the bowl in front of me and I’m looking down, going, “Oh, it’s just a 10-foot drop. I’d only just break my leg, not end this all.” And it was really intense. But I was also recognizing, “Okay, this is the essence. This is what it’s talking about.”

So going through essence making process, it’s not all sweetness and light. But I did really recognize when I finished the process for that essence and I could feel that release, I felt that softening and opening and I’m like, “Oh, this is the way through.” It’s to relax and open the grip, open the hands, and allow that intensity to flow through. And that’s really the message of Sweet Chestnut. In dark moments, just, “Okay, well, here we are and let’s let it flow.”

Rochana Felde: [00:20:17] Yeah, also, it’s kind of an exhausting process to make essences. So even when it’s not an experience like that, I find that I can only do a certain number a week or I’m just kind of a basket case from the really intense, even though at the time of essence-making, right afterwards, I usually feel pretty good. But it can be hard to integrate back into regular life or bounce back and forth between doing essences and doing something more linear. So it definitely is something that you have to kind of make your lifestyle work around. You can’t schedule essences into your life. You have to schedule your life around the essences.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:21:11] Yeah, you’re right. That’s exactly right. And it is very– it takes a lot out of you, even though you’re like, “All I did today was I sat with a bowl.” Like, “What is wrong with me?” But you’re so right. I have that same experience. It’s like you did a marathon sometimes.

Rochana Felde: [00:21:28] Yeah. Yeah. It’s work that I feel– it’s like my life’s work, right? It’s my calling, what I feel called to do, and I absolutely love it, but it can certainly be challenging in so many ways because of that.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:21:48] Please tell me a story, like a sweet one, because the stories I have are the crazy ones.

Rochana Felde: [00:21:54] I’ll tell you. So it’s not just about what necessarily I’m feeling, but also what happens around me. And there’s a lot of clues there. So depending on where you’re making essences, and I make them in some of the wild places around the Northern California coast and also in my forest yards – I have a property in the forest- and I, a lot of times, walk around the area and there’s so many beautiful forest flowers around here.

And so one of the flowers that I made last year was Western Heart’s Ease, also called the Two-Eyed Violet. And it’s a beautiful little White Violet that grows in the Redwood Understory. And it’s really just not far from my property, up the street a little bit. And so I knew– I walked by it every day for a couple of years. But when the time was right to make the essence, I got my supplies and I kind of nestled myself in just off the side of the road and the roads here, there’s one car a day, so it’s not very busy. And I was starting to write in my journal and connect with the plant, and then here comes this elderly couple that owns the property in between where I was and my property, so sort of my neighbors. But they came to do a bunch of brush clearing that day. And so they’re in there, their pickup truck and they’re parking. And then they’re starting to clear all of this invasive French Broom off the property. And the wife came in, really 10 feet away from me, and I was just kind of not making any movements because I didn’t want to scare her or surprise her and nobody ever saw me. So I just kind of stayed there and tried to keep concentrating with the flower.

But it was very hard to do that because here they are, this elderly couple who, the husband is a Vietnam vet. They’ve been together forever. And they have that old couple way of squabbling, fighting, nipping at each other for everything. So they’re up on this hill trying to clear brush, and they’re kind of arguing to the pass– to anyone just passing by, they would think it was a couple arguing. As I’m sitting there, though, I’m feeling really protected from that argumentative energy, and I’m feeling it coming from the Heart’s Ease. It’s kind of got this little buffer happening. And so I’m just observing that feeling because a lot of times when somebody is arguing, I get a reaction to it. I have a hard time being around that or without doing some sort of energy work to buffer myself and my sensitivity about it.

So I’m feeling that buffering and I’m thinking, “Oh, that’s kind of cool. This Heart’s Ease is probably about that.” And then, something really kind of wonderful unfolded. As I’m hearing the husband, he says “God damn,” a lot and swears and everything, but it’s cute in this old-fashioned way. And his wife isn’t really reacting to it. They’re just doing their job. They’re clearing the brush. They’re working as a team, as a partnership and really getting it done. And I felt this sense of my heart just softening for them. It’s like pure compassion. And also knowing that he was a Vietnam vet and he had told me previously on an interaction about his horrendous story over there and just knowing that they had been together for so long through this thick and thin of life. And I just felt just a real visceral, heart-opening, this reaction of just pure compassion for these people, and that I hardly knew. And it was really sweet.

So I felt and I understood immediately this essence being for engendering compassion and then also not being pulled into other people’s drama, right? So I was able to observe it and have compassion without getting caught up in the drama. And that is such a key thing for people that are highly sensitive and empathic in nature. And I felt like that was a perfect way to experience that, but it wasn’t like– it was not coming as a download necessarily from the plant. It’s like the plant was showing me. It was literally, it was amazing that this experience seemed to be just so perfect. And it’s in the way that it illustrated to me what this flower was about.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:27:02] And that personal, intimate lived experience really does give you so much information on how you can use that remedy, how that remedy is here to help people, is here to help the world by recognizing the circumstances that evolve around its making. And the more that it gets used in the world, the more people who use that essence, the more you see the different facets and aspects of the meanings around it. And certainly when you have an experience where you have people that are wildly interacting around there, it’s kind of funny.

I’ve certainly had experiences where sort of random people coming by either notice or don’t notice me. Certainly, one of the most distinct circumstances where that happened for me was with the Purple Sage, which is one of my Flora of Asia essences. And I just had this experience where all these people were coming towards me, but then they were just diverting, and then they would walk past and they wouldn’t even notice me. And I can assure you, I was not wearing camouflage. I was visible, but they never saw me. And sitting with this plant just gave me this experience of being so shielded. It has been an incredible asset, an ally to me personally as I reach out into the world in a broader way, like when we started doing this podcast and like, “Oh, my God, people are hearing us and listening to us and getting to know us a little bit.” And there’s a real concern, legitimate concern with sharing something so personal and letting yourself be seen.

And this essence is so helpful with letting people who shouldn’t be seeing you, not see you, and only letting people who are in alignment with you or on the same wavelength with you, see you and respond and connect with you because this is a very common challenge where sensitive people and heartful people are really concerned and legitimately so about attracting unwanted attention. So that Purple Sage has been an important ally for me and a lot of the people I work with.

Rochana Felde: [00:29:36] Yeah, and I can’t tell you how many times I have been sitting on the side of a trail or somewhere that people have walked by and never seen me or riding a bicycle or driving. I mean, obviously, when somebody is driving, they’re looking at the road and that makes a little more sense. But it’s kind of amazing how many people don’t really look around when they’re walking and they’re not paying attention to what’s on either side of them. Maybe they’re lost in their thoughts. I just find it really fascinating. But I agree that there’s something about being in that container of essence-making that even makes it more so– every time I can’t believe somebody, I kind of brace for what I’m going to say when they like, say, ask, “What are you doing?” And then it doesn’t happen.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:30:32] You’re right because most of the time that is exactly the case, although I have had a couple of interesting experiences when I was working with more social remedies where people will come by and they’ll say, “Hi.” You’ll chat for a little bit. And it’s all like, it’s cool. It’s really a sweet interaction where, like you say, most of the time I sit there and go like, “Don’t notice me, don’t notice me, don’t notice me,” because I don’t want to talk to you. And I don’t want to have– I don’t want to deal with it. And then, the times where somebody has noticed me, it was like, oh, it was really right. And it was really almost a communal experience, even though they’re not part of it, they’re expressing friendliness and a nice interaction. So that’s a really sweet thing that happens sometimes with certain remedies. Like Yarrow, for me, has been that experience where it’s more of like a, interacting with others kind of an essence. And the Yeddo Hawthorn, for sure. Trusting people to be of good heart, trusting people to want to be kind and involved, and not just like, “What are you doing?” Yeah.

Rochana Felde: [00:31:41] Yeah. And what about accidents? Have you had any strange, happy, or unhappy accidents in the essence-making process?

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:31:49] Oh, that’s a good question. I hadn’t really thought about it. You tell me– if you have a story, tell me your story, and I’ll see if I can pull it up out of the reservoir.

Rochana Felde: [00:31:58] Yeah, well, it was, I guess for me, this working with this Calypso Orchid that I started working with a couple of years ago and last year decided to make an essence. And it comes up out of the forest floor. You can barely– if you don’t know what to look for, you’ll step right on the one leaf that comes up out of the Redwood leaves, the detritus of the forest floor. And then at a certain time of year, it’ll have this one flower and it’s very low to the ground. So it’s really easy to miss. So it’s not a rare plant, but it’s definitely not something that you would want to pick. So last year I made a no-pick essence because I didn’t want to pick it. And there was only a couple of them that I found in this area of the forest, and I had a wonderful essence-making session with it. I got this really heavy download of information. And because I wasn’t– I don’t know about you and how you make essences away from the garden or the home and how you pack them back to and cover them or whatever. I like to– I have covers that I put on the bowl and then I bring the bowl back home. And then I finish my essence-making process into the mother essence bowl and filter it and all that. So I guess I didn’t put the cover on all the way and I had it in my pack and by the time I even got to my car, it had completely spilled and saturated the backpack. So there was nothing left after a couple of hours sitting with it. And it was devastating. But I thought, “Okay, well, I guess it’s just not the right time,” even though I didn’t get the– I didn’t get a no from it and I got good information, I guess it wasn’t the right time, so I’ll try again next year.

So that was actually just a month ago that I went and I tried it again. And I keep an eye on this area of the forest. I walk by it regularly to, I don’t know, check up on it. It’s a really beautiful little corner of a Redwood forest. Unfortunately or fortunately, there’s a lot of fire remediation going on around here with living in this forest in California with all the threat of the fire and the fires we had last year, there’s a really increased effort to clear flammable and do fire remediation and clear some of the trees, not the Redwoods, of course, but the other ones, the Bays and a whole contingent had been there. And I thought– it was brutal. I saw tire tracks on the one Orchid that I had worked with the year before. And I kind of went to all this trouble and I made up a circle around it with sticks in case anyone came back to try to highlight it. And I found some others that were okay. And so I thought, “Okay, phew. Okay, I can still work with this plant. And thank goodness there’s more nearby here that they didn’t harm inadvertently.”

And so I was going to do the no-pick method again. However, one Orchid had been harmed and it may have been from a branch falling because it was really interesting. It was just the stem, it was completely bent and damaged, but the flower was intact. And so I thought, “Wow, it’s almost like giving itself here for the essence,” because it’s just going to die in a day, staying the way it is. So I carefully cut it right at that bent stem and was able to make an essence with that in an area where there was essences. And this time the bull didn’t spill. And I now have the Calypso Orchid essence, but it was kind of like this unhappy accident from last year into this. And there’s more to it that’s too long to go into about, the message of the essence. But it really all made so much sense to me and it felt like it wanted to be– it wanted to be more physically part of that essence and it felt right. It felt like the right thing to do. So that’s really it for that.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:36:32] Yeah, working with nature is always– you’re always having to juggle because we get these agendas, where like, “But this is the way I want it to be. I think this is how I’m supposed to do it.” And I have this plan, and it always is funny how nature always has the last laugh on our plans. I know that I’ve had a little bit of an experience, maybe more on that rather than on the accident side, but that quality of my thinking, what I’m going to be doing and then what actually ends up happening being two very different things, because you could be going and thinking that this plant that I’ve been working with for the last few years and waiting for it to come into bloom and be like, “Okay, I think this year is going to be the year that I get to be able to do this.” And then I would go– I’m at the garden and I’m looking at this plant and there’s just chaos going on around. And it’s totally not possible to make an essence, and so keep walking on. And then I bump into the Artemesia and this whole message of the Artemesia to me was, “You think you have a plan and then you have to adjust.” So the Artemesia for me is more this quality of this willful toddler stomping her feet, “But I had a plan. This is what I was going to do.” And the plants are like, “Well, yeah, okay. And this is what’s actually going to be happening. So either get on board or go stomp somewhere else.” That’s kind of a fun– we just think we have– we think we know what’s happening and then something beautiful will happen like this plant offers to you or you think, “Oh, this is where I’m going to do it.” And that turns out a tire has crushed it or the plant’s vanished and it’s not there anymore. And you’re like, “It’s the end of the world. It feels like it.” One of the– go ahead. You had something to say.

Rochana Felde: [00:38:35] I was going to say what was sort of amazing that came out of that, and again, it had to do with this a little bit of Earth advocacy that was part of the energy of that flower, it got me communicating with finding the group of people who were doing the clearing and voicing my concerns about the Orchid and that they now have a couple of people in the group that know how to identify it and protect it during that work. So sort of the benefit of that just kind of, it propelled me to help protect it. Again, it’s not just about taking and not even just taking because it feels right. I even feel weird saying that even though I just explained that story, it’s part of this bigger picture of tending the land and taking care of the environment. So it’s not like this isolated incident, but here I am then being involved in how to be a better caretaker for the land as a whole and to protect this, grow this little outcropping of Orchids from future inadvertent damage

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:39:53] That is such an important issue and something that– the thought that I had just before you said that, I think it really ties in perfectly because one of the things that I get constantly reminded when I’m talking to the plants is my preconceived notions of human superiority or even just human, this view that we’re contained and that now I’m in nature and no one can see me. I want to be alone in nature. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten this message of, almost a little bit of a slap upside the head like, “Hey, little human, you think you’re so superior. But we know how to do this. We are so much– we’re your older brothers and sisters and we know how this works. And just because you can move around on your legs doesn’t mean that you understand life, doesn’t mean that you have the perspective that we have.” The plants have such a long-term perspective. This perspective of being humans, we have a short life. We think it’s all contained birth to death, and we have this many years to do things. And the timescale of plants is completely different, even individual plants. But certainly, when you get into species and families, they’re thinking in millennia. And we’re just like, “But this week, we have to do it this week.” And it’s like, “Yeah, what’s your rush?” So I like what you’re saying about that perspective of just relax into a little bit and allow nature to help guide you more and more.

Rochana Felde: [00:41:43] Yeah, we just can’t try to control it. That is the message over and over and over again. We’re not in charge.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:41:54] Yeah, because it’s a partnership. And when you’re in partnership, you don’t get to do things exactly the way that you would do if you were doing it alone, right. So you’re partnering with the green world, which has a different pace. It has a different– it has a perspective. It has a different just mindset, if you can say such a thing, which I believe you can, and connecting with that rather than our human, linear– we just see the world from behind our own eyes and working deeply with nature allows you to develop a different perspective on the world and see yourself in that continuum, in that larger continuum, we get to see the patterns.

Rochana Felde: [00:42:42] And nature is not without a sense of humor as well. It’s usually pretty funny the way that these messages from the universe can manifest, a really silly, just funny synchronicity. A lot of them happen, and I don’t tend to even write a lot of them down, but one I’ll never forget. And that is when I was making an essence with Poke, the Poke Root plant, Phytolacca americana, I think, it was all about kind of poking you delve into things that you didn’t want to look at in your psyche. And I came back in from making this essence and found that during that time I got– if you’ve been on Facebook for any number of years, you know that there used to be a feature called Poke, and you could poke somebody and I don’t know, maybe it’s even still there, but nobody uses it anymore. And it doesn’t really mean anything. It’s just, I don’t know, it’s like saying hi or something. It never really made sense and had anyone do that for years. But as I was making the Poke essence, somebody poked on Facebook and it wasn’t somebody that I wanted to deal with or talk to. And that is the perfect, funny, just little laughable message from the universe about that essence.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:44:23] Yeah, nature does have a sense of humor and sometimes we’re the subject of the sense of humor. That’s really funny. Well, I’ve really loved sharing. We could do this for two hours. I’ve really loved sharing these stories with you because I know I have many more. And I would hope that some of our listeners, some people who are sharing this time with us together, maybe you have some stories too that we would love to hear. We’d love to hear your experiences with plants. So hopefully on the socials, you’ll share your stories with us, or if you don’t want to share it publicly, maybe email or something like that, because it’s weaving this world together of connecting to plant intelligence and the healing that’s open and available. And they’re eager to share this with us. And I think that everything that we do to sort of normalize this reality of being surrounded by consciousness and being surrounded by the intelligence in nature is a valuable thing to overcome the preset Western world mindset of this is how reality is. So thanks for sharing our special version of reality and letting us share the stories with you. And we’d love to hear your stories, too.

So thanks for joining us on this episode of The Flower Essence podcast, and until next time. I know, Ro, we put out a call to our patrons asking for some questions because our goal is to start developing a new little segment of question and answer and whether we tag them on to the end of episodes or whether we create special episodes or we’re still in process to see how that’s going to go. And we’ve gotten some good questions so far. And I know I want to really dive into some of those questions. So it’s a little sneak peek at what’s coming up. Did you want to add something onto that as well?

Rochana Felde: [00:46:24] Yeah, well, first, I would also love to hear everybody’s essence-making stories. I mean, this could be a great conversation, a fun share about synchronicities and things that happen. And who else can you really talk to about these things other than other flower essence practitioners and makers? So it’s really special to have these conversations And for the patrons, yeah, tell us what you would like to see from us. We have a good list of questions, as Kathleen said, and we’ll be recording some answers to those questions and making them available to our patrons on Patreon. And if you have not yet subscribed to that community, please do so and help support The Flower Essence podcast.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:47:12] Thank you so much. And just as another note, we are here to help you in all various and sundry ways. Both of us, our books do have space for new clients. We are happy to talk to you about what flower essence therapy can do for you and different possibilities. So get in touch if you have questions or if you’re interested in working with us, we would love to talk to you and love to share the healing qualities and just the healing in nature that we’ve both experienced so deeply. And we can share– in our stories, we can share our experiences with nature and recognize that nature is here for you too.

Rochana Felde: [00:47:58] Goodbye now.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:47:58] Bye.

Rochana Felde: [00:48:05] You’ve been listening to The Flower Essence podcast with Rochana Felde and Kathleen Aspenns, and we appreciate your interest in connecting with nature on a deeper level. You can find us online at thefloweressencepodcast.com or join us on Facebook and continue the discussion.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:48:29] This podcast is meant for educational and entertainment purposes only. We are not physicians and do not diagnose, prescribe, or treat medical conditions. Please consult with your own physician or health care practitioner regarding the suggestions and recommendations made by the hosts and guests of The Flower Essence podcast.

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