Show Notes:

With all that’s going on in the world right now, many are struggling to find perspective and make sense of it all. It’s a crucial time to maintain our sense of grounding and stability, so no matter what we’re doing and what we choose to do, we’re able to do it from a place of centeredness and peace so our best selves can show up.

Kathleen and Rochana bring in ancient and powerful plant allies that have a long history of helping humans on this planet. These flower essences and gem elixirs help us cultivate resilience, perspective, and heart connections with the earth and each other to increase our light and promote peace in every step.

Audio:

FEP77 Finding Peace and Clarity in Chaotic Times

With all that’s going on in the world, many are struggling to stay grounded, find perspective and feel a sense of stability. It’s a crucial time to maintain centeredness and peace so no matter what we’re doing and what we choose to do, our best selves can show up.

Video:

Flower Essences discussed during the show:

• Sphagnum Moss – Alaskan Essences
• Redwood – FES
• Olive – Healing Herbs
• Yellow Jasmine – Flora of Asia
• Lotus – FES
• St John’s Wort – FES
• Queen of the Night – Desert Alchemy
• Saguaro-Queen – Desert Alchemy
• Night Blooming Cereus – Jane Bell Essences
• Black Tourmaline – Alaskan Essences
• Jadeite Jade – Alaskan Essences
• Green Nicotiana – FES
• Blue-Green Tourmaline – Alaskan Essences
• Larimar – Alaskan Essences
• Schisandra – Flora of Asia

Show Transcript

Rochana Felde: Welcome to The Flower Essence Podcast, and join us on an exploration of the healing wisdom of flowers.  

Kathleen Aspenns: With combined decades of experience in the study and practice of Flower Essence Therapy, I, Kathleen Aspenns, and co-host, Rochana Felde, guide you to reconnect to nature with these potent, vibrational remedies. Welcome back, flower friends. 

Today, Ro and I are going to be talking about a topic that’s near and dear to our hearts and to our practices about finding clarity and peace in chaotic times. No doubt you’ve noticed that there’s a lot going on in the world right now, and a lot of us are really struggling with how we can make some sense of this, find some perspective, and most importantly, maintain our sense of grounding and stability. No matter what we are doing and whatever we’re choosing to do, we’re able to do it from a place of centeredness and peace so that our best selves can show up. 

And I was thinking about this topic in preparation, and really reflecting on how much I rely on the ancients in this aspect. The ancient plants, the ones who have been here for 100 million years, longer, are all part of, essentially, our Earth ancestors. And even back further than some of our flowering plants, those who listen often are certainly familiar with my love of Magnolias, some of the very earliest flowering plants. If you go back even further, you go back into the time of the Conifers. And even further back, we go back into the realm of the Mosses. And so perhaps we can start this conversation with Sphagnum Moss. 

Sphagnum Moss is an essence that I use from the Alaskan Essences, and I just appreciate that it sets this field, this field of acceptance and perspective. There’s a quality of softening and easing irritations and aggravations and helping us just drop in to where we are and where our feet are, and the Earth’s acceptance and love of us by this field of gravity that she creates for us, that we can just ease into and soften into. And Sphagnum Moss is one of the plants I reach for often because it brings that under layer of acceptance, peace, and ease to any formula that I might create on top of that. So, it’s almost a tonifying essence for just a starting place. 

And from there, I certainly think of Conifers. I know that both of us, you and I, Ro, we’re big fans of the Conifer family. And they predate all of our flowering plants. They are gymnosperms and don’t have flowers in the way that we think of them. And they go back in time. Some of the Conifers, if I’m remembering correctly off the top of my head, are maybe 200 million years old. They’re ancient beings, and they have seen a lot. If you look at the evolution of the planet, of all of the eras of cataclysm and massive change that has gone around, and the way that the continents have spread over geologic time, it’s hard for us to even understand because we see our lives in this realm of our lifetime, in one day, one year, one decade to the next, and yet plants are looking at this from much longer timescales. And when you’re connecting with Conifers, they are looking at things, and our whole human existence, the evolution of humans, is just a blip. And so, they give us this ability to connect into this perspective and this groundedness that allows us to stay so firm in ourselves, and so with that perspective of not getting spun out, and being able to lean on this wisdom of our elders. And I know, Ro, that you had some ideas about some particular Conifers that you wanted to share. 

Rochana Felde:  Well, you know I love the Redwood, but I wanted to comment and reflect on what you were saying about the Mosses because they’re so often overlooked, both physically and from a vibrational-essence standpoint. And if you have the opportunity to see Moss in the wild and stop to observe it for a minute and start to just tune into that, I mean, it grows on rocks, it grows on trees, it grows so microscopically slow, it takes so long for it to grow, and if you come across large swaths of it, like on a rock face, and sit to think how long it took for that to grow—and I don’t know what the average is, or it depends on the Moss and the place and all of that, but to really tune into that stillness of it and that groundedness of it, it’s quite profound. And there’s been some good books written about mosses lately, but it’s something that I personally would like to delve into even deeper because I think that they have so much to teach us right now, and being grounded, and to not be in a rush for doing things and for getting places, and that helps us with our embodiment. 

And coming to the Conifers with my favorite Conifer, the Redwood, which I’ve talked about many times, and it’s because it is so useful in so many scenarios and because it has so many messages and so much wisdom to tell us, and part of it is its resiliency and its ability to work together with the other Redwoods, with the other trees. And the way that the roots not only connect, but feed each other and merge with each other, and it’s all one being. And that is a really profound message in this day and age that we are actually connected and we are actually one. We’ve been in isolation more than ever in our history in the last five years. And it’s a really good thing to remember that our roots and our energy field, per se, is connected with each other. And the Redwood also helps us to know, like you were saying, Kathleen, they’ve been around so long, and the Redwood in particular, its lifespan can be thousands and thousands of years. And they can grow to be the tallest on the planet. And so, they really have this long view and this ability to just see far and to have perspective. And so that is extremely helpful in times of chaos and personal, planetary, whatever it is, when this chaos is swirling, when these emotions are swirling, and things seem unstable, look to the Redwood and use its essence. If you have the great honor to live near a Redwood or be able to visit, connecting with them in person is just something of beauty to do. 

I also wanted to just bring in Olive because it’s a Bach flower essence. It probably doesn’t get a huge amount of use in looking at—it’s really exhausted. It seemed to be like for more extreme states of exhaustion, the way that it’s talked about, how it’s written about, but I feel like the Olive has so much more to offer than that. And part of it is that it is an ancient tree, and it can survive a very long time with very little water. It’s very resilient. And in addition to working on our life, helping us to rejuvenate our life force, and giving this energetic strength and longevity, I think applying it to when we’re just exhausted by, not necessarily a physical challenge, but mentally by world events, by social media, by doom scrolling, that it takes such a toll on us that we don’t realize, and we may not put it together that how it’s actually affecting us on the day to day. So, I feel like Olive can maybe find a newer place in use as an essence for rejuvenating ourselves after. I mean, many of us want to stay current with what’s going on, and yet that takes a toll. And I think that Olive might be helpful in helping us get out of that doom energy and to rejuvenate our life force as a human being, and again, that helps us to be embodied and remember that we are all human beings.  

Kathleen Aspenns: I’m glad you brought Olive in, the principle that the Olive can grow as a really ancient tree, it can be an ancestor tree to humans. There are specimens that certainly are at least near to 1,000 years old, possibly longer, it’s hard to say exactly, but they have that quality of resilience. If you look at the way they grow, they can lose huge chunks of the trunk, massive parts of their body, and be able to regenerate. And so, it’s been considered to be a tree of almost immortality because it can just keep coming back no matter what strikes it. And I appreciate how you brought that into the conversation. I was certainly reflecting on that when you were talking about it about recently, Ruth and I were teaching Botanical Families, and we were talking about the Oleaceae, and the Oleaceae, the family with Olive, also has Jasmine. It’s so funny to think about those two plants being in relationship, those types of plants being in relationship, because you wouldn’t necessarily make that leap, but botanically speaking, they are closely related. 

And so, it brings me to thinking about Jasmine and one of the Jasmines that I have in my line, Flora of Asia, the Yellow Jasmine really has this character of, like all the Jasmines, and I think all the Oleaceae have this character of helping us know when to act and when to rest. Part of the longevity of the Olive is, it’s not trying to do too much. It grows reasonably slowly, but lasts forever. And so, for us, too, to remember, there’s a time to set fruit, there’s also a time to rest. And the Yellow Jasmine definitely teaches us that it’s not time to act, okay, now it’s time to act, and when to know the difference, when to know when to come back to ourselves, and when to choose to rest, to not burn out. 

Certainly, the Olive is really good at teaching us how not to burn out and how to come back from burnout. And burnout, it’s just endemic. Our culture really wants us to. It’s wonderful for business. If people are burning, they’re working really, really hard, and then we’ll just get some more people. But this is you, this is your life, that you need to protect yourself from burnout, and consider your life to be more valuable than what somebody might want out of you. 

Rochana Felde:  I love this conversation because I forgot about the Jasmine being in that family, and thinking about, my first flower essence teacher always talked about Jasmine as rejuvenating the God spark within. And this was a different Jasmine—I don’t remember which species—but one that she had made. And so, thinking about that and how Olive is rejuvenating the life force. So, there’s this real divine life spark within us that this plant family is helping us with and helping us to recognize and to get in touch with. And another aspect of Jasmine is its essential oil, which, oh God, I love the scent. And it is in one of Jane Bell’s sprays, the Naked Spray, which is helping you just become into your body and be yourself without any embarrassment, just accepting yourself, right, and your self worth, and that you are here in this body and you’re ready to be in the world. And I love that so much, that connection between this divine spark within and the rejuvenating effects of this family with our life force. It is something that’s so important in coming back to ourselves is how we deal with the swirling chaos around us. So, this is a great connection that you made. Thank you for that.  

Kathleen Aspenns: And I want to loop back to the very early plants as well, because I think we would be remiss if we didn’t bring in such an important plant from that group of the very earliest flowering plants, the Lotus. It’s of a similar geologic era as the Magnolias, and also a couple other plants that I want to bring in a little bit later in this conversation, but the Lotus, so many of us have at least an image in our minds of what the Lotus looks like. Just remembering how it grows, it grows roots deep into the mud of a pond or a shallow lake, and then it brings its leaves up above the surface of the water to capture the light. And then through those leaves comes up this incredibly large flower. It’s really significantly large, and just opens these multi-petaled pink flowers that have a divine fragrance. And it has been considered to be part of divine iconography roughly since humans started thinking about these things. It has this character of staying grounded, and yet reaching up into the light. 

And as a flower essence, it helps us to stay in our bodies. There’s so many streams of spirituality that can encourage us to become disembodied and disentangled from this messy human experience. The Lotus always has its roots in the mud. It is always connected deep, deep inside, and yet, it can come up into the light and integrate those two places, the brightest upward-focused energetic, and also the deepest, darkest, muddiest experience, it brings both of those things together and teaches us as an essence how to do that, how to bridge the worlds. It’s such a fantastic essence to be working with in this time, because it too has this extended geologic time perspective. It’s been through way worse than this. There have been mass extinctions of plants and of animals and huge geologic changes over time. These plants have seen this, and they’ve lived through these things, and they can help us live through this thing too. 

Rochana Felde:  Absolutely. There’s a reason why the ancient Egyptians revered this plant. And it’s in the hieroglyphic markings on the temples. It is an iconic plant for a reason, and they saw the beauty and power of that plant, and so that is really something. As a flower essence, it is also great for putting in any kind of formula or blend. I mean, it is a fantastic harmonizer for a lot of the reasons you mentioned, Kathleen, and how it’s a bridge. It’s bridging between the dark and the light, or the spiritual and the physical, or all of these different dichotomies; it helps to bridge those. And in doing so, it is also emanating peace. It’s emanating a connection to a meditative state into other dimensional realities, and so it can harmonize blends that are using flower essence formulas with multiple essences. And some makers put it in all their blends just as a standard thing, so it’s one that can be used that way as well. 

Another one, just thinking about the light and bringing that more into our bodies, I would really love to just bring in St. John’s Wort, especially this time of year, because this is the time of year that it flowers in the Northern Hemisphere. We’re recording this on the summer solstice. St. John’s Wort is called St. John’s Wort because it’s said to bloom on St. John’s Day, which is, I think, in a couple days, and there’s a lot of legends around that. But the flower essence brings that solar strength back to us into our body, and helps us, especially when we’re feeling dark or we’re feeling overwhelmed by the darkness, either within us or coming at us that may be taxing our psychic and making us feel vulnerable, and we may be fearful or having disturbed dreams, especially if there’s any depression that’s coming out of that. But even not just things feel—you can’t deny they feel dark right now in the world, and it seeps into us, into our daily lives. And not to be Pollyanna about it, but to remember that by increasing our own light, we do have the ability to affect the field. And I feel like that’s something that we don’t see maybe the direct result of that, but if we are able to raise the light within us and to remember that we are part of the field, and then it matters, so not just for ourselves, but for humanity, I think that, in my personal opinion, there’s importance there and something to remember. And the St. John’s Wort can help us turn those shadows into light within ourselves and to raise that vibration, raise that level of light within us, and that’s one of the reasons that I feel like it can be a very valuable essence for us in these times.  

Kathleen Aspenns: On this topic of light and darkness, I’ll reflect on this immersion that Ruth and I have recently led students through with the Botanical Families, as part of flower essence therapy. We were immersing in the Cactus family, the Cactaceae. And the Cactus family is a family that evolved only in South America, and it evolved to endure really challenging circumstances, heavy droughts, lots of heat, and sunlight. And it’s an exceptional family. It’s really quite extraordinary how this—they’re different than any other kinds of plants, and so, we really enjoyed delving into the family. 

And speaking of Saguaro, which maybe we can bring in a little later, but since we’re talking about this topic of light and darkness, I’m feeling the need to bring in the Queen of the Night Cactus, which is an essence that I use from the Desert Alchemy essences. And she, it’s a really wild Cactus. It grows this giant tuber under the ground, and a big, heavy tuber under the ground, and has a really insignificant-looking stem. And then just for a few nights during the year does it produce these extraordinary, large, glorious white flowers, and it’s just like a light in the darkness. It has this exceptional character of blooming only at night, and just for a few nights, and it just lights it up. And so, it has this characteristic as an essence of helping us get in touch with what the light is inside of us and integrating these levels of the intuitive, of these vague thoughts and leanings and inspirations that we might have and bringing them into the realm of the conscious and helping them come into the realm of the physical so that we can then enact them into the world. It’s a very grounding of these sorts of ideas and helping us to do something useful with them, rather than just having things floating out into the ethers. 

Cynthia Scherer is the one who’s made these essences from the Desert, and she has a combination formula called Saguaro-Queen. And I do tend to use that one quite a bit in my practice, which has the Saguaro essence and the Queen of the Night Cactus essence together in a formula, where it has this incredible balance. The Saguaro is such an important essence for that strong, masculine, ancestral character, and this is the equivalently strong feminine character. So, it brings these two polarities together in these two essences, and it’s something that’s really useful right now because nothing gives you clarity like the desert. There is not a lot of extraneous goings on you can see clearly. There’s a sight line, but it’s an extreme environment. And it really rewards those who are prepared and grounded and sensible to take actions, in the right time, in the right moment.  

Rochana Felde:  I love that. And the Saguaro, it has that archetypal element of that longevity in the way that Redwood does, too. And I think that you were saying, it doesn’t grow arms until it’s 50 years old. And that was a great class that you and Ruth did. I learned a lot about the Cactus family, and there’s so much there to explore. So, it’s one that I’m not as familiar with as you are. And I think you had some other in that family that you were going to mention.  

Kathleen Aspenns: Well, yes, there’s a wonderful essence as part of Jane Bell’s Hawaiian Essences called the Night Blooming Cereus. And this particular Cactus has adapted itself to a more tropical environment, although it’s definitely still a Cactus, and it still has the Cactus characteristics. This one has a very similar flowering cycle. It too blooms at night. 

And when Jane and I were in Hawaii and making this essence, I mean, first off, what a wild experience. This one is particularly intense. So, it, once again, blooms at night. So, any essence or any flower that blooms at night is going to bring up some shadow content, just assume that. And it’s kind of just terrifying. It’s terrifying to be in the place and to have all sorts of creatures moving all around you, and just regularly kind of goosed as far as you hit that little fear response. 

But the essence, when you come to the full completion of making an essence like this, you can often go through the negative cycle of the fear and the terror and all of this sort of stuff, and it’s pretty disruptive and wild energies. But when you come through at the far end of it and at the dawn, waking up at dawn, and I went out onto the deck, and I looked up, and this particular type of Cactus is arboreal, it’ll grow up trees and it can grow 100 feet up into the trees, and I went out in that morning, and I looked just at dawn, and I had no awareness before, but I looked and I saw it was everywhere. It had grown up into the trees way, way above the house. And looking down at me were hundreds of these flowers, and they’re the size of a dinner plate. They’re huge. And they were all staring down at me like little moons. And they were just reminding me that I’m so much bigger than I think I am. I’m so much more powerful than I think I am. And that’s where, when we illuminate the shadow is we realize, oh, being able to bring all that together, being able to bring all those awarenesses, that’s where our power is. That’s where our strength is. So, the Night Blooming Cereus, man, it’s an intense essence, but it’s just wonderful. 

Rochana Felde:  Yeah, it’s quite a story. I want to start bringing some gem essences in here. And I’ll start with Black Tourmaline because, as you’ve probably heard us both talk about it many times before on the podcast, but it’s one of the ones I wouldn’t do without. I use it so often, and it’s because it really helps release that toxic energy from our field and replace it with fresh energy. So, it’s a key one to have. It’s a beautiful one to not only have in your essence collection, but have the stone and put it in your pocket or put it on your desk. It’s a core stone to have. 

And I would also bring in Jade because a Jadeite Jade essence from Alaskan, it can help us to always come back to our center. So, this is a theme in this conversation, obviously. And the other part of it, though, that’s pertinent, is that when there’s chaos, it helps us from over-identifying with that chaos. So, I really like that aspect for this topic, because it’s so easy to get sucked in to the drama of everything happening and not being able to detach when it’s time to detach. And so, Jade can help us let that go and come back to our center so that we can remain strong and grounded, so that we can go on to fight another day or whatever it is we need to do. And that’s a really beautiful essence to bring in.  

Kathleen Aspenns: I enjoy the character of the gems coming into the conversation because they really are so important to help ground. We’re both really passionate about having gems in our formulas because the way that I learned from Steve Johnson was this quality of that they help to anchor the shifts that the flowers make. The flowers, as essences, they have this characteristic of helping to shift consciousness, helping to shift emotional patterns. And we also need that outbreath to come down into the body and to anchor that shift into the physical reality. And the gems have such a wonderful ability of helping us to connect those lessons and bringing them in and to embody them and really experience them so firmly. 

I absolutely adore Jadeite Jade, because it is so calming as well. Not only is it embodying, but it’s just inherently calming. It’s been worn as jewelry, traditionally, and in Chinese culture, carved into a Guanyin. And the stone is often mounted in a mounting where the stone actually touches the skin. And I know I have one and I love it because whenever I’m feeling spun out, I’ll wear it right over my heart. And it just helps me remember to connect in, helps me to stay calm, to stay grounded in that moment. 

In perhaps a similar vein, but in a flower vein, the Green Nicotiana has some characteristic like this. It is in this wonderful family of sacred plants, like Tobacco. It’s a fascinating family. This was another one that we were talking about recently. 

And if what I’m teasing a little bit with these explorations into these plant families strikes you as being like, hmm, I need to know more about that, just know that all of these courses that Ruth and I teach are also available as replays. You can take part in them, even if not live. So, just know that you can go as deeply into this as you wish. All of that content is available. Just go ahead and check our courses at Flower Essence Studies. You will find three iterations of Botanical Families. These two families that we’ve mentioned most recently are in Botanical Families Three, the Cactaceae, the Cactus family, and the Oleaceae, the Olive and Jasmine family. 

And also, now that I’m talking about the Solanaceae, the Nightshade family, are all highlighted in that series of Botanical Families Three. So, if you find yourself interested, I would highly encourage it. It will absolutely change the way you practice. Ruth and I are both equally passionate about teaching this way because what it does is by learning from the family, you start to connect the lines between these individual points. You might know an essence that’s called one thing and one called another thing, but you would have no idea that they are botanically related, and then you can start to see how the essence significations have similarities. And how it helps you practice is when you know, oh yeah, this family, it’s all about this particular topic. You’ll recognize, like say the Cactus family, it’s how to endure in extreme circumstances, how to endure really challenging circumstances with clarity, with connection to yourself, with endurance. Man, Cactuses have that down cold. So, you might be thinking, okay, yeah, pot intensity, okay, let’s start looking at the Cactus family and seeing what essences I have in my collection that are in that family. So, it’s certainly my personal obsession. I love to teach it. I love to share this insight. 

And looping back to the Solanaceae, the Green Nicotiana is in this family. It’s a type of flowering tobacco. And the green character of the flower shows us how to breathe, how to connect our heartbeat to our breath, and how to connect into the Earth. The green flowers tend to all have that characteristic of helping us to connect into the Earth, that living, breathing, Gaian influence that teaches us how to be here, how to be in our bodies, how to be sustained. The Green Nicotiana helps us to connect that to that heartbeat of the Earth. 

Rochana Felde: Yeah. And I would add, just wanted to say with the Botanical Families courses that are now available for replay that you’re speaking of, and listeners who are new to the podcast may not know when you mentioned Ruth, Ruth is our third partner, Ruth Toledo Altschuler, that Kathleen and Ruth co-teach the Botanical Families series, which is truly amazing. And definitely all of those are available on our website at floweressencestudies.com. 

But bringing it back to what you were saying about connecting with Gaia, the Earth, our blue-green planet, I want to bring in the blue-green Tourmaline gem elixir. And it is beautiful for helping us to have inner peace so that we can contribute to the peace on the planet. And it’s a beautiful prayer for the times that we are in. It can help us to open up our hearts without fear, and in doing so, really taking up, as humans, our rightful space and place on the Earth, and we do have that, and we can be here with grace. It is possible to do that without pushing other people away. So, again, coming together as humans, as a community, and feeling and revering our home here on this Earth, great for grounding. 

And the Tourmaline itself has this vertical sort of energy that you can see when you look at the Tourmaline, the gemstone itself, and the way that it is formed. I think that the Tourmalines do help with that Earth-Heaven polarity and moving the energy down through the Heavens and up through the Earth in different cases. So, that’s a lovely one to bring in, as well as Larimar. And many people might know that the lovely blue color of that stone, that it holds a very peaceful state of being. It’s bringing in safety and protection, but also that feeling of nurtured and being nurtured from the Earth, and with that, an energy of nonviolence.  

Kathleen Aspenns: I appreciate that you brought the Larimar in. That particular gem is so important for keeping us in our hearts, in our real truth of the connection. 

There’s one more flower essence that I would love to bring into the conversation. This is one that I’ve been leaning on lately. It, too, is one of these really, really ancient plants, in the same era as the Lotus, and it’s the Schisandra. And this is one of my Flora of Asia essences. And it’s probably pretty well-known to those in the herbal community as it’s one of those plants that’s considered an adaptogen, as the fruits are used. As the flower, I find that it’s really helpful for helping us balance, because a lot of us work outside of our capacity, work too much, extend ourself too far, and this one really helps us to learn how to not do that. And also, this piece around how so many of us learned to act in the world using our adrenals as fuel. And so, if you can’t get started in the morning without coffee, without a big whack of caffeine, that’s essentially goosing your adrenals in order to get through your day. And you can do that for a while, but there’s a toll to be paid. You’re using excess out of your bank that doesn’t replenish quite so easily. 

And the Schisandra helps us to not act out of that adrenalized place, but actually have a real true energy, learning how to take action without that little spark of that adrenal spurt that we feel like, oh my God, I have to get this done. And sometimes we learn how to go through life using that as the way we do things. And the Schisandra will help us learn how not to do that, how to actually work within the appropriate capacity, within your ability to do. And it’s a much smoother way of working, work-in-progress. I’m not claiming that I have this all figured out yet, but we’re working on it, but it does teach us new ways of being in the world and new ways of acting in the world that aren’t based on that terror of not accomplishing something or all those sorts of reasons why we might actually take an action. We can actually take an action from this alignment of like, “Yeah, this is the moment. Yes, let’s do this.” 

Do you use Schisandra? Are you familiar with the herb?

Rochana Felde: I very much am familiar with the herb, yes, but because you brought that in, I’m feeling very called to bring in the almost Ayurvedic equivalent, which is Holy Basil, which is very similar in that it’s adaptogenic and it helps give you that vitality and resilience without a stimulating effect, but there is a flower essence that was made by Floracopia and of course, they are no longer now, so have to find another supplier. But it’s also called Tulsi or Holy Basil. And I did a journey with this plant in a shamanic setting a few years ago and had such a profound experience that showed me that when there are two choices that seem that you can’t decide between two choices, that it opens up another path that wasn’t seen before. And I had this profound experience with it about, there’s another path, there’s a middle way, and that messaging has always stuck with me. So, this is a plant that is revered in India, and it’s grown at the front door of houses, it’s been used in Ayurvedic medicine since antiquity. And it has this energy of radiance that helps to refine our whole body, mind, spirit complex and bring more coherence and vitality to it. 

So, I think that there’s an interesting theme in this whole conversation we’re having, Kathleen, and it is these powerful plants, these plant spirits that have been with us for thousands of years in so many cases, or the stones themselves, which have a very long history on this planet, and this theme of boosting our resilience, our strength, coming together in our hearts to be human, and using that to bring peace to ourselves and to humanity. And we have all of the support from the natural world in so many areas, in so many places, in so many plants and flowers. And of course, let’s lean on these ones that have been used for so long as partners with us, that they’re here to help us. 

Kathleen Aspenns: So, lean on your plants, lean on your essence friends, lean on your gem friends, and lean in your community. We appreciate all of you for listening, if you’re watching us on YouTube, for being part of this flower essence community. 

We’re so glad that you’re here with us, even if we’re out of time right now, but we’re so glad when you join us in one of our monthly live events. We’re so glad when you join us in one of our courses, and we really welcome you. We have a new group of our mentoring group coming together right now, and you can join in. It’s for anybody who is looking to work on their practice, who’s just getting started practicing. We have a whole range of people that are coming together to support one another. It’s a peer-led mentoring group. So, we’d love all the voices to come together, and we’d love to be able to support you in growing your business as a flower essence practitioner, in growing your abilities as a practitioner. I love to share my insights and experience in animal work, but it’s a really beautiful space that comes together, all of these beautiful community members all enjoy connecting with one another. And we need to reach out in order to become stronger, in order to help more people get this work out into the world. It is on each of us to find our community, and so, we welcome you as a member of our community to come into this context.  

Rochana Felde: Yes, we hold two cohorts a year with this professional practice mentoring group, and we’re coming close to kicking off our second of the year on July 2nd is our first meeting. We have three meetings a month, as Kathleen said. We talk about client cases, we talk about animal cases, and we talk about building your business. We also have an online discussion group, and that way we can all support each other as we are bringing flower essences into the world. And we hope that if you are ready, if you’ve taken a practitioner training or you are already helping other people with essences, and you want to grow that, that this might be something that resonates with you. 

Kathleen Aspenns: So, thank you for being with us. I hope that at least one of these plants has inspired you to deeper connection and that you feel called to start working with one or multiple of these plants, perhaps a gem, in order to help you come into greater clarity and have more peace as we all navigate through these times together. Stay strong, my friends. Bye-bye now. 

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 healthcare practitioner regarding the suggestions and recommendations made by the hosts and guests of The Flower Essence Podcast.