Creative Approaches to Working with Spirit of the Island Flower Essences
An Introduction
When I first began to use flower essences in 1997, I received many gifts of Nature’s support and insight. The flower essences were like blessings each day, offering ceremony to my writing practice and many new layers of discovery. As I find grounding and centring with writing, I also experience a rebalancing with flower essences. When needing support for a major event in your life, solace following a shock, insight for a situation that puzzles you, support for a transition such as a birthday or the beginning of a new year or encouragement for your creativity and vision, flower essences are allies in a conscious partnering with Nature. Tuning in to Nature’s sacred energies allows us to connect to the stillness, creativity and vision of our inner garden, wherever we are.
Spirit of the Island Flower Essences are created on Vancouver Island. Since moving to the island in the spring of 2005, I have found a reawakening to spirit. I listened to the spirit of the island calling me which resulted in exploring and talking to other residents of the island; creating a mentoring program called Writing Home: A Whole Life Practice; writing poetry on my own and in community; forming a women’s writing circle called Writing Life, and creating flower essences in my garden. Can you hear the spirit of the island calling you?
Here are some creative approaches to working with Spirit of the Island Flower Essences:
Meditation
Taking the time to sit down and take your flower essence offers some moments of reflection and integration. Finding a place that will be quiet and where you won’t be disturbed is important. You may not have a room of your own so even one chair or place at a table can set your intention for some quiet meditation. I usually sit at a table with a candle lit or some sage burning. This intentional space helps to create a ceremony with the flower essence. My intention is to “listen” to what messages might be revealed. You can close your eyes and become aware of your breath. Let the energy of the flower essence infuse your body. Simply observe any subtle shifts that occur as you take your flower essence.
Journaling
Writing is my wellness practice, my spiritual practice, my meditation practice and my main form of self-expression in the world. Flower essences support that practice and insight gained from taking flower essences naturally leads to journaling. You can write in a journal about anything that comes to mind and heart after you take your flower essence.
A flower essence is a profound ally in helping you to integrate your newly realized knowledge. Writing can offer some insight – even some resolution – to past events. With the writing as well as the flower essences to accompany that journey, those past events aren’t affecting your health (by the suppression of the memory of them) and are allowing you to move into everything that is waiting for you.
At any time of day, you can make notes when you notice any changes or have new insight. You may be experiencing epiphanies along the way. A message might arrive via email when a friend sends you a quote or a poem. You may overhear words in conversations around you or be amazed at the words to a song on the radio that seem to have just the message you’re requiring.
Writing down your dreams is another way to receive messages that support your process and intent.
Affirmation
Have a look at the flower essence definition and highlight the words and phrases that resonate for you. Use the words and phrases to create an affirmation for yourself. Using the words of the Rhododendron essence, for instance, your affirmation could look like this:
I am a reflective pause,
a sacred hoop.
I am gentle with myself.
I listen to my inner voice.
I let go of the need to be part
of the buzz and hum.
I trust: I have made the right choice for this time.
I have a soulful connection to one thing at a time.
I have the courage to bring my stories home.
Invocation
You can create an invocation using the words of the definition of your flower essence. An invocation is the invoking or calling upon of a deity or higher power for inspiration and guidance. You could call on a personal guide or muse, the Creator, or the deva of the particular flower. Use the invocation when you take some quiet time with your flower essence. For instance, using the definition of the Butterfly Bush essence, your invocation could begin like this:
Please help me to celebrate the conscious and conscientious,
the planters and the harvesters,
the wanderers and the homebodies,
the builders and the dismantlers,
the judges and the judged.
They are all holy ones.
Help me to celebrate with preparation,
grounded anticipation, welcome, and honouring.
Help me to respect tradition, ritual in the every day,
and rites of passage.
Support my connecting to the familiar in daily life,
with love and joy.
Poetry
Listen to presences inside poems.
Let them take you where they will.
– Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
You will have written you own poetry when you write an affirmation and/or an invocation. I find that a poem also comes to mind when I use a flower essence. It may be my own composition and often, it’s a poem by someone else. With the Butterfly Bush Flower Essence I remembered John O’Donohue’s poem, “The Inner History of a Day.” This is a poem you can “google” and find all the words to or I’ll be glad to send you the poem by email. Poems are a distillation of words and memories and hone in on the underlying story just as flower essences do. They are natural and soulful companions. Have a look at the poem and let it guide you into further contemplation.
The poem that comes to mind with the Rhododendron essence is “Love After Love” by Derek Walcott. As the theme of the Rhododendron essence is “self-trust,” the words of the poem become soulful companions.
The time will come,
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome . . .
Movement
In sitting still and reflecting on our lives, we may re-enter the dark of the past. The writing practice and flower essences help to access and integrate the experience. In the mentoring program I offer, Writing Home: A Whole Life Practice, I suggest movement practices for each stage of the journey. This is a way to acknowledge, access, let go, integrate and live the new story, the one in which you live up to your full potential.
For many, movement as meditation is more powerful than sitting still. You can take your flower essence, be conscious of your breathing and let your body move gently, following its direction. This is a way to access the body’s wisdom and it’s a way to let go of what is no longer needed. You can sit down to reflect through writing and you can move again to integrate the experience and realizations.
Chanting/Sound
Humming when you are taking a flower essence helps to create a ceremony and allows you to feel centred as the sound resonates throughout your body. Chanting or spontaneous sound, whether vocables or actual words, can intensify the effects of the essences. Here are a couple of chants I enjoy. You’ll need to compose your own tune!
I am here
here in my body
I am here and all is well
I am here
here in my body
I am here and all is well
– Jen Turner