Lilies of The Divine Feminine

by Camilla Blossom, flower alchemist

In my work as a flower essence maker and alchemist, I intuitively listen to the wildflowers. Devas of lilies (angels or spirits of the plants) appear to me as I create flower essences. The lilies hold a very different quality of energy—ethereal, refined, and deliciously feminine. Lily energy can be so subtle that it is easy to miss unless we slow way down and be.

We learn from the lily who we are. The very subtle quality of the lily flower’s resonance is a mirror of our own delicate nature that is often hidden. Lily’s delicate beauty is needed by all of us to remember our own deeper feminine and divine nature. This gentle part of our soul is yearning to feel safe in expressing its essence and to be love. When we nourish our more passive feminine selves with gentleness, self-care, and space for ourselves without outside pressures, we embody the divine feminine more fully.

It is quite simple to receive the medicine or resonance of the lily flowers. Spend time with the lilies in nature, buy lilies, smell them, sit with them, or look at photographs.  In meditation, you can ask for the deva of a specific lily to be your teacher, healer, or guide. You can also take a few drops of a lily flower essence in your water or bath.

Imagine that you are a wild lily… your bulb very shallowly rooted in the earth, your flower receptive to intuitive feelings and spiritual insight, you feel watery, emotional, sensitive, energetically refined, beautiful. You feel oneness and a sense of no boundaries, you can merge with all space. How do you feel as a lily? Can you receive love? Can you sense a birthing of light or frequency within you? Can you sense where you end and the world begins—your boundary or space or body? Do you feel of value in this feminine way? Do you feel safe to be you? Can you just be?

During a class, one of my students excitedly said she could finally feel her self in her skin—the place where she ended and the world began as if she found a boundary for herself. In another class, a woman had an experience of feeling the true space her energy body took up. Her energy field was large! She has been shrinking herself down since childhood because she felt too big in her body, but now she felt the beauty of her large presence and felt safe to embody it.

Part of the spiritual purpose of the lily flowers is to mirror our beauty and self worth. Because our culture has not honored what comes from our feminine nature (for women or men), this gentle, receptive, sensitive aspect has become a shadow or denied aspect. The culture of patriarchy has put little value on more passive feminine ways. All this is changing fast. The feminine is emerging and rebirthing within us and in our babies and children.

Here a few of wild lilies I have created flower essence from for rebirthing and reclaiming the divine feminine within:

Mt. Hood Lily is a very tall, white fragrant beauty that grows in Oregon’s higher elevation forests and is like a wild version of the Easter Lily. This glorious lily helps us claim our personal space, presence, and self worth. It energetically purifies shame and other emotions that can cause reproductive issues. Mt Hood Lily also heals the split between our sexuality and spirituality.

The joyous and playful Glacier Lily honors our deep lily sensitivity as it shows us how to step out of hiding and share our sweet self. This yellow flower helps us share, dance, and express ourselves more freely. Glacier Lily opens the sweetness of our children and our inner-child.

The lovely pink cup of the Mariposa Lily (green-banded) holds the feminine chalice of divine mother for those that need to feel loved, mothered, and cared for. She teaches us how to receive. This flower essence helped a non-fertile couple conceive a child and knitted a new womb space (in her dream) for a woman recovering from a hysterectomy. This essence can be useful for addiction recovery or any mothering or bonding issues. (ie, babies, children)

The vibrant blue Camas (lily family) balances the brain hemispheres and the blending of feminine/masculine qualities that foster healthier relationships. It also enhances communication, counters depression, and brings acceptance.

Lily can be our teacher as we rebirth and blossom into new energies of the loving divine feminine. Listen to the Deva of the White Lilies. She says, “There is no need to understand us as much as open to our energies and allow us to love you.”

Camilla Blossom is a flower alchemist, teacher, flower essence creator, empathic healer, Earth Wisdomkeeper, and owner of 3 Flowers Healing in Hood River, Oregon. She co-created the Columbia River Gorge Flower Essences in 2000 and the Hawaiian Creation Essences in 2010 and authored, “Listening to the Wildflowers: Guide to the Columbia River Gorge Flower Essences.”  For essence info, see DIVINE FEMININE at www.3flowershealing.com

I recently received permission to reprint a couple of information-rich articles written by Susun Weed. I’ve broken the article into smaller chunks, with a link to the entire article below. Enjoy!

Fertility After Forty

copyright 2000 by Susun S. Weed

The most fertile years of a woman’s life are those between 18 and 28. Even into the mid-thirties, it is usually fairly easy to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term. During these years the hormones that control ovulation, enhance conception, and ensure a healthy pregnancy are usually made easily and in generous quantities. And detrimental life-style choices have not had decades of repetition to create chronic problems. The previous section deals with disturbances to that pattern; and the section following deals with herbal ways to decrease or control the teeming fertility of the twenties and early thirties.

But more and more women are waiting until their late thirties, early forties, even late forties, to have children. Is this too late? Are these destined to have high-risk pregnancies? Will these children have more birth defects?

The answer to these questions — and others like them — is “no!” for wise women who enlist the help of green allies to increase fertility, insure conception, prevent birth defects, and promote a healthy pregnancy and an easy delivery.

Read the full article

Read about Susun Weed

Lunaception  is a word created by Louise Lacey, to describe what became the book Lunaception. In the thirty-five years since the book was published, the idea has taken on a life of its own.

The basic theory of Lunaception is that our bodies evolved to respond to the light and dark of the moon’s rhythms, menstruating at the new moon and ovulating at the full. To reproduce that rhythm in western civilization, we must shut out all light while sleeping except in mid-month, when we add a small night light to reproduce the effects of the full moon. What often happens is that your body will get in tune with the actual moon’s cycles, and at that point you can simply throw open your drape. Either way, your body gains a higher level of reproductive function.

You then keep track, on the chart that the book provides, of your monthly events — physical and mental. It takes six to twelve months to follow your body through normal variations, like travel, minor illnesses or even falling in love. At that point you wake up one morning and know, simply know, where your body is in the great rhythm of life of which you are now a part. After that you don’t need the chart. (On the other hand, you may conceive the first month.)

Louise Lacy

An article by guest blogger, Jennifer M. Carino, L.Ac., MSTC

Although called “morning sickness”, nausea during pregnancy can happen at anytime of day.  While it can start as early as 5 weeks, it might feel more active by week 6 and can continue through until week 12.  Symptoms of morning sickness can include:  nausea, reflux, indigestion, and burping.

According to Chinese Medicine, nausea is a form of “rebellious stomach qi”.  The Qi (energy) of the stomach and digestion should normally travel in a downward and outward motion.  When imbalanced, digestive qi rebels and moves upward.  Morning sickness is most common when the pregnant mother is hungry or at the end of the day when she might be fatigued or exhausted.

To avoid digestive upset try the following:

• Eat frequent meals that combine both protein and carbohydrates like baked tofu with brown rice, goat cheese with manna bread, or trail mix.

• Eat a small snack before bed to avoid waking with morning sickness.

• Eat just a few bites of food every 20 minutes.

• Drink 30 minutes after meals.

• After eating a major meal, take a short walk around the block.

• Do not go to bed full.

• If a you have a history of morning sickness from previous preganancies, begin taking vitamin B6 prior to your next pregnancy.

Please remember that while these symptoms are uncomfortable they are signs of a healthy pregnancy.  However, if you’ve tried the above suggestions and aren’t getting enough relief acupuncture treatments to redirect rebellious stomach qi can be especially helpful.  Treatments can include acupuncture, herbs and/or “gua sha” techniques.  Gua Sha is a from of scraping done with a tool made from jade, buffalo horn, plastic or even a porcelain soup spoon.  The beauty of these treatments is in their simplicity and fast acting relief.

And while acupuncture and herbs can be used to treat hyperemesis, please contact your obstetrician if you’re experiencing extreme vomiting and the inability to keep food down as this can be considered a prenatal emergency.

May you enjoy strong digestive health during your pregnancy!

Jennifer M. Carino, L.Ac., MSTCM practices in San Francisco, CA. To schedule an appointment with her or read more of her articles online, please visit www.jennifercarino.com.

An article by guest blogger, Jennifer M. Carino, L.Ac., MSTC

Taking care of your adrenals post-partum is just as important as caring for them before and during pregnancy. This is true both for the mother, as well as for the newborn. But before we delve deeper into this, let’s first frame this discussion from a Chinese Medicine point of view.

The adrenals are to biomedicine as the kidneys are to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). According to TCM, the kidneys are said to hold our pre-natal constitution. This is the energy that we’re born with. It’s the strength and health that has been passed down to us from our parents and grandparents. If they were hardy people with strong bodies, then most likely they pass that strength down to us through their DNA. Therefore it’s important that a new mom not only take care of her kidneys, but also those of her newborn especially if she’s breastfeeding.

According to TCM if our kidneys or adrenals are weakened due from severe complications during pregnancy, labor and delivery, or simply due to a weaker constitution a new mom could be more prone to exhaustion, mood changes, and have difficulty with milk production.

To stave off the above symptoms and to even help a new mom recover faster and stronger she could eat nutritiously, sleep as much as possible and most importantly, call on the help and support a new mother and family needs.

More specific to TCM, a mother could plan ahead with her doula or doctor to save her placenta. Pig placenta is a common TCM “herbal” remedy used to treat infertility or kidney deficiency. A mother’s own placenta is rich with beneficial nutrients that can be cooked, dried, powdered and encapsulated and taken regularly to reinvigorate her kidney/adrenal strength. While this may not be as common in Western culture, this has been practiced in China for thousands of years. And virtually all mammals too, eat their afterbirth.

On a TCM treatment level, “mother roasting” is also suggested. This is done by warming the lower abdomen and lower back of the new mom with “moxa.” Moxa is mugwort that is dried and then rolled into a large cigar-like incense stick. It is lit and then held about 2 or so inches above the low abdomen and low back to further increase kidney qi and yang.

For more information on how to bolster your kidney/adrenal strength post-partum please talk to your local acupuncturist, who can help diagnose you properly and propose a treatment plan to best help your situation.

Jennifer M. Carino, L.Ac., MSTCM practices in San Francisco, CA. To schedule an appointment with her or read more of her articles online, please visit www.jennifercarino.com.

I’ve just received a do-it-yourself recipe for a restorative, nourishing tonic that is wonderful for your kidneys and adrenals. While I am not a doctor, my understanding is that this formula is safe at any stage, including pregnancy, and is deeply nourishing for your body. It is also my understanding that the adrenals are KEY to our hormonal health, smooth menstrual cycles and also for menopausal health and comfort.

The acupuncturist who gave me this recipe told me that it’s called a “simple.” Susun Weed defines a simple as a preparation containing one herb. You can read more information from Susun about simples in this article.

I am enjoying my first day of the tonic after preparing it before bed last night. It’s sort of grassy tasting, and my plan is to drink this every day for 5 days, for two weeks. Want to join me? I’d love for you to try it and post your comments here.

Simple Medicine–Nettles Tonic

1 oz. Nettles (dried) – You can purchase your organic nettles at your local co-op or natural grocery store, often they sell them in bulk bags at a discount, you can just ask the person in charge of the bulk herbs section. You can also buy them from suppliers online. I bought a 16 oz. bag. My practitioner measured an ounce for me and it came out to be about one and a fourth or one and a half cups, loose and not pressed down when poured into the measuring cup.

Put your nettles into a quart canning jar and fill it with boiling water. Put the lid on and let sit for at least 4 hours. You can prepare this before you go to bed. In the morning, you will strain the liquid and drink some, refrigerating the remaining liquid to be enjoyed throughout the day.

My “dosage” is 2 cups every day for 5 days, for 2 weeks (I’ll take the weekend off).

Enjoy!

See that stylish red bracelet on the mom’s arm in the picture? It’s a wallet!!!  How many times have you wished you didn’t have to lug your purse but you didn’t have any extra hands to carry your wallet?

My friend Julia created these bracelet wallets called Wallets to Wear. I love this image of being on the roller coaster sans purse! Everywhere I go with mine people comment on how pretty, what a great idea, where can I get one?

How perfect for going to the beach or pool, a quick shopping trip, chasing after the kids without having to worry about your purse?

I think Julia is a genius.

Did you know that if your adrenals are tired during pregnancy, that your baby’s adrenals will support you both during your third trimester? This will deplete your baby and have negative health implications for your precious child. Please make sure you are resourced and supported so that your adrenals are functioning well–for your health and pleasure as well as for baby’s.

Pregnancy is quite a stressor for many women. A common occurrence, however, is the woman who, upon reaching her third trimester of pregnancy, says that she all of a sudden “feels better than I have felt in years.” This is often the case when the first two trimesters were particularly difficult. The fetus’s adrenal glands mature to the point of being able to produce hormones at about the beginning of the third trimester.

If the mother is in the exhaustion stage of the GAS (adrenal function), it is not uncommon for the baby’s adrenals to try to make enough adrenal hormones for both the baby and the mother. The mother feels great. The baby’s adrenals are really supporting the mother’s adrenals. But the baby’s adrenal glands are being stressed before it is even born!

The results are doubly negative. The baby is born in a state of adrenal depletion and often exhibits symptoms of hypoadrenia. These symptoms may be varied, but two of the more common symptoms are allergies and recurrent infections. During chronic stress states, the thymus and other lymphatic structures atrophy, lowering the capabilities of the body’s immune mechanisms.

http://tuberose.com/Adrenal_Glands.html

Do you trust your body? If so, is it all the time, some of the time? Or perhaps you trust parts/aspects of your body and not others?

How is this similar for you to trusting your intuition or knowing? How does this relate to fertility and conception?

This topic of trusting your body is coming up often as I talk with women in private sessions and listen to women’s conception and pregnancy stories. And so I wanted to share this with you, and to invite you to share your stories with me, regardless of where you are on your parenting journey.

I often hear the story that a medical professional has decreed it “impossible for you to conceive” due to your “advanced maternal age” or some other such pronouncement based on tests or scans or other metrics which do indeed seem valid. But what of that internal knowing that there is a child who has chosen you, whom you have chosen to parent?

Seriously, how does a woman reconcile this conflicting information, when the inside knowing does not match the information she receives from the outside or it’s not happening in the timing she expected?

Look at all the thought-forms, statistics and feelings about fertility challenges out there in the world, all around us in media, in friends and family, in the medical community. The term infertility is so popular! It’s not a term I embrace. I like fertility support, enhancement, something like this instead.

Each woman has a different story, a different circumstance. Some of us conceive naturally and easily with little or no effort or consciousness. Others struggle for years and never conceive, don’t want adoption or surrogacy, and choose a different path for their life. Still others find their way, a middle way, their own unique way to motherhood, despite what others tell them or what our society projects as “the way it’s supposed to look” meaning prince charming and a nubile young bride who becomes pregnant within the first year, (that’s extreme but you know what I mean).

What of the women who decided to wait, to have a career, to be mature and ready in her own timing to create a family? What about those of us who didn’t even know we wanted children until our late 30’s? It’s really common!

How easy is it to trust yourself and your body, your own knowing when someone is marking all over your files “AMA” (Advanced Maternal Age) or your family is pitying you because you don’t have the guy? Do those external ideas influence your internal sense of yourself and what you are choosing?

What of liberation, of choice, of really trusting your body and your intuition? If you are reading this I know that you are in touch with your body and your knowing and your conviction of “this is real.” “I will be a mother.” You are in touch with this at least to some degree.

And what I wonder is, are you ever knocked off of that clarity? If so, how easily are you knocked off of that trust in your own body, of knowing how to resource yourself? Does it take one trip to the fertility specialist saying, “It isn’t going to happen, too bad” Or perhaps it is the disapproving look from a family member that causes collapse and defeat. How do you press on, finding the resources that fit your internal pictures of what you are creating?

These stories of women persevering in their knowing despite outside authority and social pressure—it’s essentially female, and I keep hearing these inspiring stories. We as women are creatively powerful when we are connected in this way to our own bodies and knowing, connected even to our future child’s soul–that as long as we stay aligned with that knowing, we can create anything.

From that powerful place of knowing and connection, we can draw to us the resources, support and circumstances we need. Our body chemistry changes. We make new friends. We find a new doctor, one who says, “Oh, this is going to be easy.” And I’ve heard this and seen this, once the internal commitment and alignment with knowing sets up, “yes! This is for me!” then all things may re-organize as if in one exhale and suddenly life looks fresh and new.

Maybe you have a story of your own pregnancy to share, or maybe you are navigating your own path, finding your way in the midst of so much information and outside opinion, your personal heroine’s journey.

If you are pre-conception and finding this challenging in any way, please know you aren’t alone. Do whatever you can to nourish yourself and fall into alignment with your deepest knowing, and love, love that body of yours. She knows what to do. You know what to do. I believe that if you desire to be a mom, you will be. What that looks like, how you create your family is your personal masterpiece and it does not have to look like anyone else’s.

You can shift consciousness in small children by contacting their Higher Selves, even for a moment. Imagine your Higher Self contacting Theirs, telling them mentally, “I see the beauty and light in you; I recognize you for the great being you are.” Children will usually respond in some way to your silent message, and you will have assisted in their spiritual awakening.

Taken from Spiritual Growth: Being Your Higher Self (Sanaya Roman)