 Lavender
(Lavandula)
This week has been full of surprising passages -- Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and several others who are loved and revered by millions. Both those close to these individuals and people all around the world mourn.
Flowers can help us in many ways to let go of grief and shift to feeling the free flow of love again. I've written a lot about white roses and their soothing effect on grief. You can click here to read a previous newsletter on that topic, and I'll go into more detail about them in my call tomorrow. Lavender has a slightly different approach to helping ease our feelings of grief. In this month's AARP magazine, there's an article about Iris Lee Underwood and her life-transforming experience with lavender. Her daughter had been dead for seven years when she stroked a piece of lavender she was harvesting and "the cloud of grief that had hung over me lifted." So, what's at work here? Two things: 1. She had a readiness to release her grief. 2. Lavender provided the portal. The true portal is beauty and finding and experiencing beauty. Lavender shares its beauty on many levels, addressing most, if not all, of our senses -- their visual beauty, their sweet fragrance (which is intensified by being handled or crushed), their delicious flavor, and their velvety softness. So, when we EXPERIENCE the tiniest little bit of beauty, when it penetrates out awareness/consciousness – whether through site or sound or smell or in whatever way – it can disintegrate the entire "cloud of grief" in one fell swoop -- much in the way a tiny pin-prick pops a bubble. And, lavender has a very intense fragrance that can penetrate the veil when other beauty does not register. So, when you are ready to move beyond grief, consider lavender in all its beauty.
Lavender Affirmation:
I experience and enjoy the beauty of the world around me in so many ways. |