by Jackie Stewart
I love the subtlety of life; how it shows us the medicine our souls most need moment by moment.
Last month Jason shared his story about photographing heather and what that showed him about his place in the world. Each of the Bach Flower Remedies we’ve photographed has had its story to tell, its own wise resonance for us both; its own soul medicine.
The quest to find honeysuckle (Lonicera caprifolium) taught me the bliss of surrender.
The honeysuckle that Edward Bach used is perfoliate honeysuckle, which isn’t your ordinary everyday kind of honeysuckle. Oh no, it’s got a special leaf thing going on whereupon the uppermost leaves are fused around the stem making an oval shape. This is the honeysuckle that Bach planted in his own garden in Oxfordshire and it grows there to this day but it’s a long drive from Lancashire and not easy to get there and back in the space of a 6 hour school day to photograph it.
I had two reasons to find a more local source of perfoliate honeysuckle this year: to photograph it and to plant it in the Bach flower remedy garden in Burnley.
One of the first things I did at the Burnley garden was research where we could source the plants that weren’t already growing on-site. I created a list of all the plants we were seeking and the nurseries closest to Burnley that could provide them. I contacted each nursery asking if they would be able to donate plants to the project for free and they were all so generous it touched my heart. If you want to source any of the Bach Flower Remedy plants for your own garden head over here where I’ve put links to all the nurseries who donated plants and seeds to us.
By March we’d either received all the plants we’d been promised or we were just waiting for the right time for them to be delivered. All except one – the elusive perfoliate honeysuckle. I’d sourced a nursery that sold it, written to them and followed up by email and phone without ever getting through to the right person. Every week I’d try and for one reason or another I couldn’t get hold of the woman who was in charge of that department. Every week I‘d write ‘get honeysuckle’ onto my To Do List with heavy heart. Everything else was coming together so well for the project except this one plant.
So I kept chasing it up and getting more and more frustrated. I kept on pushing and I could feel myself frowning every time I thought about it. I didn’t think to step back to see what it was teaching me.
I’ve always found it hard to let go, to surrender, to allow; to listen for the answers rather than seeking them out.
The quest to find honeysuckle was showing me this part of my personality so clearly but I wasn’t being attentive. No matter how much I pushed it wasn’t happening. I could have tried somewhere else but truthfully I’d only found two nurseries that sold it and I was determined to use the most local one to minimise transportation. Plus I now had so much energy invested in getting it from this particular nursery that it was hard to let go and put it down to experience!
As the weeks passed it seemed that not only was honeysuckle going to be the only plant we didn’t have on site at Offshoots but it was going to be difficult to photograph it for our Bach flower gallery unless we went all the way to Bach’s garden in Oxfordshire.
If only we could find a perfoliate honeysuckle closer to home. Jason had spent hours last year talking to county recorders who record every species and there were no recorded sightings of it anywhere near us in Lancashire.
If only I had trusted. If only I could have softened into a place of surrender rather than pushing for a solution.
One sunny Friday morning in May I walked onto the Offshoots permaculture site for that day’s course on Bach Flower Remedies. A big bold honeysuckle flower bounced next to my face from the hedge at the entrance to the site. I stopped to say hello and then I noticed the defining upper leaves.
Perfoliate honeysuckle – the very plant I was looking for was right there in front of my face!
Jumping up and down with excitement I went rushing off to find the project manager “I didn’t know you had perfoliate honeysuckle on site!” I squealed. “Neither did I” he said calmly. There are three honeysuckles at Offshoots and, as it turns out, two of them are perfoliate but we hadn’t realised that in winter when we were identifying what was on site. When there’s no foliage to see it’s impossible to identify and the leaf difference is really quite subtle unless you know what you’re looking for.
Not only was the very plant we needed already on-site growing abundantly but it was local and easy to photograph too. Oh happy day!
I went home and crossed ‘get honeysuckle’ off my To Do List and laughed at myself. The perfoliate honeysuckle from that nursery wasn’t needed at all. It never had been.
I realised then that there is so much support around me if only I stop to notice and allow myself to settle back into it. There is so much support around each and every one of us if we can trust enough to allow it to hold us. When we stop pushing and allow ourselves to surrender to the flow, life feels very different.
In the past 6 weeks that Jason and I have been practicing Barefoot Breathing I feel much more trusting; more connected to my intuition. I listen more, I get more inspiration and I have much more energy. Everything is flowing so much more easily because I’m more in the flow; allowing more and pushing less.
I’ve finally learnt how to surrender and it feels good. It feels gentler, simpler and is infused with divine grace.
The wisdom of the angel cards is always so resonant; here’s the message from the Angel of Surrender:
The ability to be with what is going on rather than remaining preoccupied with what might, should, or could happen. Let go of the need to manage life and deepen into the peace of acceptance.
Read the last sentence again. Feel the relief of that sinking into your bones. Ahhhhhhhhh. That’s soul-deep.
Here’s a short process to help you deepen into the peace of acceptance.
Tune into yourself and notice if there’s anything in your life that isn’t flowing, seems stuck or difficult. Is there anything you’re pushing to make happen but it’s taking up lots of energy and it just isn’t working no matter how hard you try? Is there something that makes you feel like you’re swimming upriver against the natural flow of the water and it’s just too hard?
Stand barefoot on the earth (unless it’s really horribly cold and you can’t bear it, in which case stand inside at an open door or window). Close your eyes and take 100 slow deep breaths tuning into this issue that’s not flowing for you. Notice how that feels in your body, notice if any particular areas get tense as you think about it (jaw, shoulders, buttocks and fists are common culprits).
After 100 breaths pause for a moment then turn your attention to the quality of surrender. Imagine that you’re breathing in surrender as you take another 100 gentle breaths. With every breath you’re deepening into the peace of acceptance. Notice how that feels. Learn more about Barefoot Breathing here.
Surrender has a very different energy to resignation……… or disengagement ………. or passivity.
Surrender is the combination of faith and inner knowing that enables you to be guided by divine will rather than by your own will.
Surrender opens you up to the spontaneity and synchronicity of unplanned events knowing that they are directed by spirit.
Surrender brings gentleness, softness and flow. I highly recommend it!
P.S. This isn’t what honeysuckle treats although it’s what I needed to learn. Honeysuckle flower remedy helps bring your energy into the present if you’re stuck in the past. The pattern of pushing rather than surrendering is released with Vervain flower remedy – I blogged about it here.
I offer Soul Support in 4 different sizes and can prescribe essences for you in person, on the ‘phone or by email. Find out more here.
First published in the Essence of Wild newsletter July 2011. © 2011 Jackie Stewart.
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