Flower essences offer subtle but powerful vibrational healing. Some call them simply electric! Woodland Harvest flower essences are the vibration of the flower suspended in spring water and preserved with Brandy. We handcraft our essences in sacred space, weaving intention, magic & healing into all of our plant medicines. Flower essences work on a deep auric level to bring spiritual and emotional healing, sparking a physical manifestation of that healing. Plants are powerful!

Borage brings clarity, courage, healing and assists with worry and anxiety. Our brother-in-law is finding that he takes less depression prescription medicines when he uses Borage flower essence daily. Golden Elderberry provides golden healing light to guide one through times of darkness and chaos, bringing peace and purity. Yellow Iris, a North Carolina New River native, is known as “paintbrush for the soul” bringing life, color & deep soulfulness into your life’s work. If there’s an ailment, there’s a flower essence to counter! Give Thanks!

How does one know which flower essence to use? Flower essences don’t work in the realm of language, but until one experiences their healing, words are the best way to explain them. Since flower essences work on a subconscious level, our intuition is a great guide for letting our consciousness know what plant medicine to use. Other tools that can help include muscle testing, using a pendulum or tarot. One may take an essence daily to encourage some type of growth or change or may keep specific essences on hand as first aid tools. Since flower essences are electric in nature, a person only needs a drop or two per dose to receive the vibration’s healing effects. Essences can be taken 1-3 times daily, unless your intuition tells you otherwise.

Each species of flower carries shared healing powers, but each plant carries additional healing properties based on its story, which includes all types of factors like geographic location, the history of its DNA, physical environment, the broader cultural environment, among others. So, it’s powerful to know the history – or herstory – of each plant medicine because each person is also so perfectly unique. Certain plants offer exceptional healing to certain people (or animals) based on those unique, wonderful & magical connections in this life. Blessed be the Mystery!

Folks make plant medicine all around the world and so can you! We offer plant medicine making and many other types of workshops at our Woodland Harvest Mountain Farm in North Carolina, at Starhawk’s Gardens in San Francisco & Cazadero in California, and abroad as we travel several months each year. We’re hosting a Full Moon Herbal Medicine Making workshop July 27th followed by our Natural Building Workshop Series August 3rd-12th. Learn more about our work and shop our plant medicines at woodlandharvest.org.

some folks have asked for years for “blog” posts for which i’d rather be flogged!  anyway, here’s a few more than two cents worth.  in gratitude & love, elizabeth

Saturday marked four months since we left our farm, our home & our community.  we left with $200 in our “little Honda that could” with our boys’ bikes, boards & fishing poles, their instruments, too many clothes & shoes, the Captain and four super eager open-hearted folks looking for adventurous creative transformational manifestations (yes, a lot).

we’ve been pretty slack about keeping up with our beloveds, but we’ve been in the midst of all sorts of amazing magic making which wouldn’t even be happening if it wasn’t for all you wonderful people, your support and love of our family & farm.

the boys are GREAT!!  stunningly great really.  Aydan’s banjo is off the hook, and Landrum’s understanding & wisdom around notes and theory is astonishing.  they’ve had some wonderful opportunities since we left from Landrum studying with Jens & Uwe Kruger for a week and Aydan learning to solo sail on open water to playing songs for slices in the Mission District of San Francisco.  we’ve camped & hiked & paddled, eaten delicious food from the land, rivers & sea, found many incredible free museum exhibits, had lots of amazing funschool moments, and we now have Aydan asking every single day, “can we go to the library”-yes, we’re shocked too!!!  they’re working on a project we’ll share with you soon…
they are both really growing physically but also in spirit as they navigate all kinds of new changes, realities & independence.  they’ve been busking & started doing neighborhood bicycle repair.  we spend some time apart (just a 50 min train ride) each week which is hard, but we all know that it’s moving us forward in a way that will help sustain the farm & us.
while we visited with a dear friend in June, the boys got to learn to surf with two of my Outward Bound buddies i hadn’t seen since 1992.  super lovely reunion…i think both guys were just in awe that i am still alive!

Lisa is stunning.  she continues to amaze and inspire with her grace, beauty & joy as she navigates our often rough & rowdy raucous lifestyle.  this year, we’ve slept more out than in; more on earth than foam, and it suits her!  she’s teaching a butchering workshop next week (thank you, Ann Rose), and her drywalling skills are now seamless!! her love & loving (& wonderful food) sustains us all. my goddess.

i am mostly great!!  staying grounded, breathing deeply, loving fiercely!! it’s been challenging not to join our comrades in the streets, but i know that raising conscious boys, building community & protecting sacred land happens off the streets too! we certainly aren’t at a loss for opportunities to affect change around us these days with all the crazy haters running loose, so i’m sure i’ll make my way back into the streets soon!  living in gratitude & appreciation!!

we have had wonderful opportunities this summer for play & work.  we’ve found ourselves camping with dear friends (love you Suddreths) paddling in the San Juan Islands(a dream since i joined Greeenpeace back in ‘86), camping across Washington & Idaho, spending time at our favorite semi-secret beach spot(thank you, Aimee); we’ve celebrated a marriage (not ours, but i did catch the bride’s garter!!), an 80th birthday(my dad), both Lisa’s & my birthday(the big spread hasn’t changed).
we had some ancestral magic come our way & open doors to work & trade in the San Francisco, San Jose & Watsonville, CA area.  we’ve done everything from empty pee bottles & remove stitches to iron curtains (who knew), fix greywater problems, Victorian restoration, petsit, drywal & roofing in 106 degrees – so far, we’ve mangaged not to work in the weed which is actually not as fun or glamorous as some folks back east might think.

early this year, we knew we were walking too close to the financial edge with our farm debt, but we also know we cannot raise the boys fulltime in NC or break our necks pursuing wage jobs which take us off the farm.  we’ve found that our lifestyle choices & values and our skills & experiences are far more honored and valued away from our homebase, so we’re working super hard to make our financial ends meet while we’re out here, so we can get home to work the land & farmstead until we need to head west again…or south or north or just away! this summer our farm truck back home was totaled & the little Honda that could has pretty much decided she’s a California girl & wants to stay put, so our hope is to procure a truck after too many years with impractical farm vehicles(haha), and now we’re really ready to get home to the farm and our community!

we’ve missed our dearest friends.  we’ve been sending lots of love, prayer & healing vibes to those who’ve been struggling in their physical realm; we’re ready to return & support you whatever way we can.  it is our plan & hope to return by mid-Oct, but we also know we must stay open & willing!

there are a million stories in between these words that we’d love to share with you in person when we are able.  we miss our home and we miss our friends.  enjoy the photos; we hope to see you on the farm at a potluck this fall.
love & solidarity,
elizabeth

p.s. as usual, we’re fundraising & i heard Jeff Bezos is looking to unload some dough, so if you have a line to him, i’d like a connect!!  or any other philanthropic soul who’d like to help save a little farm!!!