MILKWEED PODS. 

The ground is waiting.

Sometimes the heavy cloak of stagnancy pays a visit, and we get the terrible feeling that things will never happen.  We crave the audacity to have faith that we will pull through and that something is happening, albeit slowly. But with this pressing dormancy, we often lack the energy to extend our arms and grasp our fingertips around this basic and simple faith. And the stagnancy knows, so it slowly covers us in its overwhelming blanket. It is dark and stifling, like we are in a cage of a pod. There is very limited room for true movement.

It reminds me of the common milkweed pods along the edges of the rushing creek in my backyard. I am forever fascinated by them. These giant, green pods form a cluster on a tall, waist-height stalk, each pod around the size of a single fist. Over time, the husks of the pods dry out, turn brown and split, giving birth to a plethora of seeds, each carried by soft tufts of silk which act as wings to help the seeds float gently to the ground.

The stagnancy must feel the same for these seeds in their cocoon pods, just aching, and waiting to fly, knowing they have wings, yet are still caged in the deep dark. All while trying to maintain the faith that one day, the pod will dry and husk will split. And then, the seeds will finally get their chance to fly. The most interesting thing is that their intention is not to just fly up into the air. Their destination is the ground.

The entire plant conspires to get the seeds to their destination. The stem loses its branches as the plant matures just in case any seed mistakenly lands on a leaf instead of the ground. The stem is hollow so when the cocoon pods are large and heavy enough, the entire stalk bends and bows down to the solid earth. When the milkweed pods finally burst, the seeds are already closer to their destination. I wonder if the seeds, kept in the still darkness, actually know that movement is ensuing and that all is cooperating for the precise time they go forth in flight.

The most mesmerizing thing about milkweed pods is that their seeds eventually bloom into milkweed flowers which is one of the favorite foods of the regally gorgeous monarch butterfly who also came from their own pod of a chrysalis. This relationship reminds me that we are all transforming, whether we are in the realm of plant, human being or insect. The difficult transition happens to seeds in that pod-like setting, humans going through various stages of growth, or caterpillars dissolving its entire being just to grow wings. But transformation allows us to change the entire language of our being.

The natural world teaches us a lesson - that it is essential to change the language of our being. The curated space around us is aiding this and there is movement although not yet visible to our eyes. Silent stillness is a gift we wrongly accuse of being an encumbrance. The trick is to revel in its magic and allow the conversion to gradually be revealed.

For the first two months of my entry into the world of flower essences, I hungrily poured over every single book and article I could find. Brick by brick, the numerous books became a steady wall piling up against me, reflecting a wildly immense undertaking. How could I memorize every flower and all of its beneficial attributes? The books only provided lists upon onerous list of flowers and reading became similar to reading a dictionary without me understanding the grammar and the structure of the language. In this mode, I had not only created pressures but also false illusions of progress. I became a computer, absorbing as much information as I could in as little time as I could, memorizing and regurgitating. At the end of two months, I was still unable to define flower essence, the actual thing I was studying, for myself, in my own words. Nothing had transformed.

It was at that certain point of stagnancy where I desperately craved to have the science behind the information sink into my cells. And instead of regurgitating, I wanted to confidently speak the wisdom from my center. I longed to engage in a deeper sort of communication. I craved for something to knit it all together for me. Instead, all the material became pressure in my head, pushing and pulling with frazzled momentum, and any moment, I would just stumble and fall down.

Falling down was exactly what happened. And the ground was waiting.

Like a little seed that finally burst forth from its pod, I took flight because it was time. And I landed on the ground. My own words held me like mother earth and told me that I had to rely on my own intuition. “Just listen to it,” she murmured. “The ground is where it begins. It is where all seeds start their path towards growth.” I was nourished within the environment of others’ knowledge, but there comes a point where I had to ground in my own definition of flower essences to create a freeing sense of independence and self-reliance. Where there is grounding, there is uplifting. Where there is doubt, there is faith. Where there is contraction, there is expansion. Where there is adversity, there is prosperity. Life is full of such dualities!

I took the time to use the flower essences and sit with the plants, so they could be my teachers rather than books. This deliberateness was just how the energies of flower essences would work. They are graceful by nature and so do not uncover everything all at once. Then the transformation begins just like a seedling produces a sprout that emerges from the ground to see light for the very first time. We can see things that have been hidden for a long time. It can be uncomfortable at first much like being exposed to the brightest sun or highest winds. But the plant continues to do the work, just as flower essences encourage us to continue to do the work. It is profoundly subtle. And we appreciate the warmth of the sun and the touch of the moving wind.

Whether plant or insect or human being, we are created equally with the prana, or life force energy, of the environment in which we are situated.

And we realize that this thing we call space is never empty. It is in fact full of energy and vibrations which are not visible to our eyes. And it is through this space in which we change the entire rhythm of our being. Suddenly, we are now flowers when we were once just a fallen seed in the ground. Every seed contains in itself the knowledge and becomes a flower. There is no thinking. Only a becoming.

So please remember – revel in the enchantment of silent stillness and fall down if you must. The ground is waiting.

Flower Essence Notes and Meditation: Milkweed is great for independence, leading to the liberating feeling of freedom. The word "independence" actually consists of two words - "in" and "dependence", translating to dependency on the inner self or simply, self reliance. The thing that holds us back in stagnancy may actually be our own mind and conceptions. The meditation, Kriya for Self Reliance, and the ritual, Dance with a Blindfold, are perfect matches for those who resonate with milkweed. Fear blocks self reliance and self radiance. Fear is what makes us depend on outer sources for approval and even for knowledge which we already contain in ourselves. Fear of the unknown blocks us from trusting the path of the divine. With a clear sense of self, we no longer feel helpless and can take the reigns and define life on our own terms. We can reclaim our own spiritual authority. We can trust that the truth sits in our own bodies. We can trust that life will catch us if we fall.