Is it Intuition or Overthinking?

How can you tell intuition from all the other random thoughts that fly through your head in the course of a day?

It’s not always easy and I am not going to pretend like I am the Oracle at Delphi, always knowing what’s coming next.

Still, over the years I have gotten pretty good at determining intuition from random thoughts.

How?

I‘ve realized that intuition has a body feel, thoughts only have a brain feel.

An example:

We just started working with Max Simon, a key player in the creation of Deepak Chopra’s web-store. Max is coaching us through the next growth-phase of our business.

When I first spoke with Max, we were interviewing each other to see if we were a good fit for a small group program that he was creating. He doesn’t work one-on-one.

I was excited to work with Max, but hmmm, not so sure about a group program.

My brain was saying, "Work with Max, in whatever form it comes, because he has experience that would help leap-frog our growth," but something wasn’t sitting right in my gut.

You’re seeing the difference here, right? Brain versus body?

That physical, body feeling was my intuition waving the red flag.

When I thought about what my gut was telling me, I realized that what we do at Herbiary is kind of unique. It’s hard to imagine a group of other entrepreneurs who are dealing with similar issues.

So I did the work I always tell my clients to do when they hit a fork in the road; I got super clear on my intentions. I wrote them down. I fussed with the wording until I knew exactly what I wanted to get out of working with Max.

Then I sent him an email with the details.

He emailed back that maybe I just had cold feet about jumping into a new commitment.

I thought about it, felt into my body about it, and realized that it really didn’t feel like fear to me (my body knows what fear feels like). I let Max know and waited.

Three days later, I got an email that left me speechless: Max had decided to work with us one-on-one, no group. Here at Herbiary, we are all just floored and tickled and a little bit babbley.

April, who some of you have met in our Chestnut Hill location, recently sent me an email telling me that I need to let all of you know to trust yourselves; to remind you that you know more than you think you do and that she is always so impressed by your understanding of what feels good for your body and soul... but saddened that you don’t always follow your inner compass.

So I wanted to share with you something I have already learned from my relationship with Max:

Sometimes chilly toes and fiery intuition look kind of similar! But you know, deep in your gut, which it is for you. Trust your intuition.

Floral Intuition Boosters:

• Mugwort will help you remember your dreams, which is a great way for you to communicate with yourself. Mugwort tea is bitter. Some people don’t mind it, but others make icky faces and sputter and spit. If you are a spitter, try burning mugwort instead. Use a mugwort smudge stick or burn a bit on a charcoal disk.
• Spark your intuition using essential oils that are traditional for centering the mind and calling in the sacred: frankincense, myrrh, palo santo, holy basil, or vetiver.

Reigniting Mystery

We are hard-wired for wonder.

Something in the way our soul is threaded into our physical being makes us predisposed to awe at the glory of a sunset and marvel as a butterfly escapes its chrysalis.

That same hardwiring that allows for so much joy can lead us to numbing despair when we are drowning in mundania, with no mystery in sight.

As easily as we are entranced by the wondrous, we become depressed and disconnected when we fail to recognize it.

Notice my carefully chosen language: when we fail to recognize it.

After the umpteenth time sucking my thumb at the bottom of the abyss of Why-The-Heck-Are-We-Even-Here, I have circled back to the conclusion that I have landed upon time and again: the wonder is always there to be felt, if we are willing to give it an opening to our soul.

But how? How to reconnect, plug-in, get into the flow, read the signs... when you are at the very bottom of the abyss?

Let me tell you a story:

Years ago, longer than I care to think about, I took a writing workshop with Tom Robbins, who wrote one of my favorite novels, Jitterbug Perfume.

Having the guts to ask a question has never been my particular problem so, during a Q&A, I shot my hand up in the air and asked: What do you do when you have nothing to say? Nothing to write?

And Tom said (I’m paraphrasing… because, while I am sure that I have the exact words in a journal somewhere, I’ve opted to give you the gist without spending two hours unpacking boxes):

You show up. You show up at the same time, the same place, every day. You don’t go to the coffee shop or the library, hoping the muse can find you. You sit at your desk, and you write, at her service, when she deigns to join you.

I’ve come to realize that this same advice applies to connecting with the deeper mysteries of life. We feel disconnected because we don’t give ourselves a designated time and place to connect. Or, if we do, we use it sporadically; if you only meet Mystery in the woods for the summer solstice, then that is her only chance to connect with you for the whole year.

Church and synagogue and the mosque are meant to be places where we can go and re-connect with the greater mystery, but for many of us, these institutions no longer create a spark on the magic-meter.

Through years of working with people, I have come to realize that connection is deeply personal. For me, it lies in the collective unconscious and tapping into universal symbols. When I can tap in at this level, I feel like I am backstage watching the mechanics behind the show, supported by a crew and cast, buoyed by hard work, joint venture, and the laughter of the after-party.

When I don’t give myself space to tap into the Collective, I start to lose my way, feel disconnected, and despairing. I feel alone... and sometimes I even forget how to love.

We have so many fabulous tools for tapping into the Universe, the Divine, our God-selves... but often my East Coast Intellectual Snobbery puts the kibosh on tarot and astrology, dream-weaving and the ogham.

But when I get truth-and-bones-honest with myself, these visual tools are my best way in.

And when I ignore the Mystery, I ignore my true self. I ignore the innermost part of me that longs for connection and that can see the fine filaments of kinship that run from myself to all things, and thus give meaning to this crazy thing called life.

Making time for Mystery is not only making time for me, it’s making time to make life matter and keep existential angst at bay.

Floral Support: Essential Oils are a perfect bridge for intuition. Use them when you are connecting to Mystery whether you meditate, read tarot cards, walk the labyrinth, do journeywork, journal, garden... You get the idea! Choose the scents that you connect with and that allow you to sink deep into yourself. My favorites: lotus (incredibly rare but we have some at the shop from time to time), palo santo, and vetiver.

If you knew that a meeting with Mystery was your key to health and happiness, that you were hard-wired for wonder, and needed a daily fix, how would you get it?

One Simple Way to Save the World

May Apple!Do you sometimes feel helpless in the face of the news?

Global warming, habitat destruction, frankenfoods, and a deadlocked congress that can’t agree on anything.

All of us have an urge to do something...but sometimes it's hard to know what that something is.

I am a huge fan of simple, do-able solutions (otherwise we spend all our energy thinking about what to do instead of actually doing it!). So I thought I’d share a small spring ritual that helps protect plant species and keep botanical medicine available.

Ready? It’s really simple:

Plant an endangered species.

Habitat destruction has put a number of medicinal species on the endangered list, our woodland plants especially, as their habitat is destroyed for roads and developments.

Many of these woodland botanicals will grow happily in your backyard. If your yard is super-sunny, create a screen for them. I build a little pile of rocks on the south side of the plant to protect it from the sun’s strongest rays.

Some of my garden favorites:

• black cohosh
• blue cohosh
• goldenseal
• trillium
• butterfly weed (pleurisy root)
• may apple

Where to get these little charmers? Horizon Herbs or Companion Plants will ship to your doorstep. Also try local plant sales. I usually buy mine right in Philadelphia at the Schuykill Nature Center when they have their seasonal sales.

No room for planting? Then use the money you would have spent on plants to make a donation to United Plant Savers!

Honoring the Creative Spirit

I don't often miss knitting.

But, right now, I wouldn't mind a big, fat ball of speckled orange yarn and a pair of number 10 needles.

My Amtrak train is just pulling into Penn Station, New York, NY and my feet are twitching to dash into the city, hit the nearest yarn store, and fly back before the train departs.

Somewhere in the heart of Manhattan, I just know there is a fabulous knitting nook full of soft cashmere yarns, yummy wool twills, and nubbled, knotty, funky art yarns that would help the last few hours of this trip to fly by.

Having spent the morning watching the Eastern seaboard scroll past my window, consuming food made by someone else's hands and reading books that someone else wrote, I can feel my creativity rising, like an itch surfacing from deep under the skin. I don't often knit anymore, but now feels like it would be a good time to begin again.

I learned to knit from my grandmother who created the most gorgeous cable patterns... from the cheapest, scratchiest yarns she could get her hands on (often in atrocious colors).

The urge to create is so much a part of who we are.

And how we create becomes a statement of who we are.

Do you allow yourself the soft, dreamy yarns that soothe your fingers and calm your soul, or do only allow yourself someone else's leftovers from the sale bin?

(I know, if it's a Ramen noodle week, you're not investing in expensive yarn.)

But notice your patterns-- are you willing to buy a venti macchiato on your way to work but are unwilling to invest in expressing yourself and connecting with your spirit? Are you using money as an excuse to stifle your creative urges?

When you price-out the cost of creating, do you factor in the joy your fingers will feel, the way your soul will salivate over just the right color, and the smug satisfaction of a compliment received from a stranger on the street? Or do you compare yarn costs to the cost of buying yourself a sweater at Marshall's and budget accordingly?

Do you ever think of your legacy... the granddaughter who will sit on an Amtrak train, willing creation from her fingertips? Or the throw blanket, lovingly made, that lays across the back of your granddaughter's couch?

When she reaches for that throw blanket, how do you want it to feel? How do you want her to feel?

P.S. Firey herbs are good for lighting the creative spark.  Try some fresh ginger tea with a pinch of cayenne, plus lemon and honey, when you need to get things moving!

Want to get creative with herbs and essential oils?  Check out my recipes!

Rough, Raw, and a Bit Unedited

Dear Friends,

Last night, my husband and I lay in bed and shared a secret that might sound, at first, a bit appalling.

We shared our hope that what happened in Boston was domestic terrorism.

Yes, you read correctly:  Domestic Terrorism. 

Not international terrorism, not Al-Qaeda.  Not something we could blame on some other nation, or people, or religion.

We had been in Boston just the day before, had commented on the bomb-dogs that were sniffing suitcases and trashcans as we waited for Amtrak at 30th Street Station, had wondered how we could all sleep-walk past the monitors lulling us with propaganda of safety and fear. Orwellian.

And then the news: the Boston Marathon had been broken by bloodshed and we were staring down the next round of creeping fear, spreading news-flash to news-flash, replicating like a virus.

Yesterday evening a client called to tell me she was sick of being sick, she’s had it, she was done. She calmly told me that she was going to punch a hole in her illness.

How many of us walk around calmly spewing anger? Playing at exposing the darkness of our souls, never really allowing the anger to vent. Until it explodes and legs are lost, life is lost?

(In this moment, as I sit typing, my neighbor is yelling over and over again at his Down Syndrome charge: “When the fuck are you gonna get it? When the fuck are you gonna get it?” His anger shudders down my spine. I pause, and walk across the narrow strip separating our homes, and gently ask, “do you need a hand?” It breaks the tirade. I have done nothing for the anger which will come again... Today? Next week?)

And so I wish on all of us, the moment beyond anger, when we suddenly know, deep in our soul’s roots, that it is not the other that angers us, but our own ineffectiveness, or inability to create change, our fear for the life we have, or the life we want to lead. Our terror that our children will go hungry or be too scared to sleep. Our suspicion that we are not enough, not pure in the eyes of our Gods, not heard by our partners. Not lovable.

Our sudden knowledge that it is not the other that angers us, it is ourselves.

Domestic terrorism.

Even as I write these words I feel, within me, the sparkling effervescence of panic floating upward in my belly, whispering that my nation no longer values free speech over security, and that these words, this deep longing that we finally see the rot within instead of turning once again outward, will be considered an act of terrorism, as if holding space and ground is now a sin.

But it is not time to be silent. After 9/11, I watched in awe as we sunk into the silence of fear. As those who would speak were shushed by friends and neighbors and the breath was sucked from hope and peace.

So this time I will pray out loud:

I pray that we are not allowed to look outward. I pray that our gaze will (finally) be drawn to the rot within (within our cities, our schools, and our institutions of governance). I pray that we will finally, gently, realize that this is the same darkness that created Columbine and Aurora and Newtown.

I pray that we will fall to our knees and weep for what we have allowed ourselves to become.

And then, with deep compassion for centuries of striving, we will begin to heal.

We will combat hate with hope, and return our gaze to love.

Words are small things, and yet they are everything. They are intention and action. They are the signposts that remind us to look within and begin change through small do-able steps.

Now is not the time to become overwhelmed into inactivity. If you have been detoxing with me, you know that change comes in small steps. Let’s Detox our Nation. One small do-able step at a time. My step for today, is to write this blog post. To be real and truthful and vulnerable, right now, right here.

What is your one simple step that you can take today?

I have often said that I would not step forward until I had something new to teach, until I created a better path up the mountain.

I was wrong.

I am a torchbearer in a long, long relay. And it is now my turn. And it is yours. Let’s hold fear at bay with deep compassion, let’s pause and acknowledge the darkness in ourselves, let’s band together beyond hopelessness and helplessness, and be-- each and every one of us-- a voice for love.

Big hugs,

P.S. I have been reading posts by other writers on this topic, and this one by Patti Digh struck a chord.

P.P.S. If you are feeling a little shocky from this whole experience, try Five Flower Formula from Flower Essence Society.  Its the same formula as Rescue Remedy, the difference being that FES is U.S. based and grows their flowers biodynamically.

If you need a little more info on flower essences, find it here.