Getting to the heart of the matter

It’s hawthorn time, full bloom time and it’s time I rouse myself and gather the flowers of this incredibly important medicine, since it supports the heart.

Involving the heart has been tricky for me, in practice. Acting from the heart, speaking from the heart, being all heart is something that seems simple in my mind hah! Oh my mind. It wants in at all times, to manage things, and really to override and oversee. So it’s hard to balance that mind heart thing, the mind so overprotective while the heart so easily unspoken. Shy. Hidden. That shame and anguish when you have to say whats at the bottom of your heart, that feeling that you’re exposing all. 

Its a practice and not one to go without support which is why I love hawthorn and her flowers and magic and wisdom. For ultimately when we are talking heart medicine, trust is shoulder to shoulder with love and courage, the trifecta of heart space and hawthorn is there to strengthen, regulate and nourish.

Early on I got into the habit of acting, being, expressing from my heart in times of great panic. My mind, me, knew that in these points of crises I  would be able to get to the heart of the matter. It was empowering and stunning to feel the trust, courage and love that pivoted me off the various edges and ledges of whatever precipice had arisen.

It took me a while to realize that I also needed to know how to engage also in times of joy. In times of wealth and abundance. Which seems like it would be easy but in practice, without practice, almost impossible to trust into the simple sweetness of a good life. To be able to feel in love with the mundane, the routine, the wealth of contentment.  To be able to take in the love, to trust in it, to be brave enough to open myself to receive the sweetness that was coming my way. In essence to look after myself without manifesting disaster as motivation.

Home is where the heart is and my home life reflected this. Too often I found my hat hanging on a nail in a space where I wasn’t really considered, valued, worthy. Quite often I would find myself in a  space where I had to fight to be heard or respected. At some point I realized that if I was to take matters to heart I had to create a home for myself that truly reflected my values, my worth, and love. A home that and would be a heart space, a refuge and sanctuary. A place to call my own where I could look after myself and my loved ones, a home that would hold me just as I wanted to cradle my heart, to provide refuge and shelter and security. A home that reflected how I would like to be looked after. A home made from love for loving in. 

Hawthorn was key medicine the first month that I moved into my own home, the first time I had really embraced being in place with myself as an act of self care. Home essentially starts with ourselves, our beautiful bodies and being welcome in our own skin, which then ripples out into the wider world of family constellations and physical dwellings

Making the medicine from the  berries and flower is a marking of the coming and going of the year, welcoming in the flower full of hope and promise, coming back when all has gone to seed, celebrating the richness of the fruit born forth and full of the nourishment and sweetness of promises realized, hopes made real.

I always add a thorn to the medicine, a reminder that with out boundaries, walls, containment we would all just bleed out. Slowly leak away, merge into the great all is with out a minute to find shape or form. Thoughts, ideas, creations would be glimmers of golden dust in the sunlight. Hawthorn, traditionally made into hedges, is a master of containment. A nod to how we have to hold, be held, how our beautiful Hearts, emanating as they do, need a home And a celebration that we may all know our own way home.

Enjoy the meditation this month and let me know what you think in the comments - I love doing these offerings and also sitting with the plants that inspire me.