What Calendula Taught Me

One of my favorite herbal plants is Calendula. It thrives all summer long and brings a burst of color to any garden. Gardening runs deep in my blood—I’ve inherited a love for plants from my grandmother, who grew beautiful flowers despite the challenges of living on the side of a hill. She used rock borders to keep the soil in place, showing me early on how perseverance and creativity can overcome obstacles. Both of her daughters followed her lead, growing their own gardens—my aunt focused on flowers while my mother opted for practical crops like potatoes and green beans.

As kids, my brother and I spent many springs and summers helping out in the garden. We picked produce (which was fun!) and squashed bugs (which was definitely not!). These early experiences taught me about the importance of hard work and the joys of growing your own food.

Although my grandmother passed away when I was 12, her legacy lives on. From her, I learned the value of patience and persistence. Over the years, I’ve expanded my knowledge of gardening to include not only vegetables and flowers but also medicinal plants.

Two years ago, I left my garden unattended for about 10 days while I combined a vacation with a hygiene conference. As you can imagine, when I returned, the garden was overrun with weeds. Most disappointing of all, my Calendula wasn’t blooming as well as it had been before.

Calendula officinalis, with its vibrant yellow and orange flowers, is an incredibly versatile herb. It has powerful healing properties, both internally and externally. As a vulnerary, it supports tissue healing in the digestive tract and can even help reduce the appearance of scars externally. I use it in many of my herbal preparations, from facial creams to healing salves.

During that time away, Calendula taught me a valuable lesson. When I returned to find it struggling, it wasn’t because it had missed me—it was because I hadn’t been cutting the flowers. Calendula thrives on regular pruning; the more you harvest, the more it produces. This serves as a powerful reminder in my own life: just like Calendula, I need to regularly "prune" away distractions and busy work to be more productive and focused.

I’ll be the first to admit that I can easily get distracted, especially when it comes to sitting down to do research or writing. I’d much rather be out in the garden or blending herbs for tea. But life is a process, and I’m continually learning how to grow and refine myself.

How about you? What in your life needs pruning? I encourage you to take a few moments to reflect on what truly brings you joy. Then, consider your life’s purpose and how you can align your actions with it. Once you've done that, start mapping out a path to make the most of this one precious life.

Leaning In On New Words for 2023

It’s a new year and many people put forth a valent effort to make real, positive changes in their life, especially one’s that affect their health and wellbeing. For the past five years, or so, I’ve chosen a word that becomes my word of the year. One that I mediate and pray on to see how it affects my life and watch to see how it manifests during the year.

This year, it was a bit challenging as the word was slow to come. Once it had arrived, I got really excited about it, but it was short lived. A week later, another word kept pecking at me. I simply could not get it out of my mind. The more I thought about it, the more I realized, it needed both words as they work together, I think, for my greatest good.

In a previous newsletter, I spoke about cleaning out clutter to free up space in all areas of our life. For me, getting rid of materialistic matter is easy, however, discarding the hurts and emotional junk is another story altogether. One of my words that kept coming to me was release. That word takes on many meanings. It is a verb, an action, that requires energy. What does release mean to you?

For me, it’s a reminder to work through my “baggage” I’ve collected in life. Sadly, I’ve gathered some ideas and patterns that don’t serve me a good purpose, yet, for some reason, I hang onto them like that familiar pair of comfortable slippers. Releasing does require an action, and I confess, I can just get lazy in not working through it. As a result, those patterns keep going making it even more difficult to change, and it will take longer to reach my highest potential.

The other word that keeps coming up again and again is elevate. How do I as a human in this world elevate not so much myself, but others? The current culture seems to slant toward self, and while, I think understanding self and having boundaries are important, our society often pushes each other down so make ourselves seem more important. How many times have it just not listened to what is being said because I was thinking of what I wanted to say? Rather than love our neighbors, we choose to love ourselves more. What I’ve been learning recently, in church, are ways to be a missionary in my city without compromising my values and beliefs. It’s about loving my neighbors when I’ve been hurt by them.

I think by releasing my own ideas and allowing myself to see another person’s perspective and give credence to their life experiences and what they have been through will allow me to elevate them to a place of love and kindness. When I reflect my younger days of absolutes, I’m embarrassed by some of my reactions. I didn’t love my neighbor, rather, I tried to enforce my own values on them.

There is a huge division in our society today of verses.

·      Democrats vs. Republicans

·      White vs. Non-White

·      Men vs. Women

·      Straight vs. LGBTQ

·      Parents vs. Children

·      The list goes on…..

This year, my focus is to work to release what is no longer serving me physically, emotionally and spiritually, in order to elevate myself to the person God has set forth in me. Today, I will seek to understand, lean in with curiosity, and respond with love. Won’t you join me?

Moving Thru Anger

I was not equipped to deal with anger or conflict.  My “Leave it to Beaver” homelife was joyful memories. If my parents had disagreements, they surely never discussed it within the family.  I did, however, witness my father giving “the business” to projects or vehicles he worked on.  My mother called it the Bush Temper as if it was a contagious virus we need to watch out for.  “He’s got the Bush Temper; you’d better look out!”  I may have demonstrated some of that in my earlier days, however, I suppose I’ve mellowed in my older years….or have I?  This world of herbalism has opened my mind to other ways of thinking about my body, my emotions, and my spirit. 

Anger is an emotion that is looked as being negative or wicked and must not be shown, especially among women.  Women who displayed anger, was deemed a witch…or something close.  Sometime along my life’s journey, I began to stuff down my anger, smile, and pretend life is good.  I’m not exactly sure when that period of time happened.  I have my suspensions, but that story is for another time.  Anger is not attractive.  It’s stressful.  It’s ugly. It’s uncomfortable, and like a “good girl” I tried to make things seem better than they really were.  I stayed optimistic, smiley, and seemingly joyful.  “Let’s look at the bright side….”  In an older post, Smoke and Mirrors, I reflect on ways we wear masks to cover up what’s really going on inside our personal life.  Why?

Why do we allow this emotion to sabotage our health?  Holding onto any negative emotion will negate health.  The liver is the holder of anger.  Heat arises in the liver and bursts of anger will come forth.  It’s said that those that spout off in anger has excessive liver heat and working to cool that organ will help the person be less reactive in anger.  How the anger is expressed is what make it scary or not.  A volatile person can be frightening, which is why I think anger gets a bad deal in the emotional realm.  Not all anger is bad.

Psalms 69 is an expression of anger experienced by David.  He calls out expressing how tired he is and how he feels like he is being swallowed up by floods of water.  He further states that his enemies hate him and want to destroy him.  He then, in verse 24 asks God to pour out His wrath on them, charge them with crime upon crime and not let them share in salvation, but blot them out of the book of life.  Then, David asks God to protect him and David’s words become praise words.  His heart softens and seems to let go of his anger.

It is reassuring for me to read and know that it’s perfectly fine to be angry, to say words that aren’t nice as a means of allowing this emotion to work its way through the mind, body, and spirit.  Words are powerful but remember words can be hurtful.  I was reminded to take my anger to God and allow Him to sort it out.  Whew!  What a relief.

Recently, I’ve been seeing an acupuncturist, who is working to relieve some pain I’ve been having in my lower back, which I chalked up to my dental hygiene occupation. Chinese medicine looks at the whole body, not just parts.  It’s what I love most about alternative ways of healing.  After listening to my pulse, she told me my liver is holding onto blood and not allowing it to go to my heart.  Her next question left me in awe.  “Are you holding onto anger?”  She went on to say the heart is the Emperor and in charge of the emotions and spirit.  It is important to move this anger through and out of my body to allow for healing.  One way of doing that is to scream.  Yes, scream.  My healing journey is to yell and scream outside, in a pillow, or wherever I can that won’t alarm the neighbors. 

When I consider the timing of my pain with what was going on in my life, it makes sense; and yes, I’m positive I held my cards and emotions close to me.  Now it’s time to move them through me as they are not serving me. As a matter of fact, they are hurting me. It’s important to move negative emotions though the body as quickly as possible, otherwise, our body acts to protect us and will store them where there is space…knees, hips, vertebra. That takes practice, but mostly it’s the awareness of that emotion and processing it appropriately. 

Now I wonder how many other people are holding onto anger?  If you are unsure, try screaming a few times.  It’s been so long since I screamed, I couldn’t at first.  My throat and voice sent out a small screech.  I laughed at the inability, but then after a few attempts belted out a good loud scream.  I’ve been screaming every couple of days just to make sure I don’t lose the ability.  After each scream follows a laugh.

There is spirit medicine in herbalism that can assist the body in moving emotions through. It’s really quite fascinating to just sit and be with a plant ally. This world of herbalism just keeps getting better and better.

A Noun Or A Verb?

Grammar and the structures of sentences had my head spinning in elementary school. Nouns and verbs were the easiest to identify, especially proper names and action words. As if learning what each part of the sentence structure weren’t challenging enough for me, I then found out that the same word used in a different way might have a different part to play. Arrrr! How was I ever going to get that straight?

Fast forward, I’ve been out of elementary school for, well…a number of years now. While I don’t think about sentence structures during the course of each day, I have been noodling over a particular word for several weeks and wondered if it is most used as a noun or a verb. What does it look like as a noun and what does it look like as a verb?

Let me tell you a story:

Janie and Amy have been friends for years. Both ladies have had some personal troubles and stresses going on in their lives. Amy found out that Janie told some very personal information about her to a mutual friend. Rather than going to Janie about the incident, Amy retaliated on social media by posting some unpleasant personal information about Janie. Now both Amy and Janie are hurting because of choices each had made. 

This is a story that is active and alive. Just change the names and situation, and I’m sure you or someone you know has experienced a similar scenario.

The word, forgiveness by definition is a noun and is defined as the action or process of forgiving or being forgiven. According to Wikipedia, it is the intentional and voluntary process by which one who may feel victimized, undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding a given offense, and overcomes negative emotions such as resentment and vengeance.

The Million Dollar Question:

What needs to take place in order for these two friends to reconcile? What have you done that has worked? What hasn’t?

Here are a few scenerios:

1)    Amy goes to Janie and tells her about the hurt and waits for Janie to apologize. Janie tells Amy she is so sorry for the hurt caused and asks for forgiveness. Amy says she forgives Janie, but weeks later the two friends still have not spoken. Amy does not say she is sorry or asked for forgiveness for the hurt she caused Janie. Rather Amy holds Janie hostage as someone who can’t be trusted.

    Is forgiveness a noun or a verb?

Is the relationship restored?

2)    Both Amy and Janie feel they are the victim and refuse the accept or admit their part in the conflict. Rather they each hold on to the hurt that transcends into hours of discussing the issue with others and lay awake a night feeling anxious. Amy and Janie are waiting for the other person to “make a move”. After months pass, the two run into each other. Janie makes an apology to Amy and Amy says she has already forgiven her, however, Amy stands afar and seems cold toward Janie.

    Is forgiveness a noun or a verb?

Is the relationship restored?

3)    Amy goes to Janie and tells her about the hurt, but goes on to say that she is sorry for any hurt she may have caused that led up to the incident. Amy also apologies for the hurtful things she put on social media and asks for forgiveness. Janie tells Amy that she did indeed hurt her, but is sorry she took it to someone else rather than coming to her first and talking it out. Both Amy and Janie confide in each other of their shortcomings and brokenness. Both parties confess that they had contributed to the conflict, asked for forgiveness and to restore the friendship. They met for coffee a week later and are back to laughing and talking about the issues of life.

 Is forgiveness a noun or a verb?

Is the relationship restored?

Now What?

I think too many times, forgiveness is used as the noun. It makes sense to me that since it requires action, it should be a verb. People “say” they forgive, but then want nothing to do with the person afterwards. As a believer, the vertical direction between me and God is easier. I confess my sins and He forgives (at least I hope). The Horizontal direction is much more difficult. Forgiveness between people is complicated by our own selfish desires rather than living out Christ’s direction of forgiveness. God is love, but God is just. It frightens me to think that God won’t forgive me if I hold my brothers and sisters hostage for their sins. It’s easy to think it’s justified when hurts are deep, however, that’s not what we are called to do. True forgiveness shouldn’t be hard. The truth is we want to place ourselves above all others and claim innocence. As far as I know, there was only one perfect person who walked the Earth.

Forgiveness is freedom. Holding onto hurts is self-destructive. When we offend someone, we are called to apologize, ask for forgiveness and try to restore the relationship. When too much time has passed, what occurs is bitterness, resentment and awkwardness. And, when someone asks for forgiveness, it’s important to acknowledge the hurt that was caused to them by the other party. The Word speaks very clearly about forgiveness:

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others of their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” ~ Matthew 6:14-15

“Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but swelling on it separate close friends.” ~ Proverbs 17:9

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” ~ Ephesians 4:32

“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” ~ Matthew 5:44

We are called to pray for those who hurt us. Why? So our heart will become tender and loving, not dark and hardened. 

So, I ask you. What is forgiveness?  Is it a noun or a verb?