Echinacea For Revealing True Self

I think it's important to pay attention to what nature presents to you. This summer, I suddenly had this very tall, quite beautiful flower, growing in the pile of horse manure I call a flower garden because it is home to a number of crocus in the spring. I passed this flower every day on my "hay deliver route" to the horses. I admired her and told her how beautiful she was. I had no idea "what" she was. I'm not much of a gardener for several reasons. I know nothing about which plant is which and even if someone tells me at some point, there's a good chance the name won't stick with me. When the older women in my life were planting and tending to gardens and imparting their knowledge, I was helping/hiding out in the barns. So I'm not too bad at milking a cow, great at shoveling manure and cleaning harness, but not very knowledgeable on flower borders and weeding rock gardens. Another reason I'm not a very good gardener is that I don't like to exert that kind of control. To my mind, if you're growing and lush looking with or without a flowering colorful top, it seems you have as much right to that space and soil as the plant that I specifically put there- maybe even more. So I can't pull out weeds. I just can't do it. In fact, most weeds look prettier to me than the flowers that are purposefully planted. So, I let this beautiful pinkish purple "weed" grow. She was all by herself for quite awhile and then just as suddenly as she appeared it seemed, she had a whole lot of friends and I had a beautiful flower patch.

Quite by accident, while trying to find a "wild rose" bush to purposefully plant (doesn't really make sense does it), I found a flower like my weed for sale in a plant store.  Turns out my weed is an echinacea plant. Then I remembered that a couple of years ago, a friend, knowing that I was in to medicinal alternative healing stuff,  had brought me a couple of these plants as small little shoots from the discarded, end of the year, plant sale.  Not really sure what they needed or wanted, I planted them in the manure pile - and forgot about them. Time to pay attention.

Echinacea is one of the more common and popular herbs today. It's been "picked up" by the vitamin/supplement industry and marketed in a variety of forms. It's considered an immune booster and is marketed to treat common colds and flu like symptoms. Many supplement forms of the herb are taken from the root of the plant. The herb contains copper, iron, tannins, protein, fatty acids, Vitamin A, C and E and some large polysaccharides that are believed to increase the production of T-cells- part of the body's natural immune system. There may be antibacterial properties of echinacea as well and it is used, by some, for wound healing or to treat skin conditions. You can find commercially prepared echinacea in tablet/supplement forms, liquid tinctures, and tea preparations.

Echinacea is also used in flower essence therapy. I like the idea of essence therapy because of the subtle action of this type of healing. Essence therapy is not about adding something to your body as much as it is about bringing your body to balance so you can heal yourself. I like that.

Echinacea is also called Purple Coneflower. Tree Frog Farm www.trefrogfarm.com identifies echinacea as an essence that breaks up whatever is holding you back in a process of redefining your self image. Taking this essence may help you melt away your old self revealing your true inner power. Tree Frog Farm recommends using this essence when your self-image in beginning to change but you have not completely become the "new you".

Echinacea is considered a fundamental remedy for soul illnesses, especially when the individual has experienced shattering and destructive forces. Whole Energy Essences, http://www.essences.com/ created their echinacea essence as a response to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11th 2001. They created it in order to affirm life and embrace vitality rather than get drawn into panic and terror, or be cut off from life.

This plant is all about vitality and a balance of strength and soft flexibility. It's has rigid inflexible stems with some prickly hairs along the stem. The flowers are vibrant in color and smell and cannot be ignored. But the flower petals droop away from the center and are fragile to touch.  It can live in many altitudes and different weather regions. It is said to be "drought tolerant" and can grow in fairly poor and dry soil.  Apparently it's okay growing in horse manure as well!

The balance of the echinacea flower speaks to the integration of the right and left brain hemispheres  according to the Medicine Garden www.medicinegarden.com . Through integration of rational mind (left brain), and instincts and intuition (right brain) ,you can find your true connected, powerful, and complete self. Hmm... 

Maybe I'll find the gardener within me. For now I'm happy I followed my intuition and allowed that weed to grow into the powerful and  beautiful healer that it is.