Healing Patterns With Petals

How I work with flower remedies and make them for my family.

This has been such a present and captivating week for me—the kind that is full of the sweet kind of tenderness. One of those weeks where, sandwiched between our kids on our “mega-bed” (the term we use for the twin bed pushed up against our king so that we can all co-sleep), I tell our nightly “story by mouth” until they drift off—and I’m lying there in such deep gratitude to be next to these beings, lucky and privileged enough to walk side by side with them in this life.

As someone who longed for children for five years, and struggled to get pregnant for all five, these are moments I don’t take lightly. I will admit that there are times when the selkie in me remembers those long, leisurely days before very young children. When the domestic day-to-day butts up against the dreamer Aquarian in me that wants to be completely “unscheduled and unrhythmed,” free to live in my total leisure and daydreams. And then the mother in me remembers the popular saying: though the days are long, the years are very much short. I find myself in this pull back and forth often—holding two truths at once. Complete and total gratitude, while also holding the truth of utter exhaustion and the very little nervous system exhale that a sensitive person gets in the throes of parenting very young children. Still very much in the weeds, as we say.

In the wake of Mother’s Day, I’ve been reflecting deeply on the mother—both metaphorically and literally. On how vital that relationship is, how little attunement most of us received growing up (generationally, even), due to so many unique and different circumstances, and how each of my children requires a different kind of attunement that I’m still learning to give—and definitely drop the ball on at times.

This brings me to this past weekend, we went on a hunt for my very favorite native wildflower that grows here in the Santa Monica Mountains—the Mariposa Lily.

I first met her two years ago on a morning hike I did daily. I was totally taken aback when I passed her. Her white petals, marked by violet blotches, with small hues of mauve on her underside and perfect symmetry. I was so captivated that I picked one and drove it straight to jewelry artist Savannah King’s home—she’s made many of my talisman pieces—and I left it with her to photograph, knowing that one day I’d ask her to create a high-karat gold pair of earrings for me to wear. The kind where the stems become the loop that goes through the ears. (I digress.)

I came home and placed her in a tiny antique crystal single-stem vase I have, and I was absolutely enamored every time I walked by. I got the ping to research her in The Flower Essence Repertory, which our co-care at the time had been deeply studying. And there she was:

“Mariposa Lily is indicated for healing mother wounds, fostering maternal connection, and nurturing qualities, especially in those who feel alienated from the mother or from maternal nurturing.”

It was one of the first times I had such a psychic connection with a flower—my first claircognizant-floral communication. That unmistakable pull where the flower presented itself, I was overcome, stumbled through the experience, and felt a clear message every step of the way: it was the exact medicine I needed—energetically, physically, and spiritually.

And from that day forward, I’ve included her in many of the personal custom flower remedies I make for the kids, my partner Max, and myself.

If you’re unfamiliar with flower essences: a flower essence is a subtle, vibrational medicine first developed in the 1930s by Dr. Edward Bach. It’s made from the energetic imprint of a flower in water, preserved and used to gently shift emotional, mental, or spiritual states—they work on the body’s energetic field. Or, as my dear friend, flower remedy expert and homeopath Alexis Smart describes them, they gently rewire old behaviors and subconscious patterns—without you having to do the heavy lifting.

I personally pair them with our TBM work, and I’m always on a remedy, as I find them to be incredibly effective. They’re so gentle and require nothing more than four drops under the tongue, four times a day, until the bottle is finished. Alexis was the initiation for my flower essence journey when she made me my first custom remedy over ten years ago. And it had such a powerful impact on my life!

Last year, this very week, I had my son Gus at home—just five minutes shy of Mother’s Day. That same week, I saw the first Mariposa Lily bloom in the mountains. He is the boy who came with the Mariposa Lily blooms. And she will always be the first flower that really communed with me.

So below, I’ll share the very simple way I make our family’s flower remedies. I’m in no way an expert and have no intention of becoming. I just find them to be the gentle healing and shift that harmonizes each of us. And if you haven’t already tried a formula created by someone experienced—like Alexis’ body of work—you might not yet know how to recognize the subtle shifts you're looking for. So I highly suggest trying a few of those first. I ALWAYS have her First Aid Kit in our medicine cabinet!