wildflowerwalker

One of the first plant spagyrics I made close to 20 years ago along with a friend, was Rosemary. Sadly it was back in the days when I didn’t document (lesson learned!) and so much of what we experienced – alchemy is a lived experience of a plant – has been lost. Rosemary is for remembrance right?!

Two things that stayed with me:

• the gears in both of our cars (mine and hers) both had intense issues.
• a lot arose around mothering.

Sometime last year, another friend had a pile of harvested Rosemary, so we spent a day doing a kitchen oil distillation together. The main thing that I experienced on this day was the polarity of clear active mind and deeply relaxed body of which Rosemary is well known for. If you look at Calendula, you will see this head/body polarity in a different way, and they are related remedies at a core level.

Rosemary was flowering in my garden recently so I decided to dive back into it and do some plant communication to understand its core essence.

(Just a quick note, I’m not focusing on everything we already know about Rosemary here, there’s plenty of information on that already, my intention is always to travel deeper and get to the core, the why’s of how it works that way.  This information has come from my communication with the Rosemary deva.)

The themes of what came out over the weeks of intentionally working with it, I have summarised below.  But before that, I want to share some of the insights in my own life since taking the Rosemary Flower Code regularly after that.

• what’s been arising in my life since starting the essence is a deeper need to nourish, relax and celebrate my body and my life.
• a need to incorporate more stillness for receptivity and listening.
• I realised that while I am great at feeling the hard emotions and allowing them to wash through me, I am not so great at resting in stillness and feeling the sense of fullness and nourishment that comes from that.  I need to learn to receive!
• The feelings I have a problem with feeling are the nourishing, nurturing ones! I only nurture myself when there is pain or distress.
• Then the only way my body can communicate its need for rest and relax is by bringing pain in the form of muscle tension and headaches.
• That I need more physical touch to nurture my body.
• a friend invited me to be a volunteer recipient of a series of womb and fertility massages! Synchronicity.  You’ll understand why later!

Rosemary Themes – Divine Mother

Rosemary is for Mother Love. It relates to the Divine Mother, it brings us in touch with the divine feminine, the divine mother. Where Calendula relates to the Divine Father, Rosemary relates to the Divine Mother.

Rosmarinus means ‘dew of the sea’. Ros – marinus also ‘Rose of the sea’ (‘marinus’ comes from ‘la mer’ = sea; also ‘la mere’ = mother).

In ancient stories Rosemary was associated with the Virgin Mary who was said to have rested under a Rosemary bush while fleeing to Egypt. Another story says she hung Jesus’ swaddling cloths on a Rosemary bush which turned the flowers their sky blue colour.

Divine Mother energy is like an ocean of unconditional love, soft, flowing and nourishing. The divine feminine knows how to FEEL the depths of emotion and hence allow them to pass through us like waves in the ocean.

This brings us to one of the keys to Rosemary:

Grief & Loss & The Capacity to FEEL.

The first thing the Rosemary deva showed me was an image of Mother Mary in a blue robe in dry sandy country with the sea in view (Rosemary loves to grow in these places).  She is letting go a child, rolling it back into the sea and in the deep grief of this process.  Her tears are the colour of the flowers, they are the dew of the sea, salty.  She shows me that tears of grief, like the flowers, cleanse the eyes and head of the cloud of grief.  She lies on a bed of Rosemary.  It helps her to overcome her grief, to deeply relax and grieve and slowly come back to her senses. To remember herself again.  I understand that Rosemary relates to MOTHER LOVE.

Rosemary is for deep grief.  It helps us to overcome our grief, to relax and allow the waves of emotion to be felt and pass through us. It helps us to surrender to the emotion as it arises so that we can move forward again.   Once we have felt the feelings, she then gently bring us back to our senses again.

Rosemary cleanses the tears and head of grief, she helps us cry out our tears so that our head can be clear again. Once we have FELT our emotions, we become fully clear and get back on track to remembering ourselves again. Rosemary supports this process.

She is useful for those lost in grief, or who don’t allow themselves to fully feel the loss and emotion. Sometimes we fear depth of emotion, that we may drown in the ocean of it and so we hide from it, attempt to avoid it. But it will come out anyway eventually. Rosemary helps us to fully go into these feelings supported so that we can come out again on the other side.

Rosemary is well known to stimulate the circulation and metabolism, to move stagnation through warming and stimulating.  It activates the fire element.  When we are lost in the excessive yin of emotions, when we are in an ocean of emotion, Rosemary can help us bring the fire of presence to our emotions that allows them to transform.

It is especially useful for the grief of a mother after the loss of a child.

It may also be useful for the continual letting go process that happens as children grow up and become increasingly more independent and mothers must keep surrendering to that in order for their child to mature. To help us feel the grief for times passed with our children so we can by fully present to the now.

It can be useful for codependent mother child relationships.

Also for empty nest syndrome, when the children are grown and the mother is left feeling lost after so many years of devotion. Who am I if I’m not a mother?

 

Rosemary is useful for all Mother Wounds.

(The Divine Mother is an archetype. As humans we can’t hope to be there all the time!! However, Rosemary can support us in connecting with her more often.)

The Divine Mother knows she is a vessel of creation and has a deep role as nurturer, yet maintains her sense of self. The Divine Mother has unconditional love for all beings, not just her own offspring.

The Divine Mother has a healthy dose of the masculine integrated so is able to keep things moving, clear things out as needed, let go at the right time, fulfilling her role of nourisher on all levels but also knowing it is but a part of her role and not her identity.

 

Rosemary is useful for Mothers:

• When we identify with the mother archetype too deeply, unable to let child go at the right time, unable to grieve the loss of our child becoming dependent.
• Mothers that don’t foster independence in children so as to create dependence. Codependent mother child relationships.
• On other side, Rosemary is useful for those that have a lack of mothering qualities whether for themselves or their children. This may be a lack of nurturing and nourishing qualities, unable to hold space for emotions (in selves or others), unable to listen deeply and hold.
• Mothers that have over identified with the mother role and have lost themselves.

 

Useful for the Child:

• Grief around not having experienced a mothers love.
• Rosemary helps us to connect to the divine mother, whether we have experienced it or not, it brings us into connection with the divine mother, with mother love.
• All mother wounds, the grief at the humanity of our mothers, that they were not the divine mother!
• Excessive mothering – codependency.

 

The Womb as Inner Mother

Within our body, our inner mother relates to the Womb.

It is part of the womb’s role to hold us. The womb is the sacred vessel of creation, it provides the space, the nourishing soil and collective ocean that feeds our seeds and brings them into being.

The inner mother is our ability to nourish and hold ourselves in unconditional love. The inner mother is the part of us that can hold and soothe and love no matter what is going on, like a mother soothing a crying babe with her soft touch, voice and presence.

 

How is your relationship with your inner mother?

How do you hold yourself through painful emotions or physical pain?  

How do you nourish yourself?

Can you hold yourself through anything no matter how painful or difficult?

Or do you abandon yourself when you most need loving touch, holding and nourishment?

 

When we have not learned to hold ourselves properly our muscles can take on the holding patterns creating muscle tension and pain. This shows our deep need for soothing touch, to come back into the body (feminine) to feel our boundaries and nurture our physicality.

When we are in need of a good rub, a massage – we are in need of nurturing our feminine nature (the body).

Then we are in need of the energy of Rosemary.

We are in need of holding ourselves with more care, love and nourishment.

We are in need of allowing our feelings to flow through us.

 

Rosemary relaxes the voluntary muscles, yet tones and stimulates the smooth muscles. It gets our feminine muscles of holding and nourishment working and relaxes the more masculine voluntary muscles of the body. When the masculine within is working overtime, we need to balance it with some feminine nurture time.

Rosemary has integrated the masculine within the feminine in a healthy way. When we have integrated the masculine within our feminine nature, we bring a little fire into the watery realms.  If we are too yin, too feminine, there is too much water, emotion, laxity, dampness. Rosemary gently warms and dries when things are too yin, when there is an excess of emotion or fluid. Rosemary has long been used for flu, TB, to clear phlegm and for asthma. Increases circulation.

 

Rosemary Flower Code Essence available here