A glimpse at some early and rather surprising plant spirit teachings.
(This article was first published over on my substack publication: Mythic Living)
A plant that I’ve been wanting to dive in to learn from more deeply for some time is Lemon Balm. Yet I also attempt to wait until the plant calls me, which often seems to be about being ready to embody the stellium of teachings it has to offer and to give it my full attention over time so as to develop trust and relationship together. There is also often greater timing at play, and as I reflect on some of these teachings, I suspect it may be to do with the movement of Pluto into Aquarius this month, but that’s another story.
So for the last month I’ve been working with Lemon Balm, and I can sense there’s still much more to learn. That’s the beauty of plant spirits – they contain whole worlds within them, a whole body of knowledge that for the most part, we humans miss for taking only a peremptory superficial glance at their ‘properties’ or ‘actions’ forgetting that they are storage houses of wisdom well beyond this.
For a change, I’m going to share the first few conversations I’ve had with the Lemon balm deva, and you can see for yourself the layered approach plant spirits so often take to school us. It reminds me of the layers of knowledge and ways of indigenous people in Australia – there’s the stories that are given to children, and then pieces are added as they get older. Then the initiated receive another layer and so on and so forth until the deeper meanings are revealed – but only if one has travelled the distance.
Plants seem to teach in the same way. Bite sized pieces that require digesting or sometimes inner shifts and healing before we are ready to receive the expanded layers. Knowledge can only go so far. At some point we need to turn it into wisdom through our own personal embodied experience.
So here is a condensed summary of my first few meetings with the Balm deva. My time with it is far from complete!
2.10.24
First tune in:
“I am the fizz in tiny wings.”
“I am the energy that vibrates tiny wings (dragonflies, bees, flies and fairies) at a fast frequency that creates a buzz or hum. In the human body, you can recognise me in feelings of being aflutter, abuzz, a nervous belly, a fast heartbeat, a high frequency flutter, a speeding up of motility and digestion, butterflies in the belly. This frequency is like that of insects – high, which simply means that the vibratory rate is fast and repeating more frequently. There is a common belief that high frequency is better than low frequency in your realm, but they are just different. We work with both”
23.10.24
This time I meet Lemon Balm below the earth where I’m shown another aspect. Here the spirit of Lemon Balm is soft, like golden fluid that is simply delicious to be amidst. It feels like being in golden glowing honey and the resonance (an important word) is rich, delicious, honeylike and spacious with deep wooden tones. Rich is the best word I can find for the feeling. At the same time I am aware of the buzzy sensation from last time which can be felt above the surface. But the lower frequencies of Lemon Balm that reside below the earth are rich and resonant and golden.
“This is my gift to you. To remember and feel this inner sensation (rich, warm, like liquid honey), which is the source of the peripheral buzz you have also tapped into. At centre is the deeply resonant and soft humming of golden liquid light, while the limbs and muscles of your body are fed by this inner richness. The peripheral is abuzz with the energy of action. Bees are a manifestation of this external buzz. They are attracted to and in service to the golden centre – an extension of the buzz that arises from the deep golden glow frequency inside.”
As I feel this through my body, I want to sound or sigh with the pleasure of it.
Sound and frequency seems very key to Lemon Balm.
“As a plant I tap into these frequencies (of golden rich resonance) within the earth and express them outwardly, emanating them through vibration. The bees resonate with this frequency and are attracted – a physical manifestation of the energy.”
“As a flower is to the bees, I am a flower in whole plant form. I contain the energy of flower at my very essence.”
I understand that this is a part of why bees are very attracted to Lemon Balm for the resonant coding it carries. Everything seems to be about frequency.
Continuously I receive and experience a similar image of the golden centre and the peripheral buzz like bees. Expressing in the human body in health, the inner centre is soft, relaxed and rich emanating a hum of energy that expands to the periphery or outer into excitation and the activity of life. The two are interdependent.
The next time I meet with Lemon Balm, the teaching is all around scent, which also appears visually as sound frequency waves.
“Scent is a modulating frequency that moves and changes as you breathe. When you breathe in my scent (Lemon Balm), it travels deep into the brain centres bringing relaxation and increasing spaciousness in the brain.”
I then experience this fully – a deep relaxation and a sense of darkness and space opening up in my head via the head and airways where the vibratory soundwaves enter. Though it comes via a totally different way to my previous experience, the end result is virtually the same – the feeling of a big pleasurable sigh.
At the same time, I see the imbalanced state of Lemon Balm which is in essence a little uptight, dry and constricted throughout. Like a high pitched scream that carries tension, like the frequency is too high and fast.
25.10.24
This time I receive a healing from Lemon Balm. It is fast, almost faster than I am comfortable with.
I am placed in a curved container. The word terrarium comes to mind (I look it up later and it is a closed container of plants that basically creates its own independent homeostasis quite apart from the external world – creating air and water all from within).
My mind begins to wander into Minoan history and previous experiences with ancient flower priestesses (read about this in my book serialisation for paid subscribers). I also get the nudge to research and write a Balm Materia Medica – something I try not to do too early so as not to be too influenced by outer knowledge.
At the same time, honey is being poured over me as I rest in this ‘terrarium’ container. As I sit within this beehive shaped cell, more insight slowly flows in.
“We (Lemon balm) hold the coding for bees and beehives. In the centre lies the queen and the honey and comb upon which the bees and their humming revolve. As a plant, we hold the coding for the structure of the hive and for the essence of all that is the hive mind.”
Lemon Balm helps to restructure us into a more collective mentality – a hive mind. This information is also held within honey. Balm helps us remember this way of being – of all working together for a common aim.
Several further meetings with the Balm deva have been centred around healing and some rather interesting topics that arise through these methods. But it is still evolving and too early to share. I sense there is quite a bit more time to spend learning and working with the medicine and essential soul teachings of Lemon Balm.
I’m continually fascinated by what evolves learning in this way. I never know where a plant is going to take me or what topic is going to arise! It’s also been interesting to note that in my time with Lemon Balm, synchronicities have increased – almost as if tapping into the hive mind mentality, the outer world begins to bring in the information to explain the inner sights more frequently (there’s that Balm word again). One of these was just last week, well over a month into tuning into Lemon Balm – when I stumbled upon a beautiful book called the Song of Increase, which is all about the bees and how the hive works from the perspective of bees! In it, it explains much of what I have been experiencing with Lemon Balm – for example how each bee will sing its own song of action, which is in harmony with the whole hum of the hive and how everything in the beehive seems to be about scent and sound in the bee realm. It also speaks of when beehives are unwell, they can close themselves up and seal themselves in order to heal!!
Of this, I had no knowledge before!
What conversations or teachings have you had with Lemon Balm? I’d love to hear!
To sit in a held container deep diving with plant spirit teachings for soul evolution, check out our beautiful online training Shamanic Herbalism Flower Codes.
About Heidi
I’ve been walking the plant spirit path for close to 30 years. With herbalism, homeopathy, and plant alchemy/spagyrics as early companions, midwifery and shamanism came a little later. After years of listening to the plants, I’ve since taught hundreds of people how to deepen their connection with nature and learn to hear the whispers of plants. I continue to offer The Flower Codes Training/ Shamanic Herbalism online course, as well as various in person shamanic nature-based courses such as Herbal Alchemy Spagyrics.
My published books include:
“The Flower Codes: Plant Spirit Teachings for your Soul to Blossom.”
“Wild Flower Walker: A Pilgrimage to Nature on the Bibbulmun Track”;
and Blue Triangle Butterfly: A Homeopathic Proving
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