The Hedge Bindweed is the flower that wanted to present itself to me as the next natural Flower Essence Of The Month for the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences last October. With a quality of resilience and a message that 'Persistence Pays' we may have to ask ourselves why in particular this time of year? 

The question is a valid one because initially when this flower essence was gathered it soon became obvious that the prime objective for collecting it was its relationship to being able to help alleviate some symptoms of bullying. Indeed, of all the flowers in the range that have come to assist in helping people overcome the effects of bullying to discover their true identity this flower is the flag bearer of that campaign. 

This is because even though the flower itself can be seen as a bully in the way that it clambers over, suffocates and strangles other plants in the garden, the more it gets cut back the more it comes back stronger. It gives us the power of creating a strong root or centre to our being and indeed embrace the quality of resilience because each time it gets knocked down it gets back up again. 

Resilience by definition according to Google is 1) the capacity to recover from difficulties, i.e. toughness and 2) the ability of a substance to spring back into shape, i.e. elasticity. So in order to be resilient you need to have both of these qualities combined, that of toughness and elasticity. 

In October, going by the Celtic calendars, we are about to enter winter, (officially winter starts on November 1st). At this time the majority of the deciduous trees in the Northern Hemisphere are either shedding their leaves or preparing to let them go. The week of Halloween and Bonfire Night sticks fervently in my memory as being the time when the majority of leaves fall from the trees within the year. 

Nature at this time is preparing to let go of anything that no longer serves it, the trees are readying themselves to go back to their plain wood, their root, trunk, branch and twig and nothing else. This is so they can become more resilient to the frosty mornings and sub zero temperatures of the winter months. They don't carry any baggage with them at this time they tough it out with the bare essentials, so that they can spring back again in March to be in full leaf.

So this is why the Hedge Bindweed appears as the Flower Essence Of The Month for October and offers us the quality of resilience, by being persistent we too will navigate the colder months and begin to bloom again in the spring.  

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Little did I know when I first started collecting flower essences of the journey I was about to be taken on in order to understand everything that was needed to be learnt of each individual essence. This included each one's unique quality and message that it wanted to convey to me in order to be shared with the rest of the planet for everyone's benefit. 

Firstly I was introduced to how the flowers appeared within the year, month by month, then where they were located within the landscape, next how they related to one another and finally how they connected with synchronistic events that were happening at the time, had occurred in the past or, as it turned out, would be experienced in the future.

This was all designed to make me pay more attention to the essences and the level of healing ability they were capable of both for the individual and that of the collective. All the time however I was being subtly shown how they related to the lunar and solar cycles too, which opened me up to a whole new level of learning.   

My first essence I ever created was the Blackthorn which was gathered on a New Moon at the start of the financial year in 2019. Three weeks later I was being prompted to collect the Bluebell on a Waning Half Moon. It was soon being made obvious to me that there was a pattern of collection for me to follow working with the moon phases, not necessarily in the normal chronological order. I would then be tasked with the sun phases too.

This sequence I believe was to help disguise, at first, the depth of meaning held within the particular lunar cycle I was working with and how they were all ultimately connected. This revelation only started to dawn on me towards the end of collecting all of the initial seventeen essence range. Some quite interesting commonalities started to come to light within each individual, New Moon, Waxing Half Moon, Full Moon and Waning Half Moon essence as I began to bring them all together, let alone within the Solstice and Equinox essences also. 

For instance when analysing all the New Moon essences I began to discover that if the Blackthorn's message was 'Knowing The Way', the Ox-Eye Daisy's was 'Bright Eyes' and the Dandelion's 'Keep The Faith', then together they would be assisting us in 'Knowing Our Purpose'. This is because their individual qualities of direction, vision and trust, when combined, point us towards a new quality of assurance. 

Similarly if we look at the Waxing Half Moon essences of Foxglove, Hedge Bindweed and Wild Daffodil we begin to discover that these are all essences that bring us more 'Aware Of Boundaries', whether this is guarding our threshold, reaching out beyond it or preventing people encroaching within it. We become more vigilant when the qualities of protection, resilience and discernment are unified.  

With the Full Moon we combine the essences of Red Campion, Montbretia, Snowdrop and indeed Red Valarian, as the thirteenth flower essence. Their respective qualities of connection, courage, determination and truth give us a new resolve for our life. Here we can 'Search For The Hero' within ourselves, find out 'Where There's A Will' there's a way and thus finally how 'To Thyself Be True'. By all doing this we begin to establish that 'We Are The Campions' and find out that we have discovered 'The Drive Of Our Life'. 

For the Waning Half Moon it is more about 'Loving Yourself'. When we combine Bluebell's beauty, Nodding Thistle's confidence and Yarrow's acceptance we begin to truly bring the quality of peace to our being where we are able to gain an 'Inner-Sense' of who we are, acknowledge 'It Is What It Is' at the end of the day and thus begin to 'Be The Best Of The Best' as far as we are concerned. 

As for the Solstices and Equinoxes then the flowers of the Wild Rose, Meadowsweet, Daisy and Primrose begin to bring us 'Fully Present' bringing our attention to every second of every day. They teach us to both seize and enjoy the moment whilst being responsible for it and treating it as if it was our first ever upon this Earth. That way we are able to be happy living our lives in a constant state of renewal, where new beginnings can be initiated forever more. 

If you wish to experience the Lunar and Solar Essence blends for yourself then why not check out the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences today and begin to live a happier life yourself too.

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In creating the Allies Of Nature range of flower essences I believe I have formed a battalion of floral comrades that have all come together at this time to support us in our journey towards becoming warriors for a new Earth.

I feel that each of my bottles of goodness contain a leadership quality, something that we need to be our own leader, or help return ourselves to a place of balance at this point in our planet's history. Here we are able to more fully embrace the legacy of our ancestors gone before us and understand our own life purpose as a result. 

When I create an essence, I pick up 'in the field' what it is all about and what needs to be conveyed to our community through this flower. I am then able to transcribe that information into an essence description. This is very much collected in the moment, but can be related to any amount of experiences that have contributed to that essence coming into being from the initial intention to create it. 

In our journey as warriors we will experience many hurdles and obstacles that will need to be overcome, trials and tribulations given us along the way that expose our core wounds. We will have to find some way of healing these wounds in our passage towards wholeness. The flowers can help us with this process. 

My own voyage has been one very much connected to being bullied. I have had to strive to overcome all of the naysayers in my life, all the people that have wished to control my own outcomes, if I let them. For a great many years I did just that, allowed them to rule my life, until such a time as I have been able to start to push back against the tide. 

I have noticed in a lot of the essences I have created recently there have been many qualities given to me that have been connected to getting beyond this place of struggle and hardship. One of which has been that of Hedge Bindweed, bringing me the quality of resilience. 

Hedge Bindweed I gathered as an essence within sight of the house I grew up in from the age of 13 to 31 and where a lot of my bullying issues manifested themselves. They culminated in me receiving death threats at the age of 16 in the run up to the end of school. The Hedge Bindweed used to grow upon our tennis court at the time and now its rhizomes stretch out far and wide 200 yards down the road beyond our former household. 

It is a very tenacious plant, if you cut it back or chop it down as a gardener it will reform that much stronger, it keeps coming back, getting back up again and will continue to clamber over the more precious, ornate plants in the flower beds. It has an amazing core strength and greater resilience. 

When I was collecting the essence I was reminded of the film The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise and in particular a scene where he, as the imprisoned US Captain Nathan Algren, is taken off to a Japanese Samurai village. He befriends one of the children there whom he is staying with, ironically, the son of the warrior he has killed in battle and he gets involved in a play fight with kendo sticks with him. A supreme warrior of the village spots what is going on and takes the stick away from the boy and sets about administering a beating to Captain Algren. 

Algren is in no way a match for such a warlord and as the rain descends ever more heavily on the duel so the more the Captain is beaten, bashed, bruised and bullied into the muddy river that is now forming at his feet. However, despite the odds, he continues to get back up again. He has no skills to match this warrior, only his heart, stubbornness, belief in himself, grit and determination. He knows he is going to get beaten and beaten, again and again until all that is left is his own will.

The very fact however that he keeps getting back up again begins to earn him respect within all that are watching on, even the titan that is administering his annihilation. Algren all the while is learning one of the key qualities it takes to be a warrior, a true Ally Of Nature, resilience. To never give up, to get knocked down but to keep getting back up again is an admirable quality in life. We will all get there in the end, if we lose the battle it is not necessarily like losing the war. We can all still be victorious, especially if we follow the example of the Hedge Bindweed.

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