(Photo from Pinterest)

I am changing the name of Ghostflower Journal. This is something that came to me through the last 2 years of wrestling, crying, rebirthing, and changing myself. When I started Ghostflower, I felt a homecoming, a sort of beginning to who I could be within this place, this container, this room.

A lot has happened since then. I have worked through things that sat in my system and are now being fully digested in a way that can’t hold Ghostflower for what it is anymore. There is a part of me that lets Ghostflower keep me small, keep me locked into a certain way of being that isn’t exactly where I want to go. I am grieving that part of myself. The part of me that let others keep me small, that let herself mold into what others needed.

I had a dream that rocked me awhile ago. To preface this dream I had been working with Ghostpipe, I always stay near this not quite plant, not quite mushroom creature because it has helped me immensely. I asked for some guidance because my life has been a series of downs and awakenings the last few years. Its a phase where nothing fantastic comes to fruition, mostly removing, cleaning the mirror, pruning, letting go, grieving, and sort of just… surviving. And I know this isn’t necessarily what others come to see on any sort of social media. But I promised myself I would share even if it was just for me, the messy middle. Writing has helped me sort through my mind postpartum where nothing makes sense and up is down. This is what Ghostpipe can help with and witness, so back to the dream.

I dreamed that my Grandmother, who passed away 4 years ago to the month, gave me a pelvis and as she handed it to me it started disintegrating and turned to powder in my hands, blowing away with the snow. This “guidance” dream woke me up, I went outside into the inky night and felt heavy. I get dreams like this when things in my life need to change. I wasn’t sure what at first. She always comes in dreams like this where its almost so obvious I don’t see it for a few days. Then I had a dream my spine did the same thing, and it then moved into my pelvis. I became invisible. This is something the Ghostflower name kept me in. I realized I chose this name to keep me safe from being seen, from being visible, from actually using my voice to speak on things that matter fully to me without editing it down, making it obscure so no one would really know what I meant because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

The truth is - I have had my feelings more hurt than I let on. I have been let down, I have been lied to, abandoned, stolen from, cheated on, gaslit to the point of me thinking it was my fault, been told I am dramatic for saying a truth that makes other uncomfortable because they won’t believe their behavior hurt me. I became invisible because it was safe. I became a Ghostflower.

The thing that’s hard is I love the name Ghostflower. It’s beautiful, ethereal, spooky, witchy… all the things I love. But it is also not allowing me to grow passed it. I can’t tell you exactly why, I am guessing because I literally am my brand, I am the aesthetic, the products, the books. Everything I create is through my own experience and how it all has helped me and other people who deal with the same things.

The other truth is that I am afraid to use my voice. I am afraid to speak about what really happened, how I really felt, and what it all really did to me. I am afraid of having my experiences invalidated again. I am afraid of being called dramatic, told to stop whining “it’s not that bad; it could be worse.” Of course, I know it could be worse, I live in a house with food and water and warmth. But for some reason, I can’t get passed it all. I haven’t been able to forgive yet. I haven’t been able to let go of the resentment, the constant stress over it, the self-worth issues, the self-confidence issues… and who knows if a name change will help me change myself. I don’t know the answer yet, but I know in the depths of my heart that I have to try. I have to let something precious go because it is also not exactly healthy for my psyche to be there. It feels like I’ve done all I can for an injured animal but it has to pass peacefully now. I don’t love that feeling but it’s just something that has to happen. I will cry, I will keep it in my heart, but I will also have to walk away eventually. I have to cut the cord eventually.

It’s symbolic to do it that way. It feels like leaving my dad, who is an addict, to do what he’s going to do but I can’t keep repeating what is keeping me in a prison. I can’t give him more money. I can’t drive him to the liquor store late at night like I used to because I am afraid tonight he will end it all like he threatens every time. At some point.. I have to choose myself. At some point, the child becomes the one who has to be the parent.

This story I have been carrying around has to be set down, it has to be left without going back just one more time. And I have to leave the girl who was taught to do all of it “because that’s what family does.” I have to leave a part of myself behind with it all. I have to cut the limb, the cord, the infection out.

Not every process in life can be painless. I have come to see this lately. So much of simply living hurts. I remember thinking over and over that I don’t like what life has given me. In holding that in for decades to say it here, seems strange and I don’t at all want to sound ungrateful for being alive but there is truth for me here, and maybe saying it will help. I spent most of the last almost 12 years bypassing how I felt in fear of being judged, left, accused of not being a perfect mother and whatever else could possibly be thrown at me. Saying that feels horrifying, like someone is going to rush in my door and scream at me for not being grateful the second I hit send. And if I let it fester in me any longer I am afraid of what could happen, because my lovely Grandmother did that, she seemed fine, never cried, never complained, never said no, and let everyone take what they needed from her, and she died of 5 types of stage 4 cancer. I went with her to every appointment and we lost her within the span of a few months. I know I have to make sure I don’t hold all of this in, I don’t want to leave like that.

I think as Women, we get so praised for holding it all in, taking it like a champ, being strong, being brave, not needing anything from anyone etc, etc, that eventually it catches up to us. We are somehow supposed to bleed, birth, and die silently and without any needs. We are supposed to be grateful 24/7 often for crumbs, and we are supposed to be happy with nothing, be chill, be the cool one who doesn’t care what men treat us like… and do all of this while raising children and making our own money and keeping the house cleaned and staying fit, bouncing back from birth and pregnancy.

This is not something I am thankful for, and I have been waking in the middle of the night wondering why I feel so disconnected from myself. I don’t get to be “myself.” I get to be everyone else’s before I have time to tend to myself. So relieving Ghostflower of her duties, the pressure I have put on her to be perfect is an act of love that feels hard but I have to. For her and for myself. She and I deserve to rest now, to sleep, to eat something without standing up. To feel safe without having to do something on my to do list.

A business is not ownership. It is a co-creation with the beauty of nature herself. She deserves an autumn and winter.

(Photo from Pinterest)

And what has come into my orbit is a co-creation because without it- it won’t work like Ghostflower did. Without community, witnessing, natural seasons and so much love poured in- it will fail. And I will fail with it. So this is something I have been tending to for months, asking permission, creating with, dreaming with and giving in to. This next part is for me. It’s a lighthouse in the dark. A basecamp to rest weary bones through the journey with medicines, wisdom from nature and artifacts from my own journey.

This is no longer the desert. This is the forest. This is a green sanctuary. This is me creating for me without the outside influx. This place won’t be out in the wide-open desert for anyone to find. This place requires a map, an invitation, a similar resonant frequency to what is there which is why you are hearing about it before anyone else.

I no longer want to try to please everyone, to make something for everyone. This is a surgically precise vision. Stay. Go. Do what you need to do babe. I will be here, at basecamp.

I will be on a more predictable writing schedule very shortly and I have some amazing things cooking. As a free subscriber, not much will change except the depth of free articles. As a paid subscriber, you will get in depth articles, botanical profiles unlike any you’ve ever experienced, classical tarot readings, private Q and A Sessions with me, a 15% off discount on my website and access to e-books, classes and courses for the price of a coffee.

The changes will be permanent soon. I cant wait for you to see them.

I love you all, thank you for being here. See you in the forest.

xx

Danielle

We hear “You aren’t behind, you are right where you are meant to be!” Like that should be a relief for Women like us who take eons to produce something because we had to conjure it from ancient memory and dreamscapes that can take seasons to form.

I think we were meant for something else. We can’t for the life of us optimize, form a system that’s reliable because no one has called us reliable since we stopped being available to everyone all the time because our bodies started screaming at us in symptoms. And we believe reliability even in business is suffocating to our business because it was suffocating to us.

No one understands the grief of it when we were so fast before, so efficient, helping everyone at any given moment and it was fine, we never needed anything.

So now, we sit here at our kitchen table writing our hearts out in a world that needs 2 articles a week and at least 3 notes per day, one story, one question, one review or else no one will subscribe and THAT is the one thing we can count on to call us successful. And we can write 6 articles in 3 days then none for 2 weeks because that’s just how we work. We aren’t optimizable. We have children, we don’t get to block out consistent creative time and when we do, the words don’t come. So, we do what we can with what we have, and I want to tell you from Mother to Mother or Woman… that is enough.

I have seen more growth in inconsistency that I did forcing consistency. And it’s not about the growth because looking at those metrics will make you insane and have you basing your worth on a number on a screen, but I do love that I’ve been able to connect with many more real people, have more conversations and begin to build an actual community.

It is strange to feel the grief of feeling left behind. I feel it most days where I see people pump out a course overnight and all the sudden they have 50k launches and I am sitting here waiting for someone to see anything I’ve made in the last 6 months. It hurts, I will be honest. Because all I want is to be able to not survive month to month. I want to be able to take my kids to a movie or on an overnight trip a few hours away. Right now that seems so far in the future and then I see other women using ChatGPT to make a $47 e-book that sells 500 copies overnight while she is sleeping. I get so jealous. I get so resentful. I wonder why I work so hard to make no money. And then I have to call myself back as much as it hurts to do so.

I am not like those Women. I never have been. And I have to form my own path or remain resentful. Because I am in it for the long game. I am in this because one day, I want to be the Elder Woman that people can rely on for wisdom and help and to be witnessed. I had a belief that that didn’t mean monetary gain. But I am hoping I can make my life just easy enough for myself and my family. I don’t want a million dollars. I want enough to not worry at the grocery store and have to put things back, or be able to afford an emergency when needed instead of completely draining my account whenever some tiny thing arises. I want to be sufficient and leave my children plenty.

So the grief of taking too long is very much tied to worth and survival. To “Why is my wisdom not worth money?” To “Why am I still struggling this much and so behind if I work just as much as they do?” “Why does my family ask how my “little hobby” is going. If they only knew it was my livelihood.

The late nights and early mornings haven’t yet added up but I know deep down eventually they will, eventually they will form, eventually I will look back and say to myself

“Hey, you bloomed late and it was so worth it.”

And that is the day I write for, and the Women I wrote for live here too. That is the moment I continue on for. Because I know that good things take time. I know that baking a delicious, beautiful cake takes time, that writing a really juicy novel takes time. And even though I have to remind myself of this daily… it is the long game I am mastering.

I am not looking to be like the Women who write entire courses on ChatGPT- I am looking to be a Woman that integrates what she’s learned in her bones, so it doesn’t disappear when the Wifi does. I want to remember everything even when my phone has been thrown eventually and metaphorically into a river somewhere so I can live my life. Part of me knows I needed to learn plant medicine. Because nature is the long game. And something in me, even though I didnt know it at the time, longed for a life where optimization and marketing and making perfect reels wasnt a necessity to survive and live. It wasn't even the plant medicine that saved me, although I have made some very effective elixirs, herbal medicines and flower remedies. It was the way the plants operate. Slowly. With intention. With purpose to the long game.

I have memorized the lessons of the plants in my own psyche at this point, and I will forever be a student. I didn’t learn the most in Herb School or Flower Remedy Practitioner training, I learned it out there, with the plants, the moon, the dappled sun in the trees, and the rivers that carry it all. And eventually I will be welcomed back there, bones and all, to be a mere memory of the land that carried me and I don’t want the mycelium to pass along memories of AI but memories of what I learned from the world, clear, concise poetry for it to nourish itself with. To give the land one last hug as my last offering of stewardship.

They say, “how we do one thing is how we do everything.” And I am a rusher. I try to finish things quickly so I can get my to do list done. And that, I am reminded often, is not how nature moves. This is the thing I am learning from her now and it is something that I have had to relinquish through my second postpartum. It just isn’t feasible anymore and I tried to make it workable, but my body said absolutely not. And that is part of that grief of going slow. In a world of optimization and quickening. We have made everything so convenient, so we have more time. And that time is just getting more things done. My washer isn’t convenient because it gets the loads done faster, it’s convenient because now I can wash a load of laundry while I do the dishes and listen to a podcast at the same time.

And something hilariously kismet happened last week. My washing machine broke. I had a melt down for sure, and realized things would be harder for me as a stay at home, working mother who also homeschools.

Much to my chagrin, a few days ago, I took my kids and 6 loads of laundry to the laundromat in town, 30 minutes away. I was anxious, wondering how in the shit I was going to get everything on my list done that day. I knew the laundromat would take hours. I was spiraling. And then, when we got there it was like I walked into 1998. It was adorable. And clean. And had snacks. And a big area for my kiddos to run around. And giant fluffy chairs. I washed then put the laundry in the dryer, we went to the park until my kiddos got tired, I picked up the dried clothes and my son said “Mom, this was THE funnest day EVER.”

That was when I realized THIS was what slow means. Being present. Turning our days into something that doesn’t really need a giant to do list. I got just as much done that day and only scratched one thing off the list. Because Fun and Ease and Nostaligia and blooming in your own time doesn’t belong on those lists simply because that would make the list look too long and daunting. AND… I bet the trees are laughing at us as we write in wooden pencils how to ger MORE done as efficiently as possible.

Much to my suprise I am strangely excited to go to the laundromat next week. My boys and I are looking forward to the slowness, the late summer light and the park where I don’t rush them. I wrote my last article there, too. It was my most popular piece to date and surprise, I wrote it slowly, under the dappled pine tree light, sitting in the grass enjoying my coffee watching my children play.

ChatGPT could never. And honestly? Optimization can really “kiss my buttcheeks” as my eldest likes to say.

I don’t want to do everything as fast as possible anymore. I want my body to know she has time, she can slow down, she doesn’t have to eat breakfast standing up while answering emails.

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." — Lao Tzu

As Mothers, it can be difficult to slow down because we have packed out days to the brim. It isnt to please ourselves. Its to please everyone else. To make sure they know we are being efficient and doing the things we think they want us to do. The reaction I get from people when they ask what I am up to on the phone and I say “drinking my coffee on the porch” is diabolical. “Well what are you going to do today?” Is the next question. Next time im going to say “I am not doing anything today.” Maybe it will heal my entire lineage. One can only hope.

The to do list isn't actually ever getting finished because we would never find ourselves without anything to do. It is more uncomfortable to explain no to do list than it is to begrudgingly add another thing so no one finds us… difficult, lazy, unreliable. Or whatever word comes through your subconscious to torture you today.

You are allowed to move slowly as nature will welcome you back to yourself. Stare at a tree. Touch moss. Be a mushroom. Be a kid again.

The bills, laundry, dishes, messy room… will all be there tomorrow. No one is going to parish. No one is going to chase after you like a lion chasing a zebra. I promise.

I know it feels unnatural but hear me out here. That to do list is a replacement for feeling behind. Because you are so busy taking care of everyone else that the to do list actually has nothing to do with you. Its everything that needs to be done to keep the world on your shoulders. And if you let it go, you might have to focus on your own priorities. You might have to focus on something you love or have wanted to do for 10 years but never got to.

Now go sit down and be bored so you can figure out what you actually want.

A new Flower Remedy will be out in the shop soon. And in true fashion I am waiting patiently. This plant which I have shown just above is one of the greatest teachers of patience, the last to bloom in the desert before it gets cold… and just in time. This plant has helped me calm down and release the need to fill every minute with something productive. All in good time.

Xx

Danielle at Ghostflower Journal

For the last few months I’ve been in a certain mood that feels very clear but it also carries too much truth at once. Like a big cloud is surrounding me and I will get brave enough to emerge only to see something glaring return my gaze.

This is what happens when you awaken to who you really are. What Carl Jung calls individuation. This is where things feel like they are too much, all at once, and they have to be figured out right this second. Which isn’t always the truth but it feels like anxiety in the body that won’t right itself until you figure it out. So, I asked for answers. I asked for guidance. I asked to be shown a sign in some form.

And all the signs I was shown seemed to only deepen the feelings I am having. I am a Mother. I am tired. And processing during a season where you are needed 24/7 is almost impossible. I don’t say this to whine. I say this because its true. And if you are also a Mother, you know exactly what I am talking about.

I am 2 years and a little over 2 months Postpartum. I’ve seen many Women say they felt back to normal months after their babe was born. A year even. I still don’t feel back to normal 2 years in… and it causes many sleepless nights which ironically are probably the reason I am not back to “normal.”

But what is normal when you don’t have a village? When you feel you do this alone? When no one is coming to save you? What a diabolical thing to have to endure, especially as the eldest daughter who wanted nothing but to be saved her entire life and ended up doing all the saving so one day she might be reciprocated. And then it never came. And then she became a Mother.

Women are labeled as natural caretakers. And everyone seems to benefit from it until she can’t anymore. Then she gets ignored, pushed away, left, turned on, cheated on, abandoned, assaulted, hurt…

And then something interesting happens because I realized I was horrifically scared of being alone. Until one day, I felt so alone that I thrashed and cried and begged whoever is up there to help me… and no one came.

That was the part that changed my life forever. After I grieved so hard I had nothing left… I felt a beautiful almost ethereal sense of peace. Of absolute nothingness. Like clarity that comes after the biggest storm you’ve ever witnessed. I felt a miniscule sliver of myself emerge. And in that small, almost imperceptible moment I understood that I was my rescuer. Because I was the only one who could know what I needed and for some reason in my life - I don’t have anyone who has the capacity to go deep here with me right now.

Sure, it hurts that the support I need isn’t there at the moment… but I also realize that I can’t put my own needs last for one more minute. My body is screaming in symptoms. I have to allow myself the fear of being called selfish, maybe rude or whatever else that may come my way. And during postpartum I can only imagine what my response would be, its happened before and I sort of brushed it off but that also created internal imbalances.

The relief comes from taking care of yourself even if it makes me angry that no one else will. The relief comes from saying no. From saying I am going to go outside and please do not interrupt me for 20 minutes unless the house is burning down or blood is being lost. And this is more work. More work I didn’t have the energy to put in because it is less work in the short term to just let everyone have whatever access they need to you. I got angry because I couldn’t fathom doing more. And then I realized this was different. I am the Altar, not the sacrifice. And Altars must be maintained and given offerings and loved or else they don’t work. I repeat to myself multiple times a day that I am a human and I deserve to be loved and taken care of even if its something I need to do. Because if we don’t know how to love ourselves, if we don’t allow ourselves the time to get to know who we are… we won’t know how to show others how to love us. This is why they can try but it never quite lands. This is why we don’t know what we want. And this makes it hard for us, and those trying to love us.

So right now, I am taking small bits of the day to create small, quiet rituals for myself that bring me back to loving me. To nourishing me. To taking care of me before I take care of anyone else besides my children. Right now that looks like giving myself time to cry about what I allowed in the past, and what I allowed myself to tolerate. Maybe I will talk about those things another day but for now, I keep them close as they are too graphic and sad to be out in the world. I don’t want to have opinions, insights, or whatever from whoever. Maybe this will be behind a paywall.

Right now, I am not going to end this with something positive or a cute quote or a practice that can get me out of this. I don’t feel the need to elevate myself as that would bypass it. Right now I will sit in this a little longer and thank you for coming with me through it. And if this is something you are in right now… allow the impossibility to exist. Allow it to be unfair, depressing, hurtful, grief filled.

When this feeling washes over me I like to listen to Nocturne by Ana Roxanne on repeat because it makes me feel like I am inside a temple, inside myself… I can allow the feelings to come, and to wax and wane as the moon does, naturally and without rushing to another phase.

This phase is harder than others. And that’s okay. I am allowed to feel like this because I am a human, and if this is something I feel, this is something others feel, and have since the beginning of time. Mothers across eons have felt this way… have grieved, have come out and been reborn themselves into the dark void, seeing stars as their eyes adjust and the tears dry a bit.

And then I realized I am never alone, as the Mothers that came before us have their hands on our shoulders saying “One more step, Mama. One more step.”

Hugs to you, Mama. And even though its far away… I am proud of you for enduring and finding the magic and taking care of yourself.

Xx

Danielle at Ghostflower Journal

It’s late, or early and you are spiraling into fear and depression. The grief is heavy on your chest and your eyes hurt from crying. You wonder how puffy they will be in the morning… this is for you. This is a real time spiral and how I was able to alone, absolutely lonely and gripped by despair, bring myself home to my self again without making a huge story up that would keep me awake for days.

And from the bottom of my heart, I want you to know that right now, and for the last 4 years, my resources have been scant. Money struggles. Relationship struggles. Self-worth struggles. Housing struggles and finding out I was pregnant in the middle of it - to postpartum now which I have just weaned and the emotional rollercoaster is diabolical. I never had the village. I never had the money I needed. And we were all, under one roof, in a harsh season of grieving each in our own ways and together. Things have been bleak. So when I say I know your struggle, whatever it is… I am right there. Surviving one day at a time, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. Even if on social media it seems different. At the end of this essay is when I realized I have to show up differently to build a community. I was afraid of being seen as someone who needs help, who grieves, who doesn’t have her ducks in a row… I actually don’t even know if they are ducks… more like little bats flying wherever they please. So… I hope this brings comfort to you in a difficult time. Because even when we feel alone… we can always find that something that can ease the pain even if it’s just enough to get an extra hour of sleep before the baby wakes up.

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This morning at 3:50 am I woke up and felt an immense grief on my chest, which is strangely my birth time. It was heavy, thick, unrelenting. I burst into tears and had to get up so I didn't wake my loved ones up. I grabbed my grandfather's blanket and sat on the deck, looking out at the milky way, the city lights twinkling below. I thought to grab my phone or journal but I knew I wouldn't be able to just be in it if I was distracted and I’ve been using those to distract myself from it. There were crickets, and it was so quiet. I sat in my chair and cried. I thought about what the grief was about. It was about my dad and stepdad. I haven't seen either of them in a long time. I haven't seen my dad in years. 6, I think. I haven't heard a word since then. Forgotten birthdays. No interest in his own daughter, grandchildren, or the man who asked her to marry him. She said yes, by the way. And no interest in how she was doing now, utterly broken and heavy with it all, alone, at 4 in the morning. I wanted badly to call someone to see if they would pick up- but I never did.

My entire life I have hoped to be rescued subconsciously. My inner child is throwing tantrums about it, creating chaos inside of my mind about it. She knows she was abandoned. She knows what it all means now to actually feel how it feels when no one even bats an eye about it. How it’s never spoken about. How eventually she would hear that “healing is her responsibility.” And to not bring it up because its uncomfortable for other people. So she buried it. I buried it. Alive. And its still under there, ripping its way through my insides and with bared teeth, threatening to come out in the early hours of the morning when my defenses are down.

But sadness is better than anger! They say… be quiet with your tears! Don’t show how you feel to anyone because they will abandon you too.

So, for the internet, for everyone around me, I've stayed quiet because perfect is better than a mess. Aesthetic is better than not. Pretending you have it together, so people trust you and they pay you for your services when you are scraping by, trying not to seem needy is better than possibly scaring people away and being poor. Which I am anyway. I am tired from pretending. It’s been metabolically expensive. Its cost me my health. My own relationship to myself.

I am a Mother to 2 wonderful boys. They keep me busy enough to where I just push this stuff down 99% of the time. If you are a Mother you know what it is to have to wait all day or sometimes days to only be able to cry in the shower and wipe the tears into the towel with your wet hair so no one knows. On to the next activity. On to making dinner. On to everything is fine. And sometimes, once in a while I will let my kids see me cry and I let them know I need a minute, we hug and I feel better. I just don’t want them to catch the brunt of my own Shadow, ever. Because I caught the brunt of the ancestral shadows in my line. From both sides. And honestly it scares me to even write that because my experience is often invalidated, often seen as not accurate. I know many can relate to this. And I will be honest, I have been too snappy at my kiddos at times. They have bared the darkness of my shadow.

And so, I am not even close to healed. To being able to say I am an expert because I haven't made it through to the part where I can feel free from this. And that is why I've stayed small. This is why I don’t market myself like I should. This is why I hide my gifts. I live in the Unseen. I am constantly between worlds. That is hard to hide when everyone only wants love and light. This is why I feel my experience or my needs don’t matter because they are rooted in something else. The need to be rescued by my dad as a little girl would be on the playground when a boy was making fun of her gap teeth. I realized eventually he would never show up, we weren’t connected as I thought we were, I couldn’t make a wish in my mind and he would be there. I didn’t even know where he was. It was then I realized I didn’t matter to the person I wanted to matter to most.

As I sat and watched the stars shoot across the sky, brightly at first then burning out eventually… I felt myself there. On the burnout end where everything goes black and you can finally rest in the void… except that isn’t possible. To be healing and a parent is a special kind of ordeal. Healing in real time is really tough when you have to stop the process multiple times an hour. And I’ve found the gift there- endless processing doesn’t really do anything mostly because we don’t have an end in mind. Just then, a giant shooting star appeared and was gone with a fading tail in seconds. The biggest one I’d seen in a long time.

It hit me then.

I matter because I am Matter. I am made of it. I am because I exist. I don’t need anyone to tell me I do or don’t, no matter how much I wanted them to - it wasn’t necessary for me to be a part of existence. And I matter to my children, I am their origin, their first ocean, the thing they orbit.

The original Latin word “mātēr” means “Mother, Origin, Source.”

This was the shift for me. As we become Mothers, Parents, the orbit changes. The celestial weather is altered by a new moon. We are thrust into our own corner of space to create a new solar system.

And I realized that to matter - all I had to do was exist, be myself, be present, be healthy, and live as long as I possibly could for my children.

And whether you are a parent or not, this still includes you. You have no doubt parented an animal, a creative project, the land you live on, the world around you. You create; therefore you are. You matter because you are the matter, the medium of the Universe expressing itself in form. Your shape is exactly why you are here.

Sure, I feel like I still don’t matter to my dad or whoever I tried to impress, usually boys, back in the day, but that is all irrelevant now. And the lessons and wisdom gained and felt are the supplies on my own table of creation. Pain into art.

As I sat there in the liquid night thinking about all of this, I felt a huge sense of joy. That I could set this baggage down. And not live in spite of them. But because I am creativity and art in form, just like you. You are the art. You are the medium. You are the inspiration and the finished product the moment you were born, not later whenever you feel good. Its now and has always been.

Grief brings an opening. It creates space. It allows the universe to show you something you couldn’t have possibly held before. New neural pathways are created, new worlds are forming as you form different perspectives.

I want to get into another part about this night that brought tears of joy to my eyes because as you know most likely by now, and if you don’t, welcome, my entire life centers around the healing powers of writing with plants. I write about my experiences with them. Before I went to bed I was feeling off, the tightening had already begun in my chest and I convinced myself to push it down and I took my Ghostpipe Flower Remedy. If you don’t know about Flower Remedies check out my previous articles because they are one of the things responsible for saving my literal life. They guided me through the dark and constantly do, they don’t steer me away, the offer a hand to hold through. So when I woke up at 3:50 I knew Ghostpipe had found something in me that was lurking beneath what I could comprehend before bed. After I had my cry on the porch, I thanked her for bringing it to my attention and helping me through it.

And then something happened, a click in my psyche, an understanding through a flash of shooting star insight that made me gasp out loud.

Ghostpipe helps us feel the grief, down to the last layer, and bring to our awareness what it really is. It wasn’t the dishes not getting done, or my headache, or my little one grabbing my hair as I was eating…

it was me wanting to be saved by my dad.

Through my life I had been creating and allowing situations that might manifest it and reliving him not showing up every time. As I worked through it, and came out of it with new neural pathways around it… this is where I gasped…

Ghostpipe forms our grief in to Matter.

It shows us as we walk through it that our pain matters to the entire universe itself, how the universe witnesses us right back and mirrors it so we can gaze upon it as it is before us. Ghostpipe shows us the truth. And through that connection, we are able to let go of eons of patterning. Of “this is just how it is.” of “I cannot for the life of me understand why this is happening.”

Ghostpipe interrupts the pattern long enough for us to pull it apart and separate what is true for us moving forward.

I’ve been working with Ghostpipe for a few years now and in its description, it is noted that it takes us to the depths… and something that is always left out is… it takes us down but only when we are ready to see. Only when we are ready to forego eyesight and what we think we know in order to evolve our second sight. Only when we are afraid and go anyway. And especially when we allow ourselves and encourage the space to feel everything without being a good girl and turning it off. Without pushing it down forever.

Ghostpipe is like a new pair of glasses for our senses. It opens us to the possibility that we rarely know what we think we do and there is always something underneath the stone we set it all in. That there is something underneath that hill you are willing to die on and we should 100% investigate it before we close the gates to our own becoming by just staying on the hill because it’s convenient or it’s what our ancestors have always done.

This is why it is so hard for me to explain what Flower Remedies actually do. This took days to write, hours to translate from feeling to form. But I know deep down that the humans who get it just get it, or they feel a pull toward the words and psyche and soma unite into a “let’s allow curiosity here.” I am thankful beyond words for these seemingly little bottles full of the energy of the cosmos itself. And I wish I could convey, if I haven’t been able to already- just how magical and useful it is to be in direct relationship with plants.

(mood after taking Ghostpipe Flower Remedy)

Plants don’t just heal us, they move through us. And it breaks down the walls that we think we need to protect ourselves not in a violent way, but a recognition, a witnessing, a ritual between us and nature, between us and the energy that is all around us that we cannot see. Plants open our channels, our eyes, our second sight, our senses in a way that works in accordance to natural law, and that is why they bring us home to ourselves. They bring us home to the mirror that exists in front of us, and nature reflecting back. We forget that we belong in a world that doesn’t quite exist anymore save a few small pockets where the witches conjure magic day and night.

What I love about this is anyone can engage with plants like this. I discovered through my childhood that I was speaking to plants like friends mostly because I had few friends. They have been there for me no matter what. Even when I am nowhere around them I can ask them questions or ask them for guidance. My dream world is now mostly plants or a plant showing me something. This is simply because I have cultivated a relationship with them through the years and even completely stopped communicating with them for more than a decade when I was lost. It isn’t a special trait, it is all about time. The more time you spend, the more time you receive. I should write a post with tips and tricks I suppose! That will be coming out soon.

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Sending you so much love…

Go talk with a plant. xx

Danielle at Ghostflower Journal

Find Ghostpipe Flower Remedy here:

Basecampbotanicals.us

There are a certain set of behaviors that you had to incorporate into your psyche to survive. For the Women who have gone through abuse and trauma this looks like always letting the other person choose, people pleasing to a severe degree, never having needs, never having preferences, never saying no, predicting what the other person needs, fixing the emotional weather, thinking disagreements or arguments are grounds for abandoning ship completely. It feels like you have disappeared into yourself. Again. With someone else. A psychic implosion.

Eventually these behaviors and ways of being turn toxic. What I mean by this is - you have healed, you have done the work, and you are now in a healthy relationship. The ways you relate are now… iffy. They don’t exactly match what you are trying to build with the person that invites you to step in to your best self.

Letting go of the woman who helped you survive carries immense pain and grief. It feels like death. To me, it almost felt worse than birthing two children naturally.

And the Woman I want to become can absolutely not take the traits with her that helped her survive trauma, abuse, assault. It felt like I was leaving a piece of myself behind that needed to stay. Like a limb, not a hair that came off in my brush without a thought. This for some reason felt like I was losing a lot of blood. Which brings me to an interesting correlation… my periods where horrible. This is what I wrote in my journal about it…

This feels like you are abandoning your experience. It feels like you are having to choose between survival, and the Woman you really actually want to be. And right now, you may have no idea who that will be. You just know there is something wrong with the trajectory of everything. You feel unheard. Unseen. Invisible. Again.

Except the person doing this to you now isn’t an abusive partner, or a toxic friend, or anyone else because you’ve let them go. It’s you. Because at this point you have abandoned the Woman you are meant to step in to even after everyone else stopped because you chose yourself this time and you left. You are jealous of women who make more money, have delicious partnerships, who are killing it in business. And you are angry because by now you should be doing those things, but you aren’t because safety in toxicity felt like normal. Because not making money for yourself was normal. Because never being chosen fully was normal. Because searching for it outside of you was normal.

So now I had to grapple with the fact that I spent a very long time on others’ lives and not mine. I let the time slip as I distracted myself with researching, saving, screenshotting, filling up my manifestation board. And sure, I have found a few of those things. Like that time, I wanted a diamond ring and got one after my Grandmother passed away because she wanted me to have it after she was gone. And that time I manifested $500 but it was from a person who took advantage of me and my gifts, so I actually lost it in the end to over work and under pay. Maybe I should have been more specific? Or maybe I didn’t actually want those things, and I thought I was supposed to want them, and I saw another person get them and got really jealous, so it came to me in a way that wasn’t helpful, authentic or for your greatest good.

This is survival behavior. This is not highest self-behavior. And it never got me anywhere I actually wanted to go. I was wasting my time doing too much and doing nothing at all. I felt like I was moving forward, gaining momentum because I was constantly anxious, my mind was going a million miles an hour and I couldn’t slow down. I was always researching, always learning, always figuring things out and having giant epiphanies. I was always helping, always getting others to their goals, always fixing.

My bank account stayed the same. My partners changed but we broke up for the same reasons every time. My mental anguish was always there. I felt no relief, no calm, no sense of self, no genuine love for myself. I was always searching because I had nowhere else to go. My soul was telling me over and over that it was time to come back home to myself. And that was the most painful thing I have ever done.

At this time, I was doing shadow work and guided meditations with songs I’d chosen that were somewhat sad and melancholic to get me in a certain space to see things I didn’t want to see. I would close my eyes and listen for 10 minutes or so and ask my psyche to show me what I needed to see. I asked her to show me the truth even if it hurt.

What I found when I stumbled through the hot desert without water, lightning in the distance making my neck hairs stand on end, and eventually I found a house with a broken door, broken windows and tattered fabric as walls sticking out of the sand. There was a person inside and she was sitting in a dark corner… hair swaying in the dry wind, sagging skin and a bloated belly. She was too dehydrated to cry but had dirty rivers running down her cheeks, carved through time like sandstone and monsoon rain. She was numb. Resigned to how she was being treated on the outside of the desert by me, her Home.

I had met my little shadow for the first time, then. And I was ashamed and felt like a failure for allowing everything outside of me to affect my own health, vitality and spark to this degree.

Most Women never understand this aspect of healing. To go down into the depths to find what parts of themselves they lost along the way and wake up morning after morning feeling like things aren’t clicking together like they used to. Like something is missing. As we get older, our bullshit meter becomes harder and harder to fool and every initiation we go through it gets even tougher.

Women always think it’s something that is our fault, our problem, and therefore our issue to fix. And I will tell you as a practitioner that often, it is simply that a Woman has gained wisdom and she is suffering under the weight of a decision she made when she was more malleable, moldable, tame. Once you turn 35 the Wild Woman starts to come out and she bares her canines and demands we stop fooling around with our precious lives and stop entertaining people, places and things that are detrimental to our initiations. I’ve witnessed husbands call their wives insufferable after Menopause only to find out he is an absolute menace to live with, leaving his clothes everywhere like a boy expecting the Divine Feminine to pick them up and wash the shit off of them. Except up until Menopause, she would happily do it because that was her inherited role.

And don’t get me wrong, I love Men. Truly. They are delightful creatures to be with when they honor you as you honor them. But when we learned young that it was okay that they act like children along with our own children it can become a suffocating environment when it is time to create, to howl and to bleed.

This was grounds for my divorce. Then I attracted it again. And again. And Again. Until I said enough and got really bitchy when a man acted like a child around me. I got feral when I needed nourishment after I spent all day nourishing and flat out said “This is exactly why I am acting like this.” It was fixed fairly quickly. Sometimes they know exactly what they are doing, and sometimes they weren’t taught properly as us Women weren’t either.

It was a period of grief. Years. I thought it would never end because in order to have the relationship I wanted, I also had to grow up. I had to stop letting my inner teenager throw fits when I was being called to mature. I had to stop complaining to everyone but the person who was treating me badly. I had to confront people and myself. Harshly. I had to stop gossiping because that wasn’t solving anything. I had to stop being judgmental to others when I was acting the same way. I had to stop acting like a victim. I had to stop telling the sad stories over and over and become responsible for my own healing even though I thought it was unfair at the time. I had to do the hard work everyone else has to do to get to where they want to go. And I am still learning. Sometimes I think to myself “It was so much easier to complain and gossip.” Truly, it was. Because I didn’t ever have to take responsibility. I got to walk around in my soft feminine era and reject whatever and whoever I wanted even though I was acting like an asshole. I felt shame and embarrassment when I looked at my behaviors. It actually wasn’t everyone else’s fault. That was really hard to hear because I knew in my mind if it was their fault I could keep hoping a prince would save me. Until I realized I would never be a Queen with a King by her side. I grew up with Disney.

The hardest part was realizing I had let myself be a victim for so long that I had literally not a single dollar, improvement or goal reached to show for it.

I was broke, depressed and still had nothing.

I was at rock bottom.

And luckily for me, and you if you are here, there is nowhere to go but up.

One of my most trusted rituals is to answer questions from my Shadow Work Journal. I light a candle, grab something delicious to drink, put on my playlist and get to work unearthing what is making me sabotage the life I really want. After I answer the questions which can be a bit heavy, I move my body in a way that feels good and I dedicate time to making the changes necessary. This is exactly how I stopped being attracted to toxic man children, how I put boundaries in place with family, friends, and raised my prices for the first time in 10 years, and how I protect my creative time like my life depends on it, because it does. And very importantly, this is how I stopped acting like a teenager and started acting like a 36-year-old, strong, courageous and intelligent Woman.

Grab your journal and ask yourself these questions…

• What are you getting out of staying in this place mentally?

• What are you actually hungry for, underneath the smaller thing you ask for instead?

• What is the oldest rage in the furthest back room of your psyche? And who’s face is carved into it?

• What role have you been playing that isn’t benefitting you whatsoever?

• Can you change one thing today after feeling the weight of these questions? Can you ask for something different for yourself? Your Spirit?

If you want to go further, my paid subscribers ($9 a month) get the full 60-page Shadow Work Journal that helped me and many others unearth their Wild Woman, the Soul Desires that we all carry that are left in an old box in the basement of our subconscious. This journal can help you release what is weighing you down psychically and sometimes even physically.

Or you can purchase the Journal for $13 here:

Shadow Work Journal

xx

Dani at Ghostflower Journal

You can change your patterns in less than 10 minutes a day with lessons learned from the Desert heat, flowers and correct use of provision. Emotional Weather is different here, and the sun-bleached bones await your arrival. Written in a mythological story with inquiry appropriate of the setting, you will find yourself at the mouth of a dark canyon that holds all of your shadows at the bottom. Enter the canyon if you are ready to integrate the links of the chains you’ve put yourself in. This is not for the Woman who requires endless catharsis, holding, and validation.

Desert Shadows is a 68 page, 14-day Shadow Work Journal that unearths exactly why you are still exactly where you were 6 months or even a decade ago. You have done therapy, inner work, talked about it, beat the dead horse with your friends, partner and family and you haven’t budged in making progress in the areas of your life that need work. Sure, there were small shifts, but nothing actually stuck. You are still not who you want to be. There is a reason for this, and it’s not complicated but it isn’t easy either.

You aren’t making more money. You are still getting in arguments with your partner at the same time every month and it ends the same way it did last time. You keep losing any semblance of progress because you sabotage it every time. You feel worthless because no one is showing you that you deserve anything you are trying to manifest. You are tired from swimming so much harder than anyone around you who makes it look effortless.

This Guided Journal contains questions that will guide you out of these patterns because they shift the root cause - your subconscious mind, your looping thoughts, your excuses.

This journal is not for Women who are actually getting something from staying in the same story. This journal is for the Women who is ready to call herself out honestly, who knows she is resilient but doesn’t have enough proof, who wants to cut the sabotage off when it starts and who is emotionally intelligent enough to know that it is her responsibility to fix it so she can actually be present and succeed in her life.

If emotional catharsis, endless processing, comfort-based therapy methods aren’t working for you anymore - you are in the right place. In the original lineage of Tarot - we call this wiping the mirror. And no, you don’t have to be ready. You just have to be curious enough and tired enough of things not working out for you.

So what do you get?

1. exact steps to follow, no guesswork, only truth.

2. an awareness of your own patterns. Clear, concise, unwrapped and witnessed. Finally.

3. The exact reasons you feel that recoil during inner work. A laser towards what knocks you off your throne so you can let it all go.

4. Spiraling stops. Not because life is perfect - but because you don’t need to collect evidence against yourself to feel ashamed, question your gifts, and endless critical judgement from the inner voice that doesn’t believe in you. The need to be the victim to feel connection and get what you need is no longer at the forefront.

5. A repeatable framework that you can do over and over again any time the familiar feelings come up. Plus, a bonus section with questions that hit the pattern at the roots.

This journal makes it possible for you to understand precisely why self-sabotage happens and how exactly to change it. The answers you give to the questions will tell you more about yourself than any therapist, intake form or any other method in existence. This is the quickest most clear way to get past the things that block you subconsciously.

*This journal is property of Ghostflower Journal + Basecamp Botanicals. Please do not copy, share or use any of its contents without permission or permission for use will be revoked.

Thank you so much for being a paid subscriber. You keep the work alive. Here is your copy of my newest publication below the paid content line.

xx

Dani at Ghostflower Journal

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In my sphere there is Shadow work. But we forget about The Golden Shadow. This is one of Carl Jungs most quiet yet radical ideas.

The Shadow is the unconscious basement that contains everything we repression, deny, shove down, ignore.

But The Golden Shadow (sometimes called the "bright shadow") is the unconscious storehouse of your unlived gifts. Your beauty, power, creativity, brilliance, magnetism… qualities that felt too dangerous, too presumptuous, or simply too much to claim.

I believe that The Golden Shadow is ruled by our level of awareness around how much we sabotage ourselves on a daily basis and how safe we feel to be authentic. The Golden Shadow is magnetism. The Shadow is what keeps us from it. This is where we project. We can see just how far we are from our Golden Shadow by how much we feel disgust toward other people. The woman who has more than you. The cousin who got married and you were single at her wedding. Your friend who you secretly hate because she lost the weight and you didn't. The Instagram influencer that makes more money with less wisdom in your field. Disgust takes the pain away, so we don’t have to take action.

Self-sabotage is a funny thing. It’s a known behavioral trait, habit, addiction and it always seems to wriggle in right before that great “thing” is supposed to happen. Like a missed step. Then we wonder what happened, often finding it to be the fault of something outside of ourselves even when it’s an inside job. Why do we hand the keys to the burglar every time?

I think its fear, I think its people pleasing, I think its wondering “why” and thinking the person stealing our things deserves it or needs it more than we do.

I think it's giving power away because we are afraid to hold it or show others we can hold it. We want to avoid jealousy, being kicked out of our friend groups, being seen as greedy and most overlooked… is having to deal with a meaner influx of negativity when we are exhausted and cant even answer the texts we have. And even deeper, having to give whatever we get to others because we can't control ourselves in our people pleasing habits, so we will have to do more to feel as if we deserve any of what we worked for and again, we are already depleted.

This is very common for Women who feel angry, used, resentful, wondering when it will be their turn. The thing about this cycle… is it never stops because it is completely self-fulfilling eventually.

This is what happens. A victim is created by uncontrollable circumstances. The victim learns how this actually gets them the love/care/help they've always wanted even though we should admit that its toxic. It’s a certain type of resonant energy, so the cycle continues.

The most heartbreaking part is that the victim is now a victim to the very energy they fell victim to in order to perpetuate it over and over. Sometimes, the victim will even be thankful to this energy which is often a person for keeping them stuck.

Until symptoms arrive. Until the body starts retaliating to this mindset and what it allows in. That is the key.

The person allowing this behavior from others is exhausted, depressed, waiting for their beautiful life to finally manifest itself. But until the victim actually breaks this mindset for good? It will always look in the wrong places. It will always almost unknowingly attract it back to itself like a magnet. This isn’t the person doing this. It’s the mind. The psyche. Because this is where the psyche feels the safest. In familiarity. And the way the feminine magnetism works is usually by body feel. Victims work by mind feel. They work by giving the bad guy their bank account number over and over because that’s what they’ve always done, that’s what they’ve watched others do.

Women will make money and give it to someone they think deserves it more than they do, so they keep themselves poor.

Women will lose weight and feel better than they ever have postpartum and let others use her in a way that makes her feel small and gain the weight right back.

Women will make sure her partner gets what he needs but will avoid buying herself what she needs because it feels yucky and selfish, so she is resentful, and he stops being affectionate.

Women will self-sabotage her own business and let it fail because she doesn’t have the energy to keep up because she is too busy being jealous of what’s her name who makes 6 figures a week instead of unfollowing and staying in her lane and doing the boring unsexy consistent things every day.

Women will be burned out, snap at her kids, not be able to get out of bed before 10 and blame it on everyone else while she drinks wine every night to “relax.”

To begin looking at why disgust comes forward is to begin to admit that disgust is actually where we are upset because we know we are capable of reaching for what the Women who have it all do every minute of every day.

You are not behind. You are just ignoring your own desires which probably got made fun of or squashed at some point, so you are afraid to bring it into the light. This is the beginning of self-sabotage.

It is called The Golden Shadow because this is everything we have within that we refuse to let out. It is everything others have that piss us off so bad and causes us to actually make fun of them or look at them in disgust or gossip. Because if we can't have it, no one can.

Lets look at how to allow the Golden Shadow to surface and reveal our gifts. These gifts aren’t in any way small. This is where confusion about your niche, your lifepath, your journey all come front and center so you can look at it and say “Wow… that makes so much sense and the compass points exactly this way.”

Grab your journal…

Open to a fresh page, grab your favorite beverage and begin here. Spend a good amount of time with these because they are the key to unraveling what exactly is keeping you from inhabiting your own life.

Whose approval are you trying to keep here? Who are you trying to keep happy above yourself? Who do you think you owe your life to?

Answer these questions honestly, gently and with reverence for yourself. And let’s dive in to how you can bring your gifts to light and stop feeling like you are always last. Sit here for a moment. Let it sink in. Let the people you think you owe anything to fade from view and let’s move to the next piece that will bring everything together for you…

Remembering your Gifts

The ego automatically represses these because at one point, they were dangerous to have. The ego is keeping you safe, which is intelligent…and… when you begin to unravel it the ego will relax because you are becoming. You are individuating from whoever or whatever you answered in the questions above.

Accepting your gifts requires that you let go of the identity that kept you there. This identity, the need to continue on through it is why you can't access what your real desires and wants are. This means you aren't just the Eldest Daughter or Empath or People Pleaser or Co-dependent anymore. This means you don’t need to be the most capable, the most helpful, the most in tune with everyone and this also means you pull your energy back from this, and smoothing the emotional weather in the room, your home, your family and whatever else you do that blocks you from considering yourself. Here are the steps to begin. Some are questions. Some are stream of consciousness. Either way - let it sink in. Let it change you and transform you over the next week. Re-read what you wrote multiple times.

1. Start following your envy.

   Whatever is making you jealous and resentful is a key. These traits in others are something you wish you could have that you hide under the surface. So, who and what makes you unravel at the thought of them or it? What or who makes you feel like retreating? What do others get to do that you don’t because they deserve it more than you do? Where do you shrink to let others grow?

2. Notice the ache in admiration.

   When you see that someone has everything you don't, that soul level painful ache is there to tell you that the internal magnet is being hidden from what its gravitating towards. So. What is your internal magnet not allowed to attract? Because this is really where your true authenticity lives. Maybe that’s marriage. Money. Children. Maybe whatever it is was made fun of, or you heard you weren’t allowed to have it.

3. Find the Origin of the exile.

   Who or what made you feel unimportant or like you should be ignored first in your life? Go deep here, let the tears come. Let the ache form, let the glass break. Who or what told you that whatever you wanted is wrong, maybe dirty, too selfish, or even lame or dumb? Or that Mothers or Women or YOU don’t deserve it or get to have it or think it’s dumb that you want it anyways?

4. Microdose authenticity in low-stakes moments.

   When your spouse asks what you want for dinner, tell them. And if you don’t know… say I don’t know, give me a moment and I’ll get back to you. And get back to them. Do what you give everyone else permission to do but not yourself. Low-stakes moments are places that feel a little sticky… not downright dangerous to your nervous system. Get rid of a shirt you don’t really like that you feel you should keep for “one day I’ll wear it.” No you won’t. Sell it. Tell your kids no. Tell them you will be in your room for 5 minutes and to not even think about coming in unless the house is on fire. You can also create in your preferred medium to create authenticity in low-stakes moments like drawing something you want to draw versus being influenced by what is popular right now.

5. Distinguish inflation from integration.

   Inflation happens when you feel your ego push back against anything that isn’t in “alignment” with your ways of thinking. For example, gossiping, when everyone agrees with you, causes inflation. It causes you to feel better by making someone else look bad. This happens when you don’t want to learn from the past to actually integrate everything you’ve learned. Integration fosters authentic creativity, expression, vitality and a solid sense of self that can’t be tossed about in volatile emotional weather. The difference between inflation and integration is how comfortable you are in yourself.

6. Ask what your Gold wants.

   Ask yourself honestly what you really want. Make this a small ritual every day for 2 minutes write in your journal. It doesn’t matter if it’s 500 dollars or a jar with a rose in it for your nightstand. Then at the end of week one- make a move towards it. Make small goals. And when something tries to get in your way- you tell it no. If you are out in your yard picking that rose and you hear your phone ring inside… you finish what you are doing FIRST. You pick the best rose and then you smell it, fill the jar with water, put it on your nightstand where you want it and THEN check your phone. You are allowed to do ONE thing in the entirety of the day for yourself. Then when you feel comfortable… add more. I know, this is diabolical but that is a very good clue as to where you are in your own mind/body and spirit that you can’t take time to do one thing for you that takes 10 minutes. And let the anxiety come, remind it that nothing needs your right this second… and go about the task. It isn’t about ignoring your life. It’s about not letting your life ignore you.

As you look back on your answers and follow that thread… think about where you are right now and where you want to be. Often the answers to these questions can lead you to the authentic spirit desires you’ve been carrying for a long time, silently and trying to hide them to not appear too much.

If you would like to go further - I’ve written a Shadow Work Journal that goes much deeper. You can find it here for $13:

Shadow Work Journal

Or, if you are a paying subscriber, you get it for free with your monthly subscription ($9)…

Enjoy.

xx

Dani at Ghostflower Journal

Ghost Pipe meets the woman who has left her body to survive.

Not metaphorically. Literally. The eldest daughter who learned so early that her feelings were too much, her needs inconvenient, her pain a burden — that she simply... went somewhere else. Stayed busy. Stayed competent. Stayed useful.

She doesn't always know she's dissociated. She calls it being strong. She calls it coping. She calls it “just fine, how are you?”

The shadow here is this: she has mistaken absence for resilience.

And somewhere underneath all that competence is a tremendous amount of unfelt pain waiting — not to destroy her — but to finally be witnessed and deeply held by botanical intelligence that knows the same blueprint. Ghost Pipe knows this. She lives it. She draws her nourishment not from the light but from deep underground relationship — from the hidden network — from what most people never see.

Jung spoke of the descent as necessary. Not pathological. The psyche that cannot go down cannot fully come up. Ghost Pipe is a descent plant. She doesn't help you rise. She helps you go under safely. She is a companion for the parts of the journey that happen in the dark — the grief, the dissociation, the pain that couldn't be felt when it happened.

She is also a plant of liminality — she exists between kingdoms, between worlds, between the underground and the surface. She is for the woman who is between who she was and who she's becoming. Between the performed self and the true one. This is Inanna at the gate. This is the descent. This is the moment before the resurrection when everything is dark and unknown and, if you don't rush it, sacred.

Ghost Pipe doesn't photosynthesize. She makes no food from light. She draws everything she needs from the hidden fungal network beneath the forest floor — the dark, underground conversation between roots and mycelium that most people never see and never think to look for. She is pale as an old spine lying on the forest floor. She droops her sweet flower head like she's listening for….

something….

I think of this plant, well… not quite plant, not quite mushroom, perhaps a spirit only here for a moment- when I think about the eldest daughter who learned to live without being truly nourished. Who learned that she could have the scraps. Who learned even that would be weaponized eventually. Who became an expert at drawing on her own reserves which even they were scant at best, of being capable and present and fine that she forgot she was allowed to need the network. She never even learned that nourishment was supposed to move toward her as much as it moves away, reciprocated properly.

Ghost Pipe is a plant that knows pain. She's been used for centuries for the kind of pain that overwhelms the nervous system — physical, emotional, psychic. The pain that is too large to feel all at once. The kind you've been carrying so long you've stopped calling it pain and started calling it personality. She doesn't take the pain away. She sits with you inside it. She makes it bearable to finally feel what you've been outrunning. There's a woman I keep thinking about when I work with this plant. She's competent. She's perceptive. She's everyone's first call in a crisis. And she is so far from her own body she wouldn't know her own hunger if it spoke her name.

Ghostpipe is for her.

Not to fix her. Not to rush her toward the light.

A protective and ethereal forest spirit accompanies her as she moves through the fertile dark where the real nourishment has been waiting all along. Where the nutrients she gathers are of her own becoming. Where she finds the ANCIENT botanical architecture that can hold the line as she releases the tension held at the gates of her throat, her ribs and her womb…

If this spirit plant calls to you, I recommend working with her has a Flower Remedy. Taking 3 drops, 3 times per day for 90 days and watch your entire world change.

Ghostpipe can be found at basecampbotanicals.us

And if you’d like 1 on 1 Guidance through the world Ghostpipe offers… look to the Flowerside Chats tab on the webpage. This is where the work meets depth, momentum, and lasting change as you work with your Flower Remedy. I work in the exact world you need to venture to as the Woman who simply wants more, who is exhausted and is struggling to become Herself.

Sending so much love.

Danielle at Ghostflower Journal

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Something occurred to me the today. In regard to inflammation in the body, I think Carl Jung would have called it the Shadow. Let me explain what I mean, and of course we should address the fact that Shadow Work is a term that is showing up more now than ever before.

Shadow Work is not really some trendy thing you can “do” because re-writing your entire thought process and perception is painful. It aches. It causes poor digestion and assimilation. It asks you to grieve, to release, to purge. It can make you feel sick. And this is something that is the opposite of what you probably want to do when you aren’t feeling well to begin with.

There is an epidemic right now. It is of the Women who woke up and realized they weren’t inhabiting their lives, like ghosts doing dishes and laundry. The Women are tired. Inflamed. Nauseous. Over stimulated. Women are seeing that this way of life is not sustainable. Women are seeing how their Mothers and Grandmothers suffered in normal life ways, or what was called “normal.” And unfortunately, it never was. It was simply a program installed by our culture and ancestors that made it seem honorable to burn yourself out, to not have money saved, to be housewives and get literally nothing in return. Women are seeing that raising children is hard, especially in this world we live in now and they are left with the shell of themselves that began when she she started feeling like a maid in her own home.

How could there be any energy left for “Shadow Work?”

Here is the exact reason there is always energy for Shadow Work…

The Shadow is the unconscious part of your personality that contains fears, weaknesses, hidden instincts and unlived potentials and this is THE reason why generations before treated people the way they did when there was toxic behavior.

This is why Women have been treated how they have. This is why it stuck. The collective Shadow, and the Women who didn’t know this method were victims to circumstance. They never imagined power, control, emotional intelligence, structural wisdom…

This is why anger, jealousy, shame, addictions, abuse and selfishness were such big elephants in some households.

In my ancestral line… all of it was present.

So, the reason I personally do Shadow Work and recommend it to all of my clients? Because I want our ancestors to continue the healing done here so we can make a better world for those that come after us. I do not want my children to need to heal from abuse, addictions and selfishness like I have.

Does this mean it’s my responsibility to heal those who were responsible for such pain? No.

It means that it is my responsibility to make sure they were the last ones to attempt and fail to continue that line.

When my labs came back and my Systemic Inflammation was extremely high, I realized all of the pain, suffering, abuse, fear, and grief hadn’t processed yet, even from decades ago. This is my Shadow running my body, making me feel like I constantly live in a war zone.

Thinking about my Shadow like an inflammatory response makes sense because the Shadow is what rubs us the wrong way. And rightfully so. It creates an alarm when things in our outer worlds are not right or safe. It causes irritation to get our attention.

As they say… be bitchy or get an auto-immune disorder.

And also interestingly enough, in being afraid of rubbing others the wrong way… we give the inflammation and shadow right back to ourselves to digest and deal with. We think it diffuses if we diffuse the situation. Our body writes a different story. Our thoughts become fiery and repetitive. We get migraines. We retain water, we can’t lose the weight even though we are eating less. Our periods get worse. Exhaustion runs the day.

So, do you think there is energy left for Shadow Work or is it being spent elsewhere like scrolling to decompress when you could be moving it through, digesting it and turning the lesson into gold? You tell me…

Women are ORACLES. Women are the ALTAR, not the sacrifice…

And we have let everyone around us forget because we are too busy washing the dishes and carrying the entire world.

Would you like to know who thrives in this exact environment? Who turns it on its head? Who knows she is an Oracle who does not “do dishes?”

Datura. She contains the blueprint for us to simply be. I have spent years worth of summers learning from her. Listening to her harsh, but true wisdom. She knows Women are not meant to disappear inside their own lives. She knows that Women do not ever choose between their wildness and being a wife, sister, mother, girlfriend, friend. She is not a tired woman. She is alive, nourished through her own wildness, and is able to be in the world that may not understand her, but they know her energy signature the second she walks in and they would NEVER expect her to do dishes. Unless of course she was called to and it was meant to be done. She walks differently. If she is tired, she rests. If she wants to play with her children, she has the energy for it. If she wants to write a Substack article- she does. She understand how her energy affects others and she doesn’t feel the need to fix anyone else’s shitty day.

Women used to create, being in devotion to the Altar, singing, rocking our babies without phones, lighting candles because they make us feel good, speaking to our best friends like they were more precious than diamonds.

Shadow Work is exactly what creates Beauty for Inner Space. And… it also literally creates space. In your mind, body, spirit. It allows for the truth to come through clearly without story. Without narrative. Without the need to tear it apart and run to text your friend about it for validation.

I recently wrote an E-Book titled

Botanical Blueprints ( basecampbotanicals.us ) written through the lens of Sacred Datura as a living prayer, a poem, something to be read out loud in the bathtub or returned to when you need a moment to create Beauty for Inner Space. The truth can be found through the shape of the flower, through her environment, through the conditions she has grown in which are probably the conditions you haven’t figured out how to thrive in yet. This is for the Woman who has a perfect to do list that seems to never finish, who feels overwhelmed, overstimulated in motherhood, the eldest daughter, the one who takes care of everyone else and keeps asking “When is it my turn?”

It is always your turn.

This book was the key to my healing, and it might be the key to yours too.

Talk soon,

Danielle at Ghostflower Journal

For my entire life as a Woman I have entered the Luteal Phase of my cycle every time just surrendering to what happens. Surrendering to my mind. To my repeating thoughts. To the 3 am wake ups panicking about whatever. To my emotional weather. Once I heard that the week before your period is truth serum week. And it is. But not in the way it's portrayed. Not in the way it'sencouraged and “understood.” In this article I want to dive in to what this phase actually asks of you, how to answer it, and troubleshooting for when its just dragging you through the mud with no relief in sight.

This phase is meant to break us open again and again. To infuse our bodies and psyche with wisdom to bring into your golden years. It’s true that it is a truth serum week. And it is true that things feel more intolerable than they did mere days ago when you could have cared less that there were dishes everywhere or your desk was a mess. And it is true as we have all heard that our husbands and children should probably vacate the premises so we can bleed in peace. But that isnt exactly something thats sustainable in life.

When we recieve teachings that are empowering, sure, but not sustainable it isn’t something that ever brings contentment or calm.

Let me bring something else to the table for you to slowly relish.

The week before your period is for tending to your wildness.

The reason I say this isn’t to make things feel abstract. You see, Women are wild creatures and we have domesticated ourselves beyond oblivion. We don’t even remember ourselves. We forgot to even consider ourselves. We still make it about everyone else by inflicting truth serum week on everyone else.

And before you send me a virtual eye roll… let's break it down so you can actually feel more peaceful instead of starting arguments that take too much energy, energy you don’t even have, to not finish because they will never get where you are coming from.

Human beings have a capacity. They are all different. We have ours. They have theirs. And when we start the same argument at the same time of the month, eventually it will be labeled “her time of the month.” The reason? The argument you start hardly ever corresponds to how you really feel inside because let’s be honest… you haven't even ever told them the real reason you started it. The real reason may even be unknown to you. I know this because the argument never finished. It never ends. It never scratches the itch that you feel deep in your bones. So, it repeats and people can tell eventually. So, then you feel dismissed and even more angry, so your wrath gets bigger until one day you become Silent Woman. The one who gives up. On herself, her marriage, her vitality. Then your husband retreats, your children wince when you yell, and your creative spark is swimming itself down a drain. And you are left wondering why everyone got to give up when you were the one suffering, why no one was ever truly there for you and when you carried the mental load and emotional worlds of the entire household.

There is something in this I want to invite you to look at. Typically, the Woman is almost always over capacity and says nothing. Then when she does blow up, everyone is left confused because when they asked what she needed, or when they asked what was wrong, she always replied with something along the lines of “Oh I'm okay, I'm just tired,” or “I'm good!” And continued along. What was your response to anyone asking how you were?

Because here is where the most damage happens. Here is where self-sabotage is ruling your life. Here is where you want others to read your mind. To just know what to do. To just see the mess and fix it before you have to… again. You want others to read you as well as you learned to read them because somewhere in your life you had to manage everyone elses emotional weather or else bad things happened. Someone left. Someone emotionally abandoned. Someone got angry and threw things at you. Someone would take whatever their shit was out on you. So, you learned to do everything before it could become a problem because you had to protect yourself somehow. And now you are hoping to be protected from this part of yourself that created it the walls to begin with.

You want everyone to understand why the house needs to stay clean, so your mind feels organized.

You want everyone to see your effort but it’s actually what’s keeping everyone at arm’s length.

You want people to see you, but you are deathly afraid of being seen because you don’t feel safe to be vulnerable.

Everything you want is on the other side of you. Not their “incompetence” as you've labeled it.

And the reason it all feels unfair is because you were trained to hold everyone else before you ever even considered holding yourself.

Think about this… even if someone helped you with everything you needed… would you actually be able to rest or would you lose your mind with the free time?

Because I lost my mind with the free time. And then? I really had to dive in to why I actually wanted to be so busy. The answer stunned me. It was because I would rather have an endless to do list so I wouldn’t have to sit down with the thoughts in my mind. I could avoid myself by keeping busy. So, all the help in the world never would have mattered.

Its not all just in your head.

Around day 21 of your cycle, Progesterone takes a very steep nose dive and this is the buffer that allows you to view the world and others in a relaxed, golden light. When it leaves… everything becomes harsh. Time collapses. Its a do it now or never kind of feeling. Anxiety peaks, so does frustration, and a feeling of “Why am I even doing this?” while gesturing at everything. This is when Women burn their businesses to the ground, find themselves in arguments they can’t win, and want to abandon ship forever. This is very common, and very normal. And, with some deep work and uncomfortable self-inquiry… it is absolutely 100% transformable.

You can get to a place where this phase doesn’t make you want to pull your hair out and run for the hills. I know, because I’ve gone through it. And my methods are not perfect, but they do work. And this month I have come to the deepest chasm of my Self than I ever have. I realized I was making everything about everyone else instead of using self-inquiry as a healing method. I used it to see what ways I could be better and more attentive to everyone else. I used it to people please again.

And the truth is… this month is not necessarily easier, but it is very clear. It is clear where I have abandoned myself in millions of tiny ways that I have to rebuild, clarify and fortify. It is clear where I have let things slip through. It is clear where I have even let well-meaning people off the hook because I thought I should be able to do it. I have come to the conclusion that I will be as gentle as possible with myself here because I am grieving a Woman I lost… myself. I let her become invisible with no needs, no wants, no desires, no voice, no presence, no creativity. Because to me, invisibility felt like safety. So during luteal… THAT was the truth I was experiencing through the thread weaving itself through my life. Once I discovered that, everything changed. Everything shifted for me. This is exactly what I help other Women find.

The Original Thread.

Once you find this thread you can start tending to yourself. For Women that is terrifying because we have been through enough. We don’t want to find what we have allowed other people, places and things to put down in our depths. We don’t want to see what we let pass through the gates. And we really don’t want to visit the places where our traumas are stored tight behind doors with puzzle locks where we threw the key off the ship like Rose did with the Heart of the Sea.

You were built to tend to yourself, even after it feels impossible. Even after things dragged you down to the ocean floor. Even after you felt the air leave your lungs from tensions, traumas and emotional weather raging in your body. The strange thing is… once we start, once we have many conversations with ourselves, our body about how we are here now, once we inhabit ourselves… things begin to shift. Once we understand there is nothing to be afraid of because the worst has already happened… things shift. And eventually, your Luteal Phase is simply a gauge for what you truly need, able to be recognized and offered.

This can be a deeper conversation where guidance and support are available if you feel you need it. This is my genius.

Things changed for myself and for my clients once we figured out this one thing:

When you are too invested in others comfort at the expense of your own, you abandon yourself and your symptoms have to scream louder.

When you caretake and attempt to finish a to do list you purposefully made too long so you would never actually finish it you abandon yourself.

This causes intense self destruction in the form.of untrustworthiness. You cant trust yourself if you constantly try to keep her small, quiet, helpful, agreeable, compliant.

And one day you wake up in the Luteal Phase and want to burn your life to the ground. This is actually a good thing. This is the biggest… excuse my French… fucking blessing coming from your mind/body/spirit working together for the first time in your life. And it is a precious but very time sensitive doorway.

This is fixable. This is figureoutable. This is not a ball and chain you threw away the key to. You hid the key in your own throat. Your Womb. Your spine. If you need help figuring this out, I have 1 on 1 spots open. This is where we do the work together with flowers as guides. Go to basecampbotanicals.us and click on Flowerside Chats. See you there.

Xx

Danielle at Ghostflower Journal

I will never forget birthing two boys. Each labor a world of its own, I was orbiting it until it pulled me in and I couldn’t get out. Everything in those moments brought to my attention the things I had not eve dealt with properly.

I thought I knew my body. I thought I knew my psyche. I thought I would be able to control it because I knew it and I saw all those other women on instagram have painless water births.

Looking back now, I wanted something I didn’t actually want. That’s what I told myself. I dreamed of birthing in the water, it goes smoothly and labor is quick and pain-free.

What I got was the opposite and I 100% did not appreciate it then. I hated myself because I couldn’t train myself to have the birth I wanted. I thought maybe I wasn’t good enough and the memories flooded back. The subconscious patterns came to me. And those patterns said “You have to struggle in this world, more than others, because you deserve it, and you won’t be taken seriously if you don’t.” As far as the memories… they were of men telling me I wasn’t good enough, that I would always be the one before The One. That I looked horrible after birthing my first son, that I was fat, that I’d let myself go…

I thought the Women who could have a pain free orgasmic birth had something I didn’t. That was the wound. And the wound beneath the wound? Was that they were allowed to have the things I couldn’t, that they had the village, the partner, the presence, the friends. And beneath that? I thought I had to suffer to be worthy… so I set it up myself. I never asked. I never made it known that I wanted something that much. So I never was able to relax enough to let my body open… my beautifully planned home and waterbirth was not to be. I was transferred to the hospital after 46 hours of labor.

The crazy thing? I was relieved. The second I got in the car hard labor started. Within 2 hours I was holding my angel boy.

This is the soft savagery of Motherhood. It breaks you open so far that there is absolutely no turning back. You have to speak up, you have to advocate, you have to be louder. That was NOT my strong suit. I still let everyone walk all over me, I still didn’t ask for what I needed, I still let everyone around me think I was okay, and then? I gave myself 2 auto-immune diseases. Endometriosis and Hashimoto’s. The Endo had come back after a decade of hard work to heal it.

In Motherhood, your body will speak up louder than it ever has because it knows when you are depleted and you can’t think your way out of it. I’ve tried. I’ve tried all the Shadow Work and Subconscious work there is. I’ve written everything I am thankful for only to cry in my pillow afterwards.

It is immense grief and joy in one single moment. The human body does not understand (yet) how to hold all of this.

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Until I let the softness ruin me and rewrite me it would continue. And softness for a wild animal that is angry is the opposite of relaxing. For me it feels like absolute hell. Allowing myself to see beauty as healing, to see my body as a temple, to stop forcing myself to be nice, to speak up… it has been one ruining after another. My ego is crying in the corner. My Shadow is laughing at me like a teenager, shaming me all the way. My pre baby self getting irritated because my capacity is so low that I feel things crawling beneath my skin and I realize I’m in my luteal phase and panic because in a few days, I’ll need to breastfeed and be on my period at the same time. This is a true test in how much sensation I can hold. And something I’ve realized is exactly why I panic when someone pays me to help them through the same things, and why I couldn’t ask for what I needed. Or wanted.

In Motherhood, every single aspect of your life is connected in such a tight way that you can’t untangle it. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe the point is to understand how everything is so inextricably entangled that one thing will affect the web across. When one thing pulls, it pulls everything and that is exactly why it is so demanding and overwhelming at times. The energy of the home is now reliant on your nervous system. I will read a sad part in a book and feel it deep within my chest and my little one will wake up, crying, and at first, it was hard to be interrupted in the rare moment I get to myself. But then I realized he was feeling it too. So, then we cuddle and he goes back to sleep. He asks me to regulate my nervous system so he can feel regulated.

Motherhood is the most sacred Ministry there is. It is holy work. It is a calling whether it’s overwhelming or relaxing. For me to understand that I had to have difficult births to know how strong I was. This journey is something that ends with grief and joy. As a Mother, you know you’ve done your job if your children leave you and go out into the world. This is how you know you succeeded. And to know that, to think about it every day is such a big grief, but to know they will fly home when they need to is the relief I hope to see one day.

Interestingly enough, this is my biggest wound in my life. The abandonment wound. I have to ignore it or try to process it as best I can. This is the deepest shadow work for me right now. To work through it so I don’t take it out on my little ones. Shadow work is a trendy thing right now, but nothing of this feels trendy to me. It feels hard, sluggish, painful. This is exactly why I use Flower Remedies. They help me with this. They guide me with candle through the darkness of myself. Motherhood brings everything like this back up to be sorted through. I box of memories from things you thought were passed on. Left in the basement.

This is why the work I do is so hard to invite others in to. They don’t want to feel these things. They think they can row passed it without it sinking claws into their ship and pulling it down. And they can, until they can’t.

Our shadows are always there. The laws of nature do not allow them to hide forever, because day always passes, the sun sinks, and there they are. Waiting on your doorstep in a box. And before this feels immovable, remember, this is a box of gifts. This box, wrapped in velvet black and moon milk silk is constantly being redelivered to you even when you change your address. This is a box of mending, of supplies to renew, of nourishment, of undigested morsels. This box has the root of everything you feel good or bad. It contains the key where you get to open another door instead of opening again and again to check if the box showed up again in the dark of night. This is where you open it, and leave it for the last time.

When I opened mine I cried harder than I ever have, and at the end, I felt a desert rain laced with the scent of sagebrush cover me in soft drops, and then? I laughed. A big, hearty laugh.

That box gave me back to my children. That box reminded me that just because my father left, didn’t mean I would ever do the same, and just because my stepdad left, didn’t ever mean I would do the same. Because I am in the Ministry of Motherhood. And my children will play, not spend all their time healing from horrible people.

Sending love to you… and if you ever want to chat send me an email at

ghostflowerjournal@gmail.com

I would love to hear where you are in your Shadow Work because sharing stories is medicine for Women.

xx

Danielle at Ghostflower Journal

I copied my phone notes for this article because some are too small for an entire essay, and some are going to need to be a book one day.

I realized I was trying to be perfect with whatever I wrote and it actually caused me to leave many gems in the Notes App, collecting dust, collecting the weight of “someday” and not going forth into the world.

Instead of seeking perfection- this entire time I realized I needed to be letting my words just… exist however they want.

Welcome to my phone notes.

xx

-Scarcity is the oldest control tactic, especially when you are the Eldest Daughter and you use it to appear virtuous when in reality you are dying slowly inside a cage that is wayyyyy too small.

-True restoration of the self requires rhythm. A balancing oscillation between you and beauty and your devotion to yourself.

-Dandelion Root calms the nervous system and is helpful for the women who have autoimmune and chronic illness. Add 1 TB to 24 ounces water, soft boil for 15 minutes and drink the first cup before breakfast to lower cortisol in the morning and sip through the day.

-Ask yourself: What is actively siphoning your life force?

-Beauty is a magnet for momentum, it pulls us toward who we want to be when our nervous systems settle into a rhythm that feels right, where we can deal with what life gives and takes in a way that makes us proud and it also heals the brain chemistry in ways that have been studied, and ways we can’t even fathom. Beauty signals safety so you can create and this is the magnetism.

-I went to a therapist for 9 years and she never told me I was wrong. No wonder therapy works until you hit rock bottom and have lost everything.

-I understand the pattern so why am I still living in it? Because the gap between change and staying the same huge and very scary to cross by yourself.

-I didn’t lack discipline; I was just entirely disconnected from my personal signal that I pretended I wanted things that were trending so I would be accepted.

-Mugwort is a really good digestive bitter that also helps you digest old emotions, old patterns and old subconscious cycles.

-Only you can decide if you want to stop over functioning.

-Rebelling against yourself is terrifying because you are actively trying to kill an old version of you so the new one can be born, and that old version will fight, lie, cheat and steal to stay alive.

-No one talks about the grief that comes from feeling absolutely stupid and wasting so much time being a people pleaser.

-I was trying to stay away from bad things happening to me because I was at a point where I was exhausted, overwhelmed and invisible. What I realized was that blocking life which can be hard was making me weaker. The minute I realized it takes strength to live? Then I became proud of being stronger, dealing with negativity versus blocking people, having the hard conversations, and proper boundaries for my health and dealing with hardship in an honorable way versus hiding and love and lighting it away. Life doesnt work like that.

- Blue Iris flower remedy: upon taking it for the first time in my life after making it… (found in the mountains behind my house) i felt my ears and head become warm and my ears popped. I felt the need for silence, then my energy felt very calm around my brain stem into my throat. Cooling. I also felt a blockage of life force energy in my lower chakras and pelvis… a silent numb. Very interesting. It brought awareness to blockages but didnt try to fix them like Yarrow or Rose does. This was relaxing.

Thats all for now… I think ill make this a recurring thing. It felt freeing to write these and I hope they are useful.

Right now I am working on the Mugwort Masterclass. The last one was for Yarrow. If you’d like the manuscript send me a message. Its a free PDF.

Xx

Danielle at Ghostflower Journal

A very clear message that I got the first time I took Potato Flower Remedy: this is your connection to the Great Mother.

Before I tell that part of the story, let me back up a few months.

The night of my birthday, January 20th, I woke up from a dream about 20 minutes before my birth time, 3:51 am.

In this dream I was tending, planting, and harvesting potatoes. My hands were in the dirt and I had one job. To be in devotion to the potatoes. To work the earth, pull weeds, give it nutrients, and in return it told me what it was here for.

Potato nourishes us spiritually, emotionally and physically, staying by our side when we are dealing hungry ghosts, offering itself to them so we can have a respite.

I woke up feeling more myself than I had in a long time. The main thing here was that it came from inner symbols that were mine. It was a metaphor that wasnt quite visible until later that afternoon.

In Jungian Psychology, Potatoes are a symbol for the Great Mother. It signifies also, our relationship to her.

On my birth night no less. This was possibly the most simple yet profound piece of the puzzle for me because it matched what I heard when I took the remedy. Knowing that I had a feminine guardian who was looking after my wellbeing helped me realize my worth, my inherent gifts as a Woman, and how much I had neglected myself over the years. She helped me return to my own dreaming world as an anchor.

I knew deep down that my job, here was to be devoted to the health and wellbeing of the Great, Original Mother and to understand how the simplicity, the ancestral nourishment and symbolism of the potato as someone who is Irish was meant to be deciphered as a sacred map back to myself. My lineage. My time here on earth. And, as a Mother myself.

To tend to oneself as a mother is the most ceremonial act. Small rituals woven through our time as Mothers can truly bring beauty into the experience.

Potatos are one of the most nourishing and grounding foods on planet earth. We turned to these roots as my lineage went hungry, they were the last ones to bring comfort when all seemed lost. In the late 1840's, some members of the British Government were convinced that because the Irish lacked moral character, the potato blight was of divine intervention to wipe us out while London continued exporting food my ancestors didnt have.

Potato plants are fascinating creatures of the dark and the light. Underground, the potato becomes a like a beacon for the psyche, an organ of perception in the dark, growing silently and using the nutrients it finds while dreaming and becoming, then sending this information up and out into the light in the form of flowers, the manifestation of the unconscious patterns we hold, so we can see them, understand them, and digest them as we would a delicious potato.

Potatos nourish us so we can feel down to our bones and cells that we truly are nourished. They give us sustained energy, they give us safety in the form of fullness, and as we chew them, our bodies digest everything weve learned from the plant/life. When taking potato flower remedy I notice i have dreams of the plant pulling sticky black muck from my psyche and body down into the earth to rest. Shadow work can be harsh but with potato it seems to be a devotional ritual or ceremony between you and earth. It isnt laced with fear, lack, or strain. Just a simple act of love in the form of truth beyond perception.

This is a photo of one of my potato plants.

Potato is for the Women who are recovering from doing everything for everyone. Who can’t tell when to stop, or when to not even offer something, they immediately recoil at saying yes to. It is for the women who are up late at night worrying about money, who need to create wealth for themselves and their little ones through the deep knowing that the Great Mother is and always will be a guiding light. Potato is for the Witches, the Seeress, the Oracle, the Matriarch, the one who is responsible for everything and needs a little TLC herself.

Potato is for the Women who gave themselves autoimmune diseases because they took on too much. The Eldest Daughters. The Women who got lost and somehow forgot that they are also, The Great Mother.

Potato Flower Remedy is available now in my online apothecary at: basecampbotanicals.us

Sending love,

Danielle at Ghostflower Journal

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The plants are wise women keepers. They tend to our bones, our emotional and physiological landscapes. They ask us to become. Deeply and authentically. They ask us to fill ourselves out, to eat, to drink, to feel joy. Not from baseless meaningless things- but from the deep well that we have cultivated through resilience, deep love, heartbreak, death, life, pain and everything in between. They ask us to live the entire human experience and release the shell between us and the world.

For me, and many, that could be scary. It is scary. All the little gremlins come out and pull your hair when you desperately need to fall asleep. It’s a process, a force inside to be reckoned with that can’t be met with ignorance. But- I will let you know from experience- that it is made much more enjoyable, dare I say, I look forward to those dreams- with plant help.

When we stop playing the victim and start playing with strength and courage- now that is when you make huge strides in the journey. Like little gold coins falling out of the sky for you to catch and spend on the most delicious coffee or matcha you’ve ever had.

And then… you properly grieve. It’s loud, its messy, raw and sometimes primal. You feel the moment, not the past, or future. You are finally in your body. Now. You can feel your fascia release the event that made them tight. You feel the muscles release tension, your lungs, heart, brain and shoulders, pelvis, bones- for everything you let slide, and everything you couldn’t control that happened even when you said no. For every little and big boundary crossed. You then realize- the people, places and things that hurt you are taking up too much space. You want to let it go. For now. Or for good. Your choice, darling.

All of this creates a gratitude flower in the heart that is difficult to tame. And how amazing to feel that, to feel your ribs expand finally after years of shallow breathing, to feel weight fall off, to see your hair grow back, to have more energy to play with your babies and pets.

Yarrow is The Shield. For Those whose boundaries are paper thin, ghostlike and porous. When using this remedy, you can expect to feel reinforcement from the plant world, like someone is standing with you holding the boundary line.

A Warriors herb, sacred to the Vikings and Norseman, Yarrow was used as protection while going into battle. Translated to modern times, it helps Women especially, add NO to their vocabulary, stop emotional hemorrhaging, and ease volatile emotional weather that feels like an unavoidable flood taking over the entire nervous system. Having an affinity for blood, life force energy and Qi- it adds structural integrity to protect it even when you can’t or forget to. Yarrow ignites the life spark within when it has dwindled or gone out completely which is an absolute godsend for Mothers who feel completely undernourished and unprotected.

When life feels heavy, energy is lacking, emotions are dense and immovable, you can call on Yarrow to move it all through, to help you digest and reclaim yourself gently over time. Use Yarrow Flower Remedy and Yarrow Botanical Oil together as a symbol, a cloak, a sacred form of protection in ritual.

Folklore:

There are many magical ways Yarrow weaves itself into Folklore. I want us to keep in mind that the brain is a phenomenal tool, and when this strong plant is present it seems to have an affinity for protection, boundaries, psychic attacks, and negative energies. These all have to do with the Amygdala/Emotional brain. Physical boundaries such as homes, security systems, and self-protection measures are essential for safeguarding ourselves and our families. This is the common thread of how Yarrow works in the brain, body, outer world and dream world. We can use it in many ways to create inner and outer safety through medicine and Folklore stories.

Yarrow is known as a protector of boundaries, traditionally hung in doorways and windows to ward off fear, psychic attacks and negative energies. Symbolically, this mirrors the amygdala’s

role in scanning for threats- Yarrow can be taken as a tincture to calm our minds while actively staying alert.

Yarrow was known by ancient soldiers to stop bleeding, also giving the soldiers in battle a calm demeanor. Emotionally, this translates into quieting fear and having grounded courage- which is exactly what needs to happen when the Amygdala is processing too quickly or in a hypervigilant state.

In folk traditions, Yarrow was drunk as a tea to aid in divination practices, helping diviners see clearly, calmly and without fear of outcomes. Symbolically it can increase intuitional awareness and aid Oracular Consciousness to shift ones perception to see past this world and into the Upperworld and Underworlds.

Energetically, Yarrow is a shield of light, the Flower Remedy is used for highly sensitive, empathic folks who “absorb” others energies and emotions, protecting the emotional body, in tandem with the tea or tincture it can soothe and balance emotions and the fight/flight/freeze response together.

Since ancient times Yarrow has helped us respond with clarity instead of panic, courage instead of fear and protect us from overwhelm even in intense situations that require calm and clear thinking. It has created a clear structure for us to understand ourselves in without projections from others or the outside world. This is a perfect herb for postpartum, difficult menstruation, grief, depression and the need to dream as medicine especially in concert with mugwort.

If you want to have a 12 page PDF full of the Folklore, Vitalism and Wise Women Teachings I have collected from years of studying Yarrow, here is the link to the free Masterclass I created. You can also find Yarrow Medicines on my website: basecampbotanicals.us

Ghostflower Artifacts Series Yarrow

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xx

Danielle at Ghostflower Journal

The world feels full to me. Where is the glimmer of hope I once felt about writing? Why does everything suddenly feel less exciting? Maybe i’m just sleepy, my toddler had been teething for the past week. Sleep is illusive. Naps don’t exist and my sweet babe won't be bothered to be anywhere but on me.

Maybe writing isn’t the frustration I feel really. Maybe I want a shower uninterrupted. Maybe I should have bought the lilies I saw in the grocery store because the smell inspires me. Maybe it’s truly physiological, or spiritual, or none of those. Maybe I just want to see the beauty in it all.

I think we forget that our brain needs fuel and nourishment. I got my labs back and I quote from my physician “you have so little Vitamin B12 in your body that your brain function is barely hanging on.”

I thought “that makes sense.” Then I realized for me in times of stress, that beauty is, for me, very much a vitamin. Mostly because I feel most myself when my home is tidy and sanctuary like. This isn’t often by the way.

I asked my physician what needed to happen for me to feel “normal” again. She said to stop breastfeeding and get more sleep. I chuckled and left the zoom meeting feeling strangely, okay. An impossibility lay before me. The amount of help for postpartum mothers is diabolically scant. It’s amazing to me how many people think we are back to normal any less than 5 years after birthing. After reviewing my labs… seeing systemic inflammation, the cortisol levels of someone being chased by a jaguar, low ferritin, low B12, low Vitamin D and others… I understand the road will be long. I hope I stop to enjoy the view on the journey.

That is my focus now. To enjoy it and find the glimmers even in the physiological depletion. That’s the first thing that starts waning when I get overwhelmed with less than 5 hours of sleep a night. The beauty fades and the edges sharpen. Is it truly a choice or is it survival?

Survival deems things necessary or not. It makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is to let it go that way without awareness. For me, now, every single day I feel the urge to fight for the glimmers. To make myself see them. To not allow my ego to choose what I get to see. To not allow myself to make the exhaustion an identity, which I have, which I did when I was newly postpartum which is a no blame game, but it nearly took me out mental health wise.

It took quite a few discussions with myself, my fiancé, and my inner shadow. The little girl that needed things she didn’t get and got things that she never asked for. And here is the important thing to remember, which I love to remember because it creates that structure I never learned… we are not going backwards. We don’t have to go backwards for the sake of conversation, to be relatable, to stay relevant. We can choose to go forward without nitpicking everything that got us here.

Right now, more than ever, I’ve made it my mantra that my past story does not matter to me one bit. Not in the way of forgetting or ignoring. More of a reclamation statement that I need to gain what little momentum there is. This is one of the most liberating things I’ve ever felt. This wasn't just a random aha moment either. This has been a year of seriously looking at every nook and cranny of my past, my shadows, my fuck ups AND… realizing my future, my light, my gifts and understanding my role as a woman, mother, life partner and soon to be wife is all a part of a process that can be just as painful as it is beautiful. And I forget that sometimes, to see the beauty… pain is a pre-requisite, but it doesn’t have to meaning make its way into the depths of our psyche to haunt us.

We can do shadow work all day but until we also look at our gifts nothing will click into place and neutralize any of it, plus we have to add new experiences and thought patterns into the place where a more negative pattern existed. This is where we digest and turn our shit into gold.

There is a fine line between bypassing and setting things down in the world of talk therapy, but I've found in my work and personal life that sometimes nothing is as liberating as just setting the thing down and reminding your brain that you are the boss. Let your body lead with this one. Our thoughts are very rarely cooperative and in agreement to what we are trying to accomplish especially when it feels new and it’s never been done before. I know firsthand that the body keeps the score… but if that is the only job we ever allow it? To be the scorekeeper? We will never leave the desk of logic and experience play, pleasure, beauty. You don’t experience beauty at a desk in the basement!

The mind needs evidence before it will believe something can be done. This is why subconscious work was so hard for me at first and why reading The Power of the Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy was so hard to wrap my head around. When you are in a depleted state and you repeat over and over “I make money in my sleep” or “my baby will sleep for 2 hours so I can get chores done” your body and mind will retaliate because more responsibility and more hope is absolutely not safe. It’s not possible to expend more energy and risk disappointment when you don’t have the vital sign to spare. I learned bridge statements work better for me somedays… like “I am open to receiving support even when I can’t see it.” And “I need help, can you put the dishes away for me?”

This is where, again, beauty comes to save the day. And I don’t mean beauty as in beauty standards or getting ready fully every day or putting impossible standards on yourself because a mom on Instagram (who took GLP 1's and lied) has 4 hours a day to work out because her 5 children all sleep through the night every night and she has a live-in nanny. We don’t all have the same 24 hours a day.

The beauty I speak of is whatever YOU want it to be. Is it the way the sun comes in through a certain window? Is it a piece of abstract art you want in your bathroom that makes you smile when you get ready? Is it flowers in your bedroom? Is it a beeswax candle that you can light while making dinner to make it more romantic for you? Is it really good skincare that makes you feel luxurious?

Whatever it may be… This is the ticket to rewiring your subconscious mind by giving it evidence that things can and will be okay even if your little one is teething, even if you lost a job, even if someone you love passed, even if you have no idea what tomorrow brings, or tonight. Even if you are crying by yourself in your room, you can see the flowers you bought and remember that you gave yourself evidence. It’s like a mini planned proof of life. Because sometimes, we are the ones who need to remind ourselves that we are alive, and that is a gift, even if the day is absolutely trash.

Speaking of beauty… let’s slightly digress into how botanical beings can bring beauty…

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I love our botanical ancestors as they show us things we never could have seen without them. For me personally in my practice, I have noticed a very palpable shift into the realm of plant medicine. They aren’t ever simply what we were taught in herb school… this is good for this. That is good for this. Botanicals are highly intelligent beings. They have a certain geometrical pattern that is actually a solid blueprint for how we can be held emotionally.

When I began my practice, I saw herbalism as a cure all. I figured out the best herbs for certain systems and was successfully treating my patients. Yet, something felt amiss. A certain energetic that entered the space. For example, throughout history, Motherwort has held the mothers throughout pregnancy, birth and postpartum. For ages. Since ancient Greece and even before it was being recorded, I assume.

So why is it that it was never mentioned that the energetic intelligence of Motherwort was to fortify emotionally raw mothers? Sure, the tincture helps and… what about the botanical intelligence, the presence of Motherwort herself, in the room? How does she affect the air? The mood of the midwife? The baby when she is born? I’ve noticed more often than not the plants have an effect on people before they are even digested, sometimes seen. Simply felt and recognized in the heart field of whomever needs the medicine. This is where my work lives. The inner understanding before language is articulated in the sphere of awareness.

The lesson before the required logic of physicality. The in-between is where beauty makes her home.

Sometimes we have to admit even if its reluctantly- that we simply can’t explain everything, especially botanical intelligence as it interacts with our own authentic essence. But i’ll be honest, I love the unexplainable, the basement spaces of the mind and world, the collective unconscious, the in-between, dreams capes and anything “out there.” It’s my love language. Bring me your story and I will give you language for what was unexplainable. That’s my job and I adore it.

Talk soon. If you want to work with me send me an email at ghostflowerjournal@gmail.com or go to basecampbotanicals.us to peruse the botanical medicines I make by hand, and how you can work with me.

Talk soon because ive got many notes I want to share with you. Also, if you have a topic for me- send me a message. Im all ears.

Xx

Dani at Ghostflower Journal & Beauty for Inner Space.

Whoa… you know? Whoa. That’s what things feel like right now. Something has been re-wiring within me, and it seems like it isn’t just me. Everyone I’ve been talking to lately has felt this thing… like a big chasm between who they were and who they are trying to be. We are learning in record time how to alter our timelines. How to heal. How do re-do things. How to unblock.

Except there is a little… glitch in it. Like something that you can’t quite reach, touch on, understand the pattern. Every time you try to lean on it, it buckles under the slightest pressure.

We give our power away in micro moments all throughout the day and it compounds into a visible canyon that becomes harder and harder to cross. Do we hike all the way down and clear back up? Miles of uncharted terrain in the hot desert sun? Is there even water down there? Shit, I gave my power away again, did this canyon just get wider?!

Yes, it did. And no, more discipline, methods, courses, cohorts, masterclasses, mentorships are not going to get you there. Deep down, you know this already.

This is advice from someone who knows this 100%, has lived it, and I am about to tell you exactly why this isn’t working.

I did all the things, I spent thousands, I followed what the masters were saying to a “T” and nothing would budge within me. It wasn’t landing. I must have done something wrong, I must just not “have” it, I must be un-coachable, it’s my fault, no wonder no one loves me, no wonder I can’t get my shit together etc. etc.

After 10 years of anguish, frustration, anger, depression, sadness, all of it… I figured it out.

I am the type of person that learns through it, not from it.

And you may be one who has to live the experience. That’s it. That’s the key. That is the perspective shift. And this is why it feels so painful when “nothing” works and you are in a masterclass you spent $444 on for two hours and you are losing your shit because everyone else is having a world-shattering epiphany except you because the facilitator asked for your insight because they couldn’t quite weave the thread together. This has happened to me so many times. And hey, you may have even had an AHA moment but it isn’t strong enough to stick and change your life at the core of it.

And this is why others who are similar have such a hard time figuring out what they want to do, what they are here for, and what life means.

I will tell you another secret. YOU are the one who is supposed to be teaching your own lived experience to those who learn from it.

YOU are not meant to take certain masterclasses. You are meant to be in rooms that are bigger than you feel comfortable. You are meant to teach the stuff so others don’t have to go through it. And yes, that is a real thing. Because I would say through my experience about 70% of people learn from, not through. Their path is to understand the connections and choose another way that isn’t so painful. Yours may, as hard as it is, be the path that leads you through the pain so you can teach others how to avoid it.

This epiphany of mine came from decades of me trying to learn and avoid. Until I started understanding the pain the inevitable came to me- I was an avoidant at all costs. I learned so I could avoid and for my path, and so many others… this is not reality. The pain always comes. It is what we choose to do with it, what we choose to alchemize it into, and what path we build forward so others can see there is a way forward.

It isn’t lost on me that this may sound strange, but those who understand it will get it. It isn’t about waving the pain in front of ourselves saying “look what I’ve gone through I am tougher!” Even though at times I chose this because I learned that pain could possibly get me the love I hoped for… a sort of martyr archetype. It worked for short periods and then it just made me feel alone because I couldn’t explain the anguish I felt, it turned others off, and it made me unapproachable. That is not what I wish to do anymore, and it is a hard practice. It is definitely a hard road to walk when all you want is someone to see you in your pain.

And as hard as this is to say… I realized I would never truly be seen for my pain until I learned that I needed to see myself through it first. Not a single soul on earth could alchemize this for me as much as I hoped someone would. It’s an exhausting endeavor. And I understand now that it is my work.

Often, we choose to help others through their pain so we can avoid our own. And often this leads to a fracture in our own spirit that becomes so wide that we can’t connect it anymore. We learn to become who everyone else needs us to be at the expense of ourselves.

A lesson I learned in this space was that if I wanted to restructure my own spirit in a way where I could be authentic, I had to stop enabling those who didn’t actually want to fix themselves and only wanted someone to do that for them. Sound familiar? I was trying to fix myself through fixing others. I don’t think anyone asked me to do that. And that is where the grief came from. That is where the understanding of myself came from. That is where I realized that I was giving my power away, hoping someone would give it back to me.

This never happened. And now, I am swimming in a shimmering pool of grief where I realized I spent most of my life trying to help others so I didn’t have to help myself. I spent every dime I had trying to buy love because that is what I learned from a young age. Money buys love, even when people treat you badly, you are supposed to just be quiet and feel warm from cold paper.

I surrounded myself with people who loved me for my money, too. It was a vicious cycle. Right now I am trying to sit on my hands without spending my money on people who can’t take care of me, or wont. This is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I gave my power away.

I learned through it. I could have never learned this through a class because I wouldn’t have known what it felt like in my body. I wouldn’t have known how it crushes my heart and my chest. I wouldn’t have known it cause endometriosis, hashimoto’s, and an exhaustion so deep a giant squid could live there.

For me, I know my path is loving myself enough to where I won’t outsource it. Loving myself enough that I don’t hate my postpartum body, the scars, the wrinkles. I know my path is to heal a lineage of Women who didn’t have or get the choices I got, and to love them through what they couldn’t teach me because they never had anyone to talk to or learn from themselves.

And I know my path is to teach other women who have to learn through it that they are never alone, that their path is unique and that self-love is one of the things you will have to learn to such a depth that you can reach into that well at any time and say NO.

My work is this. If you need anything, please let me know, I respond to all emails because I know we need to talk about this more.

The Women this speaks to- I’ve made The Flower Codes for you, and I make Flower Remedies for these exact strengths. Because you learn through it, not from someone else, you need structural support, not another method. Because you are here to make your own method. I’ve got you.

xx

Dani at Ghostflower Journal and curator of Flower Surgery

basecampbotanicals.us

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There is a little flower that emerges in the desert spring. This flower has a scent I can only describe as a very gentle bomb. Deliriously sweet and perfumed. Like when your favorite scent wafts to your nose after your wrists have been warmed by the sun. Only there for a moment before the wind takes it with it.

We moved to the desert a few years ago and at first I felt as if I’d landed on another sweltering planet. My eyes took a long time to adjust and start seeing the absolute beauty that makes residence here. I didn’t notice the flowers at first and on a walk one day we found this little cacti, sparingly scattered through the property. On 8 acres I think we have less than 25. I’m sure we haven’t scouted all of them, but they are few and far between. Like most things in the desert, I suppose.

That spring when they bloomed, I was, let’s just say, awestruck. There were tiny flowers crowning the top of each cactus, and they only opened for a few hours each day until about 2 or 3 weeks passed and they were gone. I remember getting on my hands and knees to smell them because the flower is only 3 inches off the ground, covered in dirt and juniper bark, I laid there for an eternity. The smell, I remember, brought me back into my body. It made me feel so beautiful in a strange way, like the flower had magnetic powers, and I felt that visceral confidence all day.

So here are some questions I started asking the cactus when I interfaced with it.

I’d ask how I could install that confidence forever, like never be without it.

She said you can’t. It’s a practice. Every minute. Every day. And hold your chin up an inch higher than you normally do, especially when speaking with others.

I asked how such a feisty looking thing didn’t actually have barbs that hurt when I touch it.

She said because I know exactly how to use my resources for success, I can show you.

I asked if she had any experience with the dream realms.

(Proceeds to give me dreams where every time I let someone get away with basically murder to rewrite it in my dreams and sometimes that’s all you need to heal something.)

This is why I love desert flowers. They get to the point, as they know resources are precious, water and comfort is never guaranteed and to do what you can with what you have.

If you read the flower remedy study I did with Pomegranate, the post was much longer. Poetic, and a lot of imagery. She drew it out, gave us a novel.

Desert plants don’t necessarily do that because they have a different energetic architecture. They ask us to change the issue and be done. Their structure is strong, resilient and has no extra furniture, fixtures, decorations. It is like walking into a modern structure where only what you really need is there.

This is where you can start to see what different biomes do, how they interact with our own energetic architecture and how they show us things we didn’t see before. Every single thing down to the atom has a signature, and the farther we move up, through cells, leaves, environments, the weather that surrounds said environment, is where we can start to make sense (not necessarily predict) of the patterns, we can see where our own emotional weather is, how it interacts with what we are using and what the mix will create.

For me personally, the desert isn’t necessarily where I would choose to go if I could choose, but- I am a very watery, emotional, feeling person. I thrive where the ferns thrive, where the mushrooms grow, where the moss is the oracle and mycelium talk under my feet.

For now, I am immersing myself in the desert because my body needs the heat, the movement, the dryness. By nature, I am a Vata-Kapha in Ayurvedic Medicine. My constitution has much to learn from the desert even though I dream of living in the cooler lush woods where I can grow foxglove and fly agaric mushrooms around my 70’s style all wood cabin.

Colorado Hookless Cactus reminds me of the beauty that comes from minimalism. The healing that comes from paying attention to one thing at a time and re-enacting scenarios in dreams so you can react how you really wanted to. This is a tiny flower, but oh, so powerful and she is magnetic, authentic, and knows exactly what her purpose is. She invites us, through her energetic signature, to evoke these properties that lie dormant within each of us.

This has been a simply, yet viscerally affective flower remedy for the season of life I am in right now as a postpartum mother trying to find her way back into the world of herbalism, flower remedies, plant communication and more. This flower remedy is helping me to remember my own personal, unique version of my magic every day in little micro moments.

It is so sweet to work with her, and I have to admit, I was absolutely surprised at how quickly my own mind, body and spirit connected to this plant.

Once again, I am beyond thankful. If you’d like some, send me a message. I’ve just created a small batch. →

Basecampbotanicals.us

xx

Dani at Ghostflower Journal

You get in an argument. Its your fault. And you can't fathom apologizing because it feels worse than childbirth. Or endometriosis. Or a migraine. Or probably death itself. Because you know deep down every time you feel less than, it’s a visceral step down from all the progress you’ve made in the face of survival.

There is a reason for this.

Whatever you are, eldest daughter, people pleaser, empath, abuse survivor, assault survivor, chronic pain/illness survivor (I'm sure I left some out which let’s just say this applies if it applies) …

You are used to apologizing for your existence, for even having a life, for every breath you steal from someone else.

Whoever it was- there was someone or many people who made you feel like you wanted to end it all. Like you were worth nothing. Like the pile of dog poo on the sidewalk had more rights than you did.

You weren’t allowed, weren’t given the chance, or had to survive something where you couldn’t say no. You had to take whatever life threw at you in that moment, moments, years, all feeling like eternity and you never got an apology. Or, if you did- it could have never taken away the pain it caused. Sometimes this is a battle you fight with your own body, too. Where you don’t have a say in how you feel that day, week, month…

This is why apologizing feels so bad. Because you never got the apologies you needed.

This can make relationships really hard because you stay in your lane, you’re helpful, often more so than you should be, you take care of others without an agenda and they know that they can feel that. So, when you are burning yourself out and you have to apologize- it can feel like “What the fuck do I need to apologize for?” or… “If I apologize- that makes me smaller and smaller and I’m afraid I will disappear all together.”

Again, because you never get apologized to.

Something happened where I realized a big missing piece to my personal puzzle. This may or may not pertain to you. This may or may not sound really lame or dumb or off touch. I don’t know. Bear with me here.

The piece of the puzzle I was missing was this:

If I can’t apologize, it sets the tone for no apologies in my own circle and home. It teaches my children that they shouldn’t have to apologize even when they did something worth apologizing for. It teaches me that I will always keep these walls up no matter who tries to get in (my darling husband and my lovely friends) and… it makes me tough to get along with.

Here is something worth noting… I pray my children never have to go through what I went through. Sexual assault. Divorce from alcoholism and abuse. My dad becoming an alcoholic during my pregnancy with my firstborn and my ex-husband, at the same time no less. 2 autoimmune diseases. 2 very hard postpartum that caused me to break down so far that I got another autoimmune disease. And the death of multiple best friends, one when I was in high school, and one when I was just figuring my life out and I wish she was here to see it (My Grandmother.) I know I am not special here, and this is worse than others, and better than others’ experiences.

And another thing worth noting is that the people in my close circle, my immediate family, they didn’t cause any of what I, personally am going through now in the emotional aftermath.

So, most importantly, if I can’t apologize to them, what does that make me?

Kind of an asshole. Even though, I have every single right on planet earth to feel crushed and ran over and never help or be available to anyone ever again.

But that is not why I am here. I am here to heal a lineage where things aren’t spoken about, where it’s covered and smoothed over, and washed down with too much alcohol, and where no one apologizes in a way that feels true because the pattern just continues.

I am here to feel the crack in the ribs feeling of apologizing when I did something wrong. Because that heals relationships and when the behavior is changed, things can be built. This is what I am here for. Even when it hurts. Even when it feels like a lion is chasing me. Even when my sensory issues cause me to crash the f*ck out when my waistband feels weird. Yes, I had to apologize for being a feral growling crying woman earlier today.

It felt like death. I gleaned nothing from it for about 10 seconds until I realized “THIS IS THE POINT. Repair what you broke, jerk.”

Hurting people hurt others when they don’t even realize it. Just because you are like a mangey cat hiding from the world under a dumpster during a freezing rain in an alley in New York doesn’t mean when someone tries to help you, you bite them. Especially when they let you bite them and they try again. (My husband.)

I know you are hurting. I know people hurt you so bad you feel you are beyond repair. And… I know that you want nothing else but a loving connection with a safe person and safe people. Unfortunately, you are going to have to take responsibility for your part in the relationship sometimes. I know that isn’t something that feels like a big sparkly aha moment, but trust me, you can do it. And you should. That is what will make YOU a safe person again. You can’t trust yourself if you don’t work on it. Because I know you, you’ve been in a spiral of “no one stays around, I always get left behind so what’s the use?!?!?”

The use is, YOU are worthy of living. Even when it hurts. Because that pain does not mean you did something wrong. It means you are a human being who is figuring it out after losing and loss so expansive outer space feels smaller.

Relationships are inherently hard, and no one on Instagram is going to tell you that because they are trying to sell a coaching package where they help you find your perfect mate and teach you polarity and how a man should be this and you should be that and then the problems will cease to ever exist or whatever. Fake.

No one is perfect.

Not even you.

Because that is not a part of being a human being on planet Earth.

The point is to love and be loved in return. You can’t do that if you don’t apologize for being a feral little thing sometimes. That doesn’t mean you failed, or that they’re leaving or don’t love you anymore. It is simply a beautiful brick in the forever home you are building with your loved ones.

No one taught you that. So, this is it. Take up some space.

I love you, and one step is still momentum, okay?

XX

Dani at Ghostflower Journal

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I have this thought thread that I keep in my phone notes, it contains pages and pages of raw thoughts that come through, the punctuation is terrible, there are no capital letters, and it is just a stream of consciousness that feels sacred to me. This is where I figure things out.

This is what my method looks like… I feel stickiness in my life, an immovable thing or thread or rock that I know without a doubt is causing me to cause chaos within my psyche, or is causing harm in my relationships, my body and spirit. It’s like a splinter. It will come to me as a thought, a question, possibly a dream. And then I dive into it with an almost obsessive need to figure it out. Once I catch a glimpse of it, I continue the thread until I have that AHA moment in which I choose a flower remedy to help me change it, and thus, the splinter exits.

To some, it might look like always “healing.” I guess you could say that but to me, it’s more. It’s more of a “I don’t like this aspect of myself and its causing issues, so I am going to change it before it continues its permanent ink stain on my ancestral story.” Then I am able to fully embody it and eventually I help other human creatures make similar positive changes within themselves.

This probably came about because I don’t speak to my biological father, he left when I was 12 ish… and my stepdad, who was a great stepdad, turned to alcohol shortly before I had my first kiddo, almost 12 years ago. Our family fell apart and my mom had to pay for all of it. She had to leave her sanctuary, navigate life as a single middle-aged woman and start over. It wreaked absolute horrific havoc on everyone involved. Then a few years ago my best friend, my Grandmother, passed away from 5 types of stage 4 cancer within a few months of diagnosis, she was gone. She was unbelievably healthy. The absolute picture of health, and it couldn’t save her. The undercurrent of most of this are emotional imbalances that, over time, caused the body to shut down and turn on itself, or, rather, scream bloody loud for help. By then it was too late. Now I am not saying I think by getting our emotions in check we can avoid everything, even death. But unlived emotional currents stay in our bodies as tension, traumas and toxins.

What I am saying is, I want to live in accordance with my own needs, authenticity, my ability to help without overstepping my own health and hopefully have the hard conversations with my loved ones that results in more love, not complete avoidance of confrontation because its “no use” or “that’s just how they are” or “they just fell off the wagon.” I want to be able to improve when my family needs me to, to be there when others need me, and to take care of myself.

So what does this have to do with being practical?

In a short word, everything.

In my phone notes I furiously jotted down a thought I had about how being practical costs you more than you think. For most of my life, I have been riding the line of “broke.” I went so far as to help others pay their bills before I could pay mine. This probably comes from learning that being helpful would amount to love, as I am the Eldest Daughter. If I was helping, I would have friends, a partner, people who loved me.

Except this isn’t what happened and I learned that the very hard way because when I needed help, no one was there. I surrounded myself with people who needed my help so much that there was literally nothing left for me. And then when I did choose myself, I overexplained why exactly I needed whatever I did. I was ridiculously practical to a fault. I will be honest, it probably looked a little silly from the outside.

For the last month or so, I’ve had my eyes on a gorgeous pair of earrings. Everytime I see them I think “I could never afford these,” or “these are not very practical for my everyday life.” And nothing else. Not, these would make me feel rich, expansive, these are something I deeply desire and when I look at them I feel like I could be a Greek Goddess walking herself down to the Underworld on her own terms making friends with her ghosts… or if I could wear those I would walk differently in the world, and that would make me feel like a magnet for all good things.

These are the earrings in question… positively Goddess like if you ask me. Whew.

Not practical. I’m shaking my head at myself right now. I asked myself this:

Am I broke because I have no money or am I broke because liking expensive things would mean I wouldn’t have to overexplain why I like these earrings so it seemed like a practical purchase and no one would judge me for spoiling myself?

It was then that I realized something that had been eating at me for decades, something that dried me up, made me move like a stiff, out of touch and rigid woman…

Being practical has cost me more than those earrings ever could.

I am not saying to throw all of your money out the window, what I am saying is that no matter if you can afford it, you should dream about it anyways. This asks you to be authentic, to like what you like, to want what you want. Because if you don’t you will leave that open to interpretation by others who will convince you that you want to help them pay their bills so you can’t afford the earrings.

At some point, understanding that enabling is not the same as being helpful or even nice.

My whole life I helped, I worked hard, and I gave away everything that was mine in unconscious hope that I would be seen. If someone argued with me about a price of something in my herbal apothecary, I felt bad for charging what my own price tag said so I would lower it because I felt like I was acting entitled.

For f*cks sake… unfortunately I meet many women who do the same thing, and they are perpetually struggling but feeling morally correct.

That is not a moral babe. That is keeping yourself broke so you turn into a hollow shell of a woman. You need to have needs. You need keep yourself healthy because you are here for a reason. And that reason has nothing to do with your job title, how much you make, etc.

You are here because your unique, authentic energy signature was needed here at this time. The farther away you are from your home frequency, the further you are from making the money you want, ironically.

I want to back up a little bit and say that for the eldest daughters, empaths, sensitives, people pleasers… everyone who ignores the inner voice or has lost it all together, finding yourself again is a huge process. It’s a good process, but it is a monstrous undertaking. It takes years, maybe even decades. And it vastly varies in how it feels… no one can actually tell you how it will be for you specifically. What I can tell you is, it is worth it because one day you will wake up and have a thought that is 100% yours and you will tend to it, make it bigger, expand it and work inside of it without the need for anyone else’s approval or the need for practicality. You will exquisitely morph with the art you make, whatever that is. You will allow it to change you, to alchemize you and your heart/mind. And in turn it will heal you in ways you can’t imagine.

And, there will be nothing practical about it. This is how you know you’ve found yourself again.

xx

Dani at Ghostflower Journal

p.s. if you are a fangirl of healing words… I invite you to read The Flower Codes, my new e-book, available on my Etsy Shop at

Basecampcreationsco.etsy.com

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You’ve done the course, incorporated their frameworks, paid for the methods. Yet something feels off. Not by a mile, but by the inch that you see when others don’t. This is why it can be so hard to tell if it’s the teaching, or if it’s something you aren’t grasping fully.

I want to tell you it’s neither, but not in the way it offers itself. It is simply missing the part where you live in both worlds. You live in the yes/and space. You live between the seen, and the unseen. And you have to live a thing before it congeals and lives as gnosis in the body.

Things feel off because they are. Things feel off because you can see right through it and flip it on its head before the masterclass has been live for 5 minutes and when the teacher asks opinions, you give yours, and the teacher ends up learning something he/she didn’t even know.

Every time I attend a course, a seminar, a container…. I end up teaching someone something. Not because I am a know at all as some might think, not even close. It’s because I ask the question no one even thought of. And it’s not because I offer readily this information… it’s because I have the energetic signature that radiates off of me.

Most of the time I am surprised at what comes out of my mouth.

I will be the first one to tell you that since I can remember, this is one of the things I have never loved about myself. It has always felt like a burden especially in my relationships. Sometimes I really wonder if I am meant to just stay quiet and do what others need me to do. Except this created a very frustrating pattern where when I felt my “gift” rise in my throat, from the bowels of the earth, I swallowed it and did something useful so others wouldn’t see this part of me. Until I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s this year. It is not lost on me that my throat is unwell. My thyroid has been protecting me by hushing my voice so I wouldn’t get hurt. Again.

Something clicked when I made the connection. Maybe, this was the thing I needed to embrace. And since I have in tiny, micro moments? Holy shit it’s like the Universe started to respond. Our own authenticity, no matter what it is, is magnetic when we finally let it through. Something interesting to note here, is that this “gift?” This is what people come to me and pay me the most for. This is where I shine. Except in my personal relationships where I am terrified to tell people the truth of what is happening.

My entire life has been a survival trait of hiding. That has been my signature move because if I am quiet, I won’t lose the thing I hope for most, to be seen and see without there being something I am doing wrong. To be fully seen in my gifts, which have helped so many people only for them to weaponize it. Multiple times after a clear breakup a partner has reached out to me months later to ask me to help them see the thing they couldn’t. One of them called me his “Oracle, just like in the Matrix” after I told him I wanted no contact. Before I blocked him, he told me I would always be the one before the one because no one would ever accept me because I could see too much.

I never understood what people meant in stories and movies where they say “This gift is a curse.” Now I knew. It felt like one, it still does sometimes.

I don’t want to be perceived, I dress plainly, I don’t call attention to myself except I was very surprised to hear many times from friends and partners that I make them, and others uncomfortable because I can see right through them and they know it.

I didn’t know this about myself at first, I just saw patterns. I saw tiny movements, blinks that were quicker than normal during a conversation, arm position, the way the words were not matching with the person saying them. Slips of the tongue. Relationships that would end within a year. And I never said a word unless someone asked me for a reading in which they left with loads of amazing information and questions to answer when they were ready.

I can tell someone exactly why their life isn’t feeling how they want it to feel to an eerie degree. And most people don’t care to know. Most people would rather not. Then there are the select few who do and they are able to improve almost instantly. And no, we never talk about diets or exercise or how much water they drink.

We talk about the Undercurrent of their lives. What lives in the psyche. Why they feel better when the person who treats them badly tells them why they do it just to continue but hey at least, we know why. And that feels like relief. Until we start to dissect the undercurrent of how our body feels about it.

If this is you, I am saying this with love: you cannot think yourself through being taken advantage of. Your body won’t allow it. Your libido didn’t disappear. You didn’t “just” start getting headaches. You didn’t just become bloated. Your period didn’t decide to turn on you for no reason. Look at your environment. Look at the silent burden you carry every single day.

You aren’t controlling. You aren’t Type A. You just have to pre-emptively manage everything and everyone because if you don’t? Others will allow you to fall, they won’t check on you, they won’t pick up the slack, they won’t take care of you. And deep down you know this, so you just deal with it. Deep down you know they don’t have the capacity to carry the world like you do.

This is one of the toughest lessons I am learning right now. To ask for help and accept it even if it isn’t what I needed. To me, it feels like a slow death.

Sometimes, in life, for a person like me, and you if you resonate… you feel difficult because any time you ask for something, or hope for something, or wait, or hint… it isn’t met. Not even close. And that feels horrible to say out loud. And I honestly hope no one who knows me reads this. Because I am not saying this to make anyone feel bad. I am just telling the truth.

The solutions offered don’t actually fix the undercurrent. For example, I had no support postpartum. None. I felt like a burden in my own home. So when people ask me what I need? I feel an immediate resentful rage rise in my throat. Rightfully so. And I am beyond exhausted of asking for it to be weaponized later. So, I do it myself. So, I keep the world on my shoulders and hear people in the periphery say how strong I am. I see Women do this all the time. There is a certain faraway look.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the Atlases, the most productive, innovative, gifted people where to stop carrying the world. What would happen if you shrugged, darling? Could you? Could you stand to turn off the engine that powers everyone around you without being crushed by the world of guilt?

What are the options? To let our immune systems give the gift of systemic inflammation? Cortisol overload? Uterine Cancer? Hashimoto’s? Infertility possibly masked as no libido. Is it more stressful to just do it and become an island or is it more stressful to let others be mad at you for a while…

I am contemplating this myself.

Women carry the secrets of the world. We stay quiet, then we burst with fury and call it a difficult menopause. Darling, those hot flashes get hotter the more you allow things that don’t feel right. Is it possible for women to live with the anger burning inside? Right now I feel angry for women. Especially with the news about the r*pe academy bullshit. It is so hard to not steal away in the night and find names and addresses.

Women burn with an anger. We let it consume us like it did at the Witch Trials. Why are we unable and frozen when we need to speak? Because we are starving for nourishment from others? Because we want just for once, to not have to feed ourselves? To be seen? To be understood and cherished?

I am tired, y’all. I am tired. The world is on our shoulders yet its burning. The things we carry…

This is why we retreat to our inner worlds that feel like moon milk on a sunburn. This is why we so often say nothing, when our psyche is rich with material and growing a lush garden while we sit and scroll instead of dancing. This is why we don’t say what we need anymore, or we despise asking for help because we want to be a partner, not a Mother. This is why we spend our money on everyone else. This is why we steal away to the bathroom for 5 minutes of peace instead of just taking a nap without feeling like we have to explain. This is why we scream in a pillow and come out of the room like we are the most peaceful creatures on earth. We hold both/and like a silver tray with delicate coupe glasses filled with drinks for everyone else except for us.

Why? That is the question I’ve been asking over and over again.

I won’t say “You have to stop allowing this!” or whatever you hear other people say to help you out of it.

The thing about women who live this… is they live through experimentation, not information. So advice or insights typically don’t land until you live whatever it is that causes you to learn to wisdom in the lesson, then you are able to fully embody it, your energetic signature changes, and you move on to the next lesson.

This is why you have to move from sadness to anger. For me personally, I haven’t quite moved to the movement that anger causes yet because I go back and forth until it will eventually stabilize into forward movement for a while until I can release it. And no matter how much advice I get about it, I know my body deeply and she will alchemize when its time. Although I am urging her a bit more towards that by lifting weights, eating warm foods, moving weirdly and possible a little possessed like, and allowing my inner “villain” to enter the chat more. It’s a process.

Once you live the experience and allow yourself to feel what that is in a somatic way… it becomes wisdom. It becomes a part of you and ironically that’s when it can move through and be digested and as a Mentor once said to me… as the sacred cow, you digest the experience and you shit gold. You get to take the nutrients and nourish your body with it then let it out.

And… as I tell all of my people when I suspect they are holding sadness that needs to turn in to anger…

RELAX. YOUR. ASSHOLE.

I’m not joking. Unclench it. And remember that although the horrors persist… you are allowed to be a Woman that is equally as beautiful as she is haunting.

Another piece of advice that lands every time without being the kind of nonchalant unhelpful word salad… lift your chin an inch anytime you talk to anyone. It imparts confidence without asking for confrontation. It works every time. Especially if you need to pair it with a 4 second pause that makes them rethink a “not quite insult.”

Protect yourself babe. And shit gold. And get angry if you need to so the sadness moves, Okay?

I love you, thank you for being here.

xx

Dani at Ghostflower Journal

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