August 20, 2018
Four of us were walking up a mountainside where there were so many wildflowers of all colors that we lost count. We were on a wildflower trail on a mountain divide where Wyoming meets Idaho in the Grand Tetons.
I had been grappling with questions inside my mind, and when meeting the White Columbine flower I felt such a relief, ease + divine gentleness, as if everything i had been worried about whooshed out of my body.
Columbine flowers can be found all over the northern hemisphere in high altitude places. There are many species and colors. It’s name ‘Columbine’ comes from the Latin word ‘dove’, because the petals look like five doves clustered together. This particular variety is known as the White Star Columbine, or the Origami White Columbine.
Although Native Americans used Columbine flowers + leaves as an herbal remedy, the roots and seeds are poisonous.
If you feel drawn to the White Columbine, there may be something you’re internally wrestling with. You may be weighing options, going back + forth in the ultimate spin cycle of dualism: good, bad, want, don’t want, like, don’t like.
You may have had the feeling of being conflicted inside, or bearing the weight of something heavy alone. You may have experienced stress around not knowing how something is going to turn out, or grappling with the tension of bouncing back + forth between the opposites of: knowing/not knowing, real/not real or negative/positive.
The White Columbine flower gives us the same deep comfort as when we put our head on someone’s lap and all conflict drains away. Nothing about the situation changes, but we just suddenly feel like it’s all going to be okay and we can finally relax.
White Columbine opens within us a deep well of self-support. We realize that we are just fine — with the support that comes from within us. It is effortless too, as if we wake up one morning and realize that no conflict is ever too much for us. That we can experience any type of pain + suffering, and that ultimately we’ll be okay, because we are exactly the support that we need for ourselves.
We feel accompanied, as if our own fairy godmother just appeared from within us. We recognize that we’re not alone, that there is support all around us, including in the unseen being realms. We feel a sense of relief, ease and non-attachment, because no matter how it all shakes out, we’re going to be just fine.
White Columbine softens the edge of deep sadness, grief, “I can’t get what I want”, loneliness, anguish, confusion, fear of loss + fear of failure, replacing it with a god-motherly soft love. We feel there is an army of support behind us. We can let go of wrestling with duality and relax into the middle, into the unknown, into simply resting in what is, without trying to understand, wanting to know the future, or doubting ourselves.
Magnifies: Soft, feminine love + acceptance; self-support; ease & relief from sense of inner fairy godmother; awareness of unseen support
Dissolves: Bearing the weight of something heavy alone; wrestling back and forth about something, feeling torn; deep sadness, grief, feeling “I can’t get what I want;” loneliness, anguish, confusion
Love + flower petals,