Most of us are multi-tasking, jamming our schedules, and spending 9+ years of our lives parked in front of the TV. Over a third of us have trouble sleeping, every single night. Even worse, Wifi signals + cell phone towers are sending unprecedented levels of electro-magnetic activity coursing through our bodies, every minute. We can't see it. But it's there — and it's making us sick, sad, and exhausted.
At LOTUSWEI, we’re here to invite thousands — and eventually millions + billions — of people to take action, by working with flower elixirs. We want to make flower elixirs as widely understood + accepted as yoga, tai chi and meditation — with a flower elixir cabinet in every home and in every office.
Join us — and join a new kind of flower-power movement.
Welcome to my life, at age 7.
I’m Katie Hess, creator of Lotuswei. And it’s true: as early as second grade, I felt like, My people are somewhere, I’m meant to be working on a big project, and here I am, stuck in this teeny-tiny body and this nowhere town on Lake Michigan. I’d seen a movie about astral projection, so every night, I tried astral-projecting myself somewhere else so that I could do the vague “big thing” I needed to do.
Well, I never mastered astral projection. But I’ve spent my career creating ways to transport people to bigger places and reconnect them to their greatest expressions of themselves.
You’ve probably heard that it takes 10,000 hours to master something. So you’ll be glad to know that I logged 20 thousand hours of working with elixirs and private clients before I ever launched a product.
The reason I created Lotuswei, and decided to sell elixirs and experiences on a large scale, boils down to a number: 76 thousand. That’s how many people I calculated I could feasibly help one-to-one before I die (and that’s without vacations). Not enough. The transformations I saw in my clients just a month into using flower elixirs were so mind-blowing -- their faces changed, their body language changed, their outlook on life and even their life stories changed -- that I thought, “everyone in the world needs to know about this.”
I found that working with flower elixirs could squish six months of personal growth into one.
In the short term, you start to experience less irritation. Everything’s smoother. The stress dissolves. You sleep more soundly. Any strong emotions get softer and lesser.
Long term: your inner landscape changes, and your outer landscape starts to reflect that new reality back to you. You may get out of relationships that don’t work, form new ones that do, start new career paths, do things you used to be afraid of, and walk with a little more swagger. I see you, babe.
In short, these elixirs accelerate the process of getting you from who you are to who you want to be.
They’re one thing you can add to your routine without wondering “where will I get the time?” You put a couple of drops in your mouth -- they taste like honey, by the way -- and you’re done.
Sometimes the best flowers come from places where there are no people, like parts of British Columbia, Iceland, Costa Rica, and the plains in the middle of the US. Or, sacred places that carry a special energy, like in India where the Buddha sat under a tree. I went there to make an essence of that tree, among hundreds of monks and nuns doing their practice.
In all this travel I’ve done to make the best flower elixirs, I’ve thought:
“I want to bring this back to people.”
Whether or not you can get on a plane, I want to share the magic of exploration. I want to help you visit the natural world, and the world inside yourself.
That’s a given, but it’s something people don’t think about much. The earth is also smart.
That’s a lot of wisdom.
When you look at a flower, the flower isn’t thinking, “Do people like me? Am I too big? Am I taking up too much space? Do I smell awesome enough? Am I as pretty as that other flower over there?” No. The flower is unique and beautiful and wild, and takes up as much space as it needs to.
When you look at nature, you soak up its truth, and understand that you’re exactly what you need to be.
My favorite flowers are night-blooming jasmine, the exquisite toad lily and an orchid I recently discovered in Costa Rica that looks like an angel + smells divine.
I’ve been salsa dancing (on 2 for you salsa geeks) for a little over a year. I’m obsessed. I also love tai chi.
I had a powerful near-death experience in Thailand on a tuk-tuk, making me realize how fragile life is - and how when death comes, we know it’s coming and there’s nothing left to do but surrender.
My all-time favorite way to relax is to sweat, soak and meditate at an Asian bathhouse - or hot springs out in the wild. Next best: reflexology foot rub or walking through the forest.
Recently, I’m crazy about wild orchid hunting, especially ones that are located near hot springs.
I have not gone to see a Western allopathic doctor in decades (other than hanging out with friends who are MD's). I prefer acupuncturists, Chinese doctors, homeopaths and other sorts of magical healer types who catch imbalances far before it’s too late.
My favorite vegetable is bitter gourd and my favorite fruits are: soursop, mangoes and jackfruit. Occasionally I try to live solely on dark chocolate (that’s a fruit, right?).
I have a sweet dog named Joy who has had more lives than a cat - she’s over 100 in dog years + still going strong.
Once my car got stolen, set on fire and burnt to a black crisp. I figured it was pre-India purification and left for India.
When I was a kid living in the midwest I learned how to logroll like the lumberjacks, standing on a huge rolling cedar log in the water. It’s like riding a bike: get me a pair of canvas shoes and I’ll show you I can still do it.
My favorite tree is the pink pepper tree and my favorite fleeting scent that can never be captured commercially is the butterfly bush flower.
When I was sixteen I lived in Germany for a year as an exchange student. I ate my weight in milk chocolate (at least a bar/day) and came home 20 lbs heavier, with a nose ring. I lost the weight + kept the nose ring.
I’ve lived in or traveled to over 20 countries. When I lived in Spain, I fell in love with a Malagueño. When I speak Spanish, people say my personality softens. Lately, my favorite travel destinations are in Asia.
I’m less of a beauty girl and more of a remedy girl. Give me tinctures, extracts, herbal pills, antidotes, herbal liniments and essential oils over beauty products any day.