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© 2007 Deborah Bier, PhDEditors' Note: This article is excerpted from the ebook Flower Essence Practice: For Students, Essence Practitioners and Other Healing Professionals, to be published in August, 2007. Vibration Subscribers will receive an announcement when it is available.Unless you already live in Machu Picchu, the Himalayan Mountains, the jungle concealing ancient Incan ruins or any of the other remote, difficult-to-travel-to -- even dangerous -- well-known sacred locales, you may just have to settle for reaching enlightenment in your own back yard.
Things around you might take on a shimmer and glow of aliveness. You may feel vividly alive, too -- and in that moment you might experience the connectedness of all things in the Universe as one. I know right now it doesn't seem like such a non-event would make as good a story as traversing the frozen plains, surviving the scorching deserts, or scaling the treacherous mountains. But once you reach a higher plane of consciousness, are you going to care how you got there? Will it make a difference to your state of awareness? I'm going to say no, but you'll have to find your own answer to that. So much of this hinges on our belief systems: if we believe it takes something rare to create important change, then by golly, that will be our experience. If we think we can reach higher consciousness only through the use of rare herbs, secret mantras, special rituals, or other rarified experiences, then that will be our experience. Believe we can grow and evolve while we're having our everyday life, then by golly, that, too, will be our experience. So, weeding the garden, combing the dog, eating a cheese sandwich, or changing your child's dirty diaper then have the potential to become vehicles of higher consciousness.
They are not rare or exotic. In fact, some are downright plain: white clover, broad-leafed plaintain and dandelion couldn't get more mundane in my neck of the woods... or lawn, as the case might be. Yet, they all make powerful, life-affirming healing essences. As powerful, life-affirming, and healing as those made in the secret sacred power places of the world. Now, how can that be? The message to me is: "We have everything we need right where we are." The greatest gift of loving the mundane and everyday is that it connects us so intensely to "the now." Keeping awareness alive and in the moment is one of the great purposes of meditation, ritual, and other sacred and spiritual practices. Being present "now" is the very stuff of higher consciousness. You only have to see the value of the mundane to open to its power. Though we may well enjoy and benefit from the rare and exotic, theirs is not the only way... there is as much to gain from the plain and everyday. And perhaps even more. Because where do we spend the majority of our time, both sleeping and waking? Probably at home, at work, in the car traveling familiar routes, and visiting a fairly regular set of people and places. The fact is that our medicine will come to us in our everyday lives as a reflection of the laws of attraction. So where better for it to show up than right on our own doorstep?
If you can find an essence made from just such a plant -- or can make one yourself from the actual specimens that grow where you live -- then this can be a highly beneficial experiment. You may or may not understand how published descriptions of such an essence's purpose fits you, but you should try it anyway. I recommend using this type of essence for at least two weeks -- and even longer -- before you can be sure how you are benefiting from it. You could know sooner, but it might only be through looking back over time that you'll see the changes you've undergone. Please write to Vibration Magazine and let us know about any such journeys you make. There is a saying: "A prophet is not recognized in his own land." We tend to doubt and undervalue that which is familiar, favoring instead the exotic and unusual. All right, then try something exotic and unusual -- come down off that mountain and embrace the mundane! And don't forget to keep flossing your teeth!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Deborah Bier, PhD, is a holistic healthcare practitioner in private practice in Concord, MA. She loves the plants that grow in drainage ditches, along the margins of busy roads, and anywhere else that's tough and forbidding. She has just published Healthy Connections: Flower Essences for Better Family, Friend and Work Relationships and Learning About Vibrational Essences. She is also the maker of the Whole Energy Essences line of essences, and Publisher/Co-Editor of this Ezine. She is available for private consultations. Read more of her work in Vibration Magazine here. DESIGN CREDITS: The art used in the border for this article is with permission of Pacific Northwest Native American artist, Lillian Pitt. To see more of her art, visit her web page. Other art from Clipart.com.
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Maybe you'll be wearing your usual pair of jeans and some comfortable old shoes. You're right in the moment, not thinking forward or backward in time, just focusing on the business at hand. Maybe you'll be in the middle of doing the laundry or cleaning up the last mess the dog made on the rug. Or... or, just perhaps you'll be flossing your teeth (one of MY favorite enlightenment-enhancing activities), and suddenly -- WHAM! You perceive with an insight and clarity you've never experienced before. 
I've come to see this so strongly in my work with essences. In fact, as the maker of the Whole Energy Essences, this is exactly their underlying theme. They have all been made from plants growing in a somewhat pedestrian suburban garden. Some were cultivated plants, others were wild "volunteers." Some are native species, others are more "domesticated." But the thing they all have in common is that they grow on the same little two-thirds of an acre. 
And I do mean that quite literally. It's very instructive to take a walk around the land where you live. Notice closely what plants have chosen to grow around your doors, near the foundation of your house, along your walkways and in your lawn. Instead of angrily yanking out those dandelions growing between the cracks in the sidewalk, for instance, consider them a message. Any plant growing on your land that really gets under your skin, or if it grows in unusual proliferation and glory, consider it a gift for your own growth and healing, and start to decode the message.
