Heather is the essence for the emotional state where our loss of connection with others is so great that we are consumed by the urge to restore it – and then we gorge ourselves on attention like a starving person. I was reminded of this when I first heard Rumi’s poem last week*:
This is How a Human Being can change:
There’s a worm addicted to eating
grape leaves.
Suddenly, he wakes up,
call it grace, whatever, something
wakes him, and he’s no longer
a worm.
He’s the entire vineyard,
and the orchard too,
the fruit, the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that doesn’t need
to devour.
–––
I was struck by the idea that our egos are so greedy that we end up trying to devour the very life which sustains us, and as we know in Heather’s case, that very hunger tires out their audience and drives them away.
This need to ‘devour’, to satisfy our wants and fill our emptiness, can also be seen in a number of other flower remedies. Chicory for instance, with her grasping for others’ affection and attention. Vervain with their pressurising of others to join in plans and ambitions. Agrimony in their desire for company, cheer and socialising. Red Chestnut in their near-addiction to keeping loved ones safe; and so on.
When we are emotionally out of balance, feeling lonely, rejected, fearful etc, our needs become ego-centric: it’s all about me rather than them. This is a very human, survival-driven response but flower remedies help us to recover our equilibrium. Then we realise, in a burst of insight (like the worm) that we have no need to devour our life-giving world, because in actual fact we are already at one with it.
Photo: Ally Matson
* In Tara Brach’s Youtube, Releasing the habits that imprison your spirit II
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