Orchid Song

The orchids get another spring to bloom, and this year there are twice as many. They reflect the magic in this little patch of forest that is just a ten-minute walk from my place. The forest is behind a park managed by the city of Corvallis. It has been relatively left alone for a long time, but well used by the locals and crisscrossed by deer trails. An amazing ash tree and several oaks that live there are in the 150 to 200-year-old range. When I’m in their energy I can feel their wisdom far beyond human intelligence, but it is so old and deep that I cannot fathom it.  Douglas fir was planted in one large area about 50-70 years ago. It has become rich in fungi and mushrooms, birds, insects and wildflowers. And the incredible fairy slipper orchids. 

Last year I found out that all the trees and their ecosystem will soon be gone, cut and bulldozed into a housing development. I still cry about it sometimes. And I visit the forest often, enjoying the time we have left. I tell the trees and the devas and nature spirits what is coming so they are prepared.

But the orchids. To me they feel so special, never having lived in a place where they grow wild. A few days ago I told them what was coming. For a moment I considered if I could transplant a few, but they seem so much a part of where they are. I asked them to let me know if there was anything I could do for them.

That night I had a dream the orchids were making themselves into flower essence.

There was my answer. The next day I went to the forest to make the orchid flower essence. How fortunate that a few days before I had taken a drive out to the spring on Kings Highway and filled up a few gallon jugs with pure spring water! I filled two cobalt blue bottles with spring water, got my crystal bowl and went to the forest. I always ask the flowers if they want the water bowl just put underneath them or if they want the blooms to be cut and put in the water. They said they were willing to be cut and as I snipped them into the bowl, I could smell their faint vanilla sweet scent. The flower essence is charged by sitting it in the sun for an hour or two, and as I sat there, I felt I must give them a gift in return.

A song suddenly came to me, its melody insistent, the words simple. I sang it to them while the essence charged.

Orchid song, orchid song
Orchid song is song of the forest
In the breeze, in the sun
Weaving light around everyone
 
Orchid song, orchid song
Orchid song is song of the forest
In the trees, in the sun
In the weaving all are One
 
A few days later I was able to sit and get a full transmission from them:

We cannot be separated from the forest. We are inexorably part of it, part of the greater whole. Our roots are irrevocably entwined, as is our energy. We have an agreement to weave our support within and throughout the ecosystem here. You only notice us in the spring when we bloom, but we are here – transmitting – all the time.

Not only do we have a song that is always a part of the greater chorus of life, but as you felt, we draw out the songs of others so they can know them and sing them to their fullest. Our songs, scents and blooms come from tenaciously rooted and intertwined runners of light and energy that is the matrix we live in.

Just as we cannot be separated from the forest, you cannot be separated from the Divine, or from your world. Everything in your world is alive with Divine energy no matter how dark it looks to you. You are not alone, you are not separate. Your nature is like ours, intertwined and a part of the whole. Your song makes up a sweet and important part of the chorus of all.

When human beings realize this, all toxins they have produced on the planet will transmute into light. With love and care they will sing a new song of love for all life. Harmony will spread. Balance will be restored.

The flower essence not only contains our essence song, but the song of the forest. Use it to connect to and be aware of the web of life, to connect to your song and to find the beauty of how it connects to all other songs in all the universes.

Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.
— Theodore Roethke, American Poet

Fairy Slipper Orchid Calypso bulbosa