Return to the Mother

Giving our TOTEM Flower Essence garden back to Mother Nature-- if only for a little while

To date, this year has been so abundant with life— and life forms— that we’ve literally done all that we can with regard to harvesting the flowers, herbs, and tree trimmings from our TOTEM Flower Essence Garden.

I mean, there are only so many shelves and so many closets, and we’ve hit capacity with our percolating, magical mason jars of the “mother” concentrate. Our apothecary storage units and cabinets and surfaces are filled to the brim with the already-made and bottled TOTEM Flower Essences, and there is just no more space.

Simply put: we have enough.

And this is where things get pretty interesting with the way we do things at TOTEM.

If you listen to us on The Skeptical Shaman podcast, you may remember a discussion with

Britt Sandkulla-Sinclair

of

Golden Thread Alchemy

about how our society is out of sync with Mother Nature. More specifically, we discussed how our current incarnation of commerce is in a state of perpetual summer: all yang all of the time with no space for any yin.

Our proverbial fields, as it were, are never allowed to go fallow.

We are never allowed to rest. To go inward. To cease action.

There is no winter. No darkness. No slumber.

Within societal confines, we do not have the space to stop consuming or producing at scale without falling behind in measurable ways.

And, because of our collective mania, poor Mother Nature never gets a break, either.

The never-ending focus on maximizing ROI and squeezing every last little bit of value out of every last little thing is exhausting for nature, too.

And, if one accepts that Nature is the cathedral of spirit— a kind of organic tapestry that, when one zooms out, takes on the shape of the divine— this perpetual summer is even more frightening.

So, what happens if we just take a break from the pernicious addiction to doing?

That’s the great experiment underway at TOTEM right now. As someone that grew up poor and then had all of that famine thinking reinforced by decades in corporate jobs, I’m doing something I’ve never done before.

I’m taking my foot off of the gas.

I did the math, and I have enough bottled TOTEM Flower Essences and starter material— the “Mother”, which is a concentrate housed in mason jars— to provide these potions on Etsy and elsewhere for years.

So, now I just tend the garden for the sake of the garden. I water twice a day, mainly to keep the plant life alive in a very hot and very sunny central Texas summer, ensuring ongoing moisture and habitat to sustain the dozens of preying mantises, skinks, anoles, and snakes that dwell within its greenery.

After all: I grew these plants from organic seed, which is no easy task. There’s the cold-stratification and the germination and the protecting it from the occasional poundings from the elements, which are particularly extreme in Texas.

Given all of this time, energy and affection, I have a connection to these plants that goes well beyond their financial value to me as the raw materials for our flower essences.

And, when you’re invested in something like this, it takes on new meaning and value beyond the commoditization or exploitation of any resources it can provide.

This, I’m sure, seems obvious to all of you reading this. Of course a garden has its own value. You can sit in it and enjoy it and observe nature and all. Have your morning coffee in it, listening to the birds.

But, as a small business owner that transitioned to this work full-time at the height of Covid, I’ll tell you that, for me, this new rhythm is the psychological equivalent of sumitting Mt. Everest.

We all have our versions of this colossal task: the thing that we constantly grind at for fear of losing human relevance, resourcing or even survival. We all have a dark corner that harbors some small piece of scarcity energy, often rooted in utterly reasonable and pragmatic fears that have, for a long time, kept us alive and even thriving.

But, every once in a while, there’s a moment to cut the cord. To close the loop. To cauterize the wound and be done with it, once and for all.

A moment in which to see what happens when we allow space.

Not for a moment of meditation or an occasional afternoon away from the office.

Rather, a real space.

A true void that occupies what has always otherwise been a compressed, dense and bustling train station of productive human activity in its myriad forms.

What enters this space after we clear it out?

And, more specifically, what can we expect from Mother Nature when we give back to her, daily and consistently, without any personal motivation or skin in the game?

What magic comes into our lives when we let the Mother have her winter, even if it starts in mid-summer?

We’ll see.

I mean, I’ll still be bottling new TOTEM Flower Essences from their “mothers” throughout the year, listing any new offerings on our Etsy Shop HERE. And everything on our shop is currently 50% off, a sale intended to help us continue to create space and move product in and out of our overwhelmed little space.

I’m also hosting an online workshop about making flower essences and starting (or maintaining) an organic garden on July 29th. This workshop, Ancient Alchemy, Modern “Medicine”, will go beyond the specifics of how to make flower essences (thought we will cover that as well). This workshop will also cover the spiritual, energetic and intuitive aspects of communing with nature and harnessing the ancient power of herbalism in a more yin— and less yang— way.

Everything’s on the table, and we will be digging into a meaty Q&A session. Check out the details and/or register to secure your spot HERE.

And the plan for early next year is to plant some new vegetables and simply maintain the perennials and trees without planting any new annual flowers or otherwise expand the flower essences program. The grain alcohol we use to stabilize our TOTEM Flower Essences ensure they will not rot or turn, and considering our “mothers” are 180 proof, I don’t think those are going to rot anytime soon, either.

So, what’s the worst that could happen? I sell out on Etsy?

That, my friends, is what we call a good problem to have.

Take a moment to audit your list of continual to do’s. Which, if any, of these tasks can be released for a little (or a long) while? Is there a way you can give back to the Mother? Stop doing so much? Stop trying to make everything convert or scale? Connect with nature and her rhythms?

Try it. Things on planet earth are feeling very interesting right now, and I’ve never had such a palpable connection to the intelligence of nature— even in the form of fairies— in my whole life than I do at this moment.

So, perhaps giving back to the Mother isn’t such a precious or silly activity anymore.

Maybe— just maybe— it will produce major dividends for you.

No way to know but to try it.

-Rachel