MILKWEED Asclepias syriaca  

Milkweed helps us take an inspired idea and bring it into unique multifaceted form, just as we first envisioned it. Out in the wilds, Milkweed expresses itself vividly with seed parachutes floating on the wind, seedpods of elegant architecture, abundant milky sap and amazing globes of finely articulated Flowers. This kind of broad depth of inspired and well-articulated self-expression is exactly what Milkweed Flower Essence supports.  

I chose Milkweed for the cover for an earlier Guide. This Guide was a painful learning lesson from start to finish as signals got crossed about who was proofing the galleys and I signed off on the Guide without any proof reading having been done. We actually corrected a couple of the more glaring errors in each of the thousands and thousands of books, but many were just too big to fix, like the choice of the cover art.  I chose Milkweed as the cover shot to indicate that Green Hope Farm and all our Flower Essences were the kind of multifaceted manifestation that Milkweed supported. This got lost in translation, probably because I wasn’t taking enough Milkweed Essence while working on this Guide. 

When the Guide layout process began, I liked how in my photograph the Milkweed Flowers appeared to be falling from the heavens to come firmly to Earth.  By the time the photograph was air brushed and sanitized for the cover by a surly graphic designer at the printing press, the effect was one of weird alien shapes appearing out of the blue. The Flowers seemed to be falling from nowhere and going nowhere.  I am not sure people even knew that they were Flowers!  Everything about Milkweed and its Essence had been lost.  Instead of persevering with my vision and going back for a new version of the cover, I doubted myself and let the cover reflect someone else’s artistic sensibility.  As I looked at this cover for the next couple of years, it was an unforgettable learning lesson in taking full responsibility for my creation, even when this meant explaining over and over to others involved the precise nature of my vision and what needed to be done to bring it into form. Milkweed was with me when I did the next Guide. I wrestled with the person doing the cover until it was just what I wanted, and wrestling was a necessary thing!  He was disparaging about the graininess of my choice of photograph and wanted to lay out the cover with the Bloodroot Flowers upside down.  In every way, I held fast to my vision of the cover and everything inside the cover.  When I held the next edition in my hands, I was at peace. With this new edition of the Guide, I have come further still. I have a graphic designer I actually LOVE!   

In any case, Milkweed is all about this creative process. Taking an inspired idea and making it into form is not a one shot deal. Milkweed supports us to get concrete about our vision over and over and over again until our creation is just as we want it. It’s a true gift for those of us who have a lot of ideas, but don’t always back ourselves up sufficiently to get our idea born precisely as we experience it. 

I AM the complete articulation of God, expressed fully in form.