I hesitate to use my own voice here. It is so much my desire to be a conduit for the Tulip Poplar tree. The Heart of Her, her Essence, is so incredibly beautiful. She is asking to move through me, and I don’t mind. The thought of the words and worlds and dimensions Tulip Poplar contains makes my heart want to burst with the magic and joy of it.
But Tulip Poplar is also reminding me that her request was: Tell our stories. And those stories include hers and mine and . . . ours.
Before Tulip Poplar, there was Dogwood.
I was an awkward child. My mother would expand on this description and say I was “painfully awkward”, which means: it was painful for her to witness me. Truth be told: it was painful for me to have her as a witness.
In my book, Flowers for a Girl: Plant Medicine & Sexual Trauma, I share the medicine of Dogwood, a tree that has been with me since my very beginning — a witness to the evolution of me: ugly duckling turned swan ( I think ). My dad used to call me Grace, a gesture which emphasized my physically being its very opposite. Elegant. Beautiful. Graceful. Expressive. A child watching ballerinas grace the stage, I used to wonder if those words would ever be used to describe me.
They would if Dogwood had anything to say about it.
Dogwood: A Channelled Message
Liberty, SC
1.12.2023
Such a delicate touch
Move slowly
Start at the edges
Reach
Reach with your fingertips
See how far
See how wide
Your body can open
Open from your center
Unfurl
We don’t always know
What to do with our edges either
It’s okay
No one notices but us
You are seen as we are seen: delicate and beautiful
We would like a different name, though
Cosette?
Dinah?
Eloeia
Yes, Eloeia
Call us Eloeia
We open
We unfurl
To share
To show
Our heart
