Last month I had the privilege and the blessing to begin traveling and teaching internationally again. It made my heart sing to be standing in front of live audiences in Japan, and even more so to physically connect with long-time Japanese friends and students.
One of the workshops I created for this trip was for the Essence of Success, a new Essence which was actually born in 2018 while I was teaching in Japan and celebrating the 35th anniversary of Pacific Essences.
The Essence of Success
I was offering practitioner training, and I learned that there was going to be a very special full moon. It was called a blood moon due to the fact that its surface would appear on fire from the impact of the sun shining on it - it would appear red instead of its usual pale yellow. It was also going to be the longest total eclipse of this century, and in fact in over 300 years! It was going to create a rebalancing of Yang (Sun) and Yin (Moon). Moreover, it promised to be a cosmic energetic shift which had the possibility of bringing each of us closer to our ultimate destiny.
I have a profound notion that each of us comes into this life with a purpose to fulfill, and the people I know who are living their purpose emanate health, vitality, and happiness. I was intrigued by the energetics of this full moon and asked our long-time Essence friend and colleague Maryanne Campeau to make an Essence from the rose garden. I asked for her help because I would still be in Japan when this potentially auspicious event occurred, and she was at my home looking after my dog Baba and cat Yogi.
An Oasis of Love
So first, let me share with you that this rose garden is an oasis of love created by my husband Michael. When we moved to our home on Vancouver Island in 2000, the land was decimated. Four and a half acres of clearcut, with two buildings which suited our purposes for operating Pacific Essences close to home. Michael was committed to restoring this tiny piece of Mother Earth, and over the next few years planted over 200 trees in the area below our home and fenced the flat upper part to create fragrant and colourful gardens of lilac, laburnum, mock orange, magnolia and other delicious manifestations of the plant kingdom. The jewel in this floral crown is the fragrant rose garden. Every single rose bush is scented, carefully chosen, cultivated, and cared for by my Beloved.
Needless to say, this sacred space emanates love.
Cellular Intelligence
Some of these rose bushes are now 22 years old, and each one has been lovingly hand-watered, nourished with fertilizer, and had black spot cut off so that the infected leaves do not fall to the ground and spread dis-ease.
When cutting off the black spot from a rose bush that appears ravaged by it, I think of the intelligence within this plant which, with care and attention, brings new healthy growth to the plant. I see it as the same intelligence which exists in every cell in our human physiology which comes ‘wired from the factory’ to participate in the whole to sustain life and well being. As conscious living beings with the ability, and indeed, the mandate to make choices, we are responsible for removing the ‘black spots’ from our lives so that each of us can fulfill our unique destiny.
But I digress. Why did I create a workshop around this Essence? Essentially because I see people struggling with their jobs, with their relationships, with their lives. And I just do not believe that life is meant to be a struggle.
Love Made Visible
I have spent the last five years reflecting on my life, and especially on my journey with Michael and this amazing work that seemingly ‘fell into our laps.’ But of course Pacific Essences did not just fall into our laps. It took courage and curiosity and commitment. It took the experience of some dark days and making new choices, like when I was working for the government and ‘crashed and burned.’
Michael was a master of making choices based on the notion of ‘This… or something better.’ In his work life, he started as a Chartered Accountant doing forensic audits for an international accounting firm out of London England. He was really good at it but found it unfulfilling, so he went back to school and got a degree in Latin American studies from Stanford and eventually a PhD in Anthropology from Berkeley, thinking he might do foreign aid work in Central and South America. When he discovered that engaging in that work was too governed by political agendas, he became a professor.
But through his doctoral work he had come to realize that change comes from seeing the world in a new way, and he began to seek out tools for transformation of consciousness and became a Meditation teacher. When he understood that only with a shift in consciousness would anything change in our world, he asked Maharishi how to expedite the process of expanding his consciousness besides practicing and teaching Transcendental Meditation. Maharishi told him to connect with Nature. Thus began the Farmer phase of Michael’s incarnation, and eventually Pacific Essences and his mastery of Energy Healing.
Kahlil Gibran said, “Work is love made visible.” Michael lived a life of making love visible. And the rose garden is one of those manifestations.
Introducing the Essence of Success
I created a recipe for success to accompany the energy of the Essence of Success, and I shared it last month in Japan. The recipe will be published in its entirety later this year, but for this moment I just want to share the key ingredient – LOVE.
We are offering the Essence of Success to help you to consciously connect with what you love. I suggest that if you take this Essence daily, and perhaps write down one thing each day – person, place, activity – that you love, you will be a completely different person by the end of a month. Of course, you will be a completely different person anyway, but when you do something with intention the transformations can be priceless.
As always, we welcome your response to this Essence. Its release is in part a celebration of Pacific Essences’ 40th Anniversary – a milestone which in itself is a beautiful manifestation of success.
