727: The Manifesting Energy of Flowers, Stones, and Resins

Okay. After a series of impactful episodes on the nature of being an empath and how to live in this material world as a successful empath, we're switching gears and doing something lighter and fun. Today's episode is about the manifesting energy of flowers. Yes, flowers, stones, resins, symbols. We're going to look at some of the physical objects in our world that spiritual practitioners have used for millennia to ground us into this earth and our lives, as well as to help us reach outward and upward into the heavens. So stay with me as we explore the lighter side of what using these different things in our practices can do for us. Flow dreaming still kinda woo Woo is just what it sounds like. An escape into the world of woo. Also a ride into you and how to feel happier, wiser, and more self aware in every way. It's your ultimate journey into personal growth and inner power. We'll explore ideas like how your energy self influences the kinds of opportunities you encounter, or how your personal growth can drive your business growth, or even how that feeling of being stuck is really always coming from something else. We just have to figure out what. That's right. We're a dash of woo woo. A sprinkle of self care, a heap of problem solving and pattern busting, and a giant cup of encouragement. We're going to relight so much passion, purpose, self love and confidence in you that you practically stagger. I'm Summer McStradick, your host and welcome to Florida. Flow dreaming still kinda woo woo. Well, my friends, I promised fun and we're going to have fun today. Normally, when I teach about flow dreaming, I teach about pure energy. Relocating your consciousness into a state of flow and ease, charging up the universe with your intention, with your emotion. A lot of the work I do is invisible. It's about energy itself, consciousness itself, and sculpting and creating that energy to flow down the paths that we're seeking and wanting to experience in our lives now. That said, lately I have kind of returned to my roots. Well, literal roots. Roots as in berries and flowers and things that grow from the earth and stones that you pull from the soil and caves. I've been going back into some of the material objects and things that traditionally have been used to support our intention. To support our spell casting, if you will. To support our desire is to support the intentions we have for our lives. Using objects to support your manifesting work is really nothing new. People have done this forever. Shamans, of course, pagans, those even. Even actually, you know, traditional churches, right? They use. They swing the incense down the aisle, they light the candles. All of these things are brought in, these elements from earth, to support the connection. We are material beings. Our bodies are made of clay and silica and aluminum and iron. It makes sense that we would reach out to other earthly things as sort of connective devices, as ways to open, deepen, enrich our communication with the world, the same way that a scientist might make a satellite to listen to the heavens, to communicate with the heavens, we use objects around us, fueling them with our intention and our desire to do the same thing. But the objects that I picked today that I wanted to talk about are not the ones that are always spoken of, particularly the language of flowers. Now, you guys know I am such an avid gardener. I love my flowers. In fact, on my property, I have multiple different kinds of gardens. I have one garden that I call the Moonlit Path. It's full of calla lilies and narcissus, beautiful flowers that bloom white, that collect the evening moonlight. I have a proper formal rose garden, sweetly scented with heirloom roses, new hybrids. All of them have their little stakes with their names. I have fruit gardens full of passion fruit and mango and figure and peach and apricot. I have all kinds of plants is what I'm getting at. Flowers are kind of my thing. And many years ago, I delved briefly into the Victorian language of flowers. So the Victorians, if you didn't know, were pretty obsessed with the meaning of flowers. In fact, their valentines became very elaborate. And all the cards they sent had flowers as a basis. Whether it was a Christmas card, they would send, Easter cards, and all of them would be depicting flowers. Each flower had a kind of meaning to it, a characteristic. It meant something. For instance, the amaryllis, that beautiful red flower. You know, they sell the wax covered bulbs at Trader Joe's in the. In the wintertime. Well, the amaryllis meant pride. Ooh. Aloe vera, on the other hand, meant affection. But it could mean grief. Baby's breath, that poor overused flower that nobody likes to buy anymore because it was so cheapened for so many years. But baby's breath actually means everlasting love. Herbs fall into this as well. Basil means good wishes, good luck, borage, bluntness or directness. Butterfly weed means let me be free. In other words, flowers, herbs, all had a meaning associated with them. And if you gave a flower or sent a picture of a flower on a card to someone, it likewise carried that energy, the energy of meaning. Now, why would we do this? How could this enhance our practice as Manifestors as those of us who work with energy and intention and creation in our lives. If you feel drawn to flowers as I do, I actually want to encourage you to find or pick or buy the appropriate flowers for whatever intentions you're setting out. For instance, in the springtime, you might be bringing in flowers that represent new beginnings. Bulbs for, for example. In fact, the workshop that I'll be doing for the spring equinox, or maybe I've already done it, depending on when I air this podcast, is going to be relying on bulbs to represent bursting through the soil, reaching toward the sun, new projects, new beginnings in our lives. And if you want to get really details, you can get red tulips that represent passion like I want passion, or yellow tulips that represent sunshine, warmth and happiness. Flowers hold energy. In fact, all the objects that I'm talking about today hold an energy. Now, this energy isn't necessarily inherent in them. Some people are going to quibble with this and say, well, in the world of magic, the flowers actually do hold a certain kind of vibration. The same, they would say is true for different stones. And in fact, all things hold vibration. I 100% agree. It's our interpretations of those vibrations that seem to vary. For one person, a tulip may mean passion. For another, it may mean something completely different. We assign the meetings, we assign what we feel the vibrations mean. It's sort of like dreams. You can buy a book on dream interpretation and it, page by page, will tell you, if you dream of shoes, it means this. If you dream of nuts, it means that. And sometimes it's right. But sometimes shoes have developed their own personal meaning for you. They carry their own energy. So whenever I'm working with a symbol, a flower, or anything else, I'm mindful, what energy do I associate with this? What vibration does this speak to me? And that is why people who do practice with objects sort of develop relationships with these objects over a lifetime. If you've ever thrown oracle cards or the tarot, you've noticed that maybe your interpretation of certain cards is different than what they say in the books or different than what other people teach. That's normal. That's good. In fact, it means over time, the symbol has educated you. You have formed a relationship with it, and understanding with it, you open up meaning in it that perhaps other people don't have or haven't seen or is different for them. The same is true of any kind of objects that you bring. If you have a passion, for instance, for a particular kind of flower, it is your Favorite. Ask yourself, what does this flower make me feel like? What does it mean? Why do I enjoy it so much? Maybe it's telling me something. Maybe it is in vibration or alignment with an energy that is the same inside of me. And that's the beauty of it. So you can bring flowers, you can bring herbs. You know when people into any of your practices, when people talk about smudging, for instance, Right. There are traditional herbs that are used for that. Native Americans in North America typically use white sage, but there are so many other herbs that you can use, sweet grass being one. You can also use cedar or even lavender. Each one of these herbs embodies a symbol for you, a meaning for you, and this meaning is partly inherent in it, but again, also up to your personal affinity or interpretation. I like to use flowers because when I do, whether they're pressed and dried and I'm using them in something that I'm writing or journaling around, or I have a fresh bouquet, or I'm using their petals in something that I'm putting a lot of intention into, flowers for me, just speak to my heart. But something I become very interested in lately are resinsting. Never really explored resins, but recently they've caught my eye. And I think this happened because I was traveling in Bali last year, and I went into a little magical shop, and it had tiny jars and vials of all kinds of things. And I opened one and smelled it. It was the most godly scent. I looked at it. It was a mixture of frankincense and myrrh. And I thought, whoa, geez, that's just like when Jesus was born. What did they bring? Frankincense and myrrh. Why? Well, of course, there were reasons back then that people used more resins, practical reasons, but also frankincense and myrrh are resins of celebration, of joy, of purification, of protection. Now, what is a resin exactly? Well, it turns out it's the SAP of a tree. That's all. It is the dried SAP of a tree. Some trees have a beautiful scent. Now, think about the SAP of a tree. It's the tree's blood. And many of us recognize that trees have kind of consciousness. They have an awareness, they communicate with one another. They're vital to the ecosphere of this world. And when you take a tree's blood, there is likewise captured in it an essence of vitality, an energy of value. Some of the resins that are really popularly used that people have recognized over time. And by the way, if you're curious, about this, if you just go online, you can find. You can go to Etsy or ebay or Amazon or one of the boutique websites, and you can often find groupings of these resins where they give you samples of all the different ones. And they're often highly fragrant, beautiful, beautifully scented, and you can burn them, heat them, and release that scent into the air around you. But Copal is another one. It's from the bracera Odorada tree, and it's for love and blessings, celebration, sacred space. There's another one called Dragon's Blood, which I was always curious about. Turns out it's not really that big deal, it's just another tree SAP. But it does create protection, purification, and it boosts energy. If you're fascinated with resins, go try them out, add them in. So what's happening here is, let's say you have a manifesting intention, and you've been following flow, dreaming, and you're like, summer. I love going into that flow space, connecting in with source, connecting into the beautiful river of ease and flow, knowing I'm heard, expanding into this space. And when I open my eyes in return, having created this intention, having just rewired and changed my emotional self, there's something quite beautiful about looking at what I've assembled in front of me, beside me on a little altar, that I've created symbols that also hold the energy and power of that intention that I have put into them and said, hold this, amplify this. You are little pieces of the earth that I'm charging with this intention, this joy, and you have an affinity for it. You have been traditionally aligned to this intention. This is why you might decide, I want to start bringing some of these in and using them. This might also explain why you, like me, may have been just sort of collecting things like this over the years and not really knowing why. In my case, I'm looking at all the crystals right now. On my desk. I have maybe a dozen very large crystals. The bigger the better. I have plenty of small ones. But I have been collecting these crystals, and they now form a kind of wall on one side of my desk. And I didn't really know why I've been doing this or why I select so much rose quartz, why I have several salt lamps, why I have giant amethyst and citrine and lots and lots of selenite. But the work I do, always disconnecting, always spending hours of my day in another space. These crystals both amplify it and help me draw back in. I think of them now as little guardians around me who are opening space and closing space with me, giving me a little bit of a boost. So you might have an affinity for crystals. By the way, some of us think that amber is a crystal, so some of you know better. Do you know what amber actually is? It's a resin. Yes, it's just tree SAP, which you probably knew, but I bet you did not know that to be classified as amber, this resin. And by the way, amber can be from any tree. It's not one particular amber tree. It's any kind of resin. But it must be at least 100,000 years old to be classified as amber. So think about this. You had a beautiful, gorgeous tree, a life drinking, being, creating oxygen, drinking in the nutrients of the soil. Its SAP fell to the earth and became hardened, drinking in the soil around it for 100,000 years. Amber is special for that reason. I mentioned flowers, I mentioned crystals. And I'm not going deeply into the different uses of all the crystals because I recognize that many of you are kind of crystal hounds. You may know more about crystals even than I do, but I will call out a few. The amethyst that I have is for protection. It disperses negative energy. Some people say it helps open you, but I find it disperses that energy. I also am a big fan of malachite. It's for manifestation, change, empowerment. It's got an energy to it. I also personally use malachite. That's that beautiful green banded stone. I use it as well for the energy of money and the growth, the green growing energy of money. This is where I again have taken a symbol and found my own meaning in it. I let it speak to me. Some people love tiger's eye. That's another big favorite for protection, determination, power, grounding. I love tiger's eye as well. And agate, stability, harmony, self confidence, energy. It's red, it's beautiful, it embodies it. Maybe you're more of a sapphire type, right? You prefer calm, clarity, purity, wisdom. You can find charts that tell you about all kinds of crystals. They abound. And one thing you're going to notice as you start looking is, is that many of them are quite contradictory. One will say it's for this. Another will say it's for that. You know why? Because remember, stones, flowers, symbols, yes, they contain certain fundamental energies. But it's up to us humans to interpret that, to understand that. And we may understand them poorly, wrongly, and or differently so. Above all, always seek your own meaning in these symbols. Are you guys having fun? I'M kind of walking you through a park and I'm pointing out all the different gardens and all the different symbols that live within each garden and encouraging you maybe to assemble a few together into a bouquet, metaphorically speaking. I mentioned herbs. Very traditional. Again, some of you know a lot, lot, lot about herbs. I had an interesting upbringing. My mother is a master herbalist. So education in herbology, well, that started when I was about six years old. I have absorbed a lot over my years. I never went in as deep as she did, but I can probably name a lot of the plants around me if we took a walk together and I could, you know, have some pretty good observations on what herbs might be medicinally good for you. Of course, herbs have also been used in shamanic celebrations and ritual, in Wiccan celebrations and ritual, in spiritual and religious other religions as well. I already mentioned frankincense and myrrh. Every religion uses herbs in one way or another. But did you know that even the very herbs probably sitting in your kitchen right now also hold energy, also contain meaning? Ginger. Protection from evil. Did you know that? And yet it's also used for digestion and assimilation. Interesting. Rosemary. Well, fragrant, pungent. Boy, it'll really change up a soup if you throw a sprig of rosemary in. But you know what that pungent, stringent, strong feeling also does? It carries the energy of what was traditionally taught. In my house, where rosemary grows, the woman rules the roost. If you ever pass a house overflowing with embankments of rosemary, well, you know who's living inside and. And who is making calling all the bets inside that house? Vanilla. Vanilla. You know what vanilla energy is? Tranquility. Which kind of makes sense, right? It's just like the ice cream. It's soft, it's soothing. Mint. Protection. Money. Healing. Why do you think we call the mint mint? Right? The US Mint. Mint. It's there for protection. Money. Healing. Pepper. Pepper. Pepper is courage. Pepper is a little bit of something spicy on your tongue. These are all symbols, but combine them together, stir them in a pot, create something larger from them. And I'm going to get to the finale here in a little bit, like how you really do assemble them. The last part I wanted to mention, the last aspect, is the symbols that are not necessarily objects yet they are still just as real. These symbols are what you find marked on your runes. These symbols are called numbers, the mathematical language of the universe. These symbols may be carved onto stone walls. They may be the solar cross. They may be the ancient spiral. These symbols embody an energy, capturing it, if you will, into the lines, into something that distills it into what you can see on a piece of paper or written into sand with a stick. Symbols are many, too many for me to really go through here, as I've already gone through. And I didn't want this just to be a litany of what all the symbols are and their meaning, because you can pick up a book, you can go on the Internet and find them. What I want you to be thinking of right now is if I bring all of these or any of these symbols into my life, any of these objects with their inherent energies, if I do in fact assemble them into a bouquet, metaphorical bouquet. Let's say you're manifesting something. Let's say you have a deep desire right now for new beginnings. You have a deep desire for something to sprout and grow like Jack's beanstalk up to the heavens. You want this direction, you want this passion. You have this thing. And you're saying, grow and bloom and fulfill me, fulfill my family, fulfill my life. Can you feel in that one the energy of flow to the emotion of those desires, the most important, the base energy itself of that which we practice all the time as flow dreamers in the art of flow dreaming. But I want to have what I call energy anchors. I want to have things around me that whenever I gaze at them, whenever I lay eyes on them, whenever I touch them, whenever I smell them, I'm brought back into this energetic state of awareness. This is who I am. This is what I am becoming. This is the feeling in my life. This is where we are going. This is the path I'm on. This is the alignment I'm in. These objects as energy anchors are reminders to you. You guys have done vision boards, right? Raise your hand. Have you done a vision board? Probably, yes. The point of a vision board for me is not to look at something and say, this board is full of all the things I long for and want. No, I call it my energy anchor board. Because what am I doing? I'm putting symbols via pictures. Pictures are symbols too. I'm putting all these symbols on it. And every time I lay eyes on it, the energy of those desires becomes active. Can't help it, it's there. I've connected to it, I've aligned with it. If I align with that energy anchor board, those symbols, that imagery, three, four, eight, ten times a day, I am reactivating that energy. I am strengthening it over and over and over. Now, in some traditions, they don't use vision boards, they do something else. They may tie strings and ribbons together and braid them into knots and hang them on the wall, multiple colors. And they'll hang bottles. This is a Wiccan tradition. They'll bottles full of resins or stones. They'll tie notes on it, describing the energy and feeling. It is the same thing as a vision board. It is being created with intention, with desire, and with energy. It is being imbued with it. It is using like or similar objects of that energy. Bringing it all together into a bouquet, a bouquet of flowers, if each one holds a meaning, is the same thing as a vision board, is the same thing as a witch ladder or spell cord, as they're known. What I'm getting at here is anything brought together that has an affinity for the energy that you are creating can become an anchor for you, can become a grounded expansion, a reminder, a trigger for your creation. With that in mind, the world is your oyster. There is no right and proper one thing. Crystals or herbs or resins or braided colored ribbons or vision boards, they're all doing the same thing. Runes, markings, all doing the same thing, which is to enhance and to focus the energy of your creation, the energy of your being, your intention, your desire, and your emotion. So with that in mind, go pick the ones that you love, pick the ones that light you up, play with them, delve into them, surround yourself with them, them, make it fun. There's something about bringing in creativity and bringing in this sort of expansive and playful energy to your manifesting that frees it somehow, makes it not quite so serious, makes it feel light and free, makes it feel playful, makes it feel childlike, fresh to go back. Speaking of freshness, you have this beautiful new desire that you want to launch and bring forward. Well, I would fill up around me seeds and bulbs of all types. I'd bring those in as energy anchors, as symbols. I would use the resin of copal to bring in that newness, that breath of protection and light. I might bring in moon water, meaning water that I've sat outside during a beautiful full moon. The full moon is drenching it with an expression of bounty and fullness. And I would say this thing that I'm launching will reach that state. That is where we're going, the fullness of that moon. I might bring together a little collection of imagery and put it down on a piece of paper and say, this energy anchor board also brings in the energy of what I'm manifesting, what I'm creating, Where my energy is going, expanding it and enhancing it with all of the beautiful symbols that I've brought in. Now remember, you don't have to do any ritual at all. You don't have to use any kind of symbology at all. This is entirely up to you. I've spent the last 20 years moving into a state of flow, moving into a state of pure consciousness, taking the scientific route in, if you will, and it's worked beautifully. But lately I've been feeling like, well, if I'm a duck and I'm always swimming in this stream of consciousness, relocating my mind, my heart, my being, expanding my energy, entering this state of flow and manifestational communication, if I have been swimming around in this beautiful pond for decades, I want to bring in some toys, give me something to play with. So I become kind of interested and I just want to play. And I'm bringing in some ritual. I'm bringing in my stones, I'm bringing in my resins, I'm bringing in my flowers, and I'm bringing in my symbols and my plants and my vision board, slash energy anchors. And I'm saying, let's have some fun. I invite you to do the same if it lights you up. Those of us who are creatives, artistic dreamers, those of us who like to be craftsy, those of us who already have a strong affinity for something, whether it's plants or the moon, bring it in, integrate it all together and have fun with that. I leave you. Today, in this interestingly different variation of an episode of Flow Dreaming, we will return to many of our regular topics, especially, of course, the topic of Flow Dreaming itself. Getting ourselves into that universal consciousness, that state of awareness, expansion and communication where all things in us form and are initially created, our lives and our very beings. Until then, I hope you go out and pick some flowers and stuff, some gemstones in your pocket, and dream and think about all the things that you want to create in your life and the way that you want to do it. I hope to see some of you guys as well in our workshop. Whichever month you come in, you are invited. We do them every month and each workshop is really quite something special. I integrate flow and ritual and reflective writing, and we make energy shift and change. Do you want to learn about it? Of course. Just go to my website, flow dreaming.com. look up the flow Dreaming mastermind. If you want to work together one on one, you can always reach out and you can always reach out and email me anything, really. Your comments, your questions, your feedback on this episode, I answer it all myself. I'm@summerlodreaming.com and last, if you rate this podcast. Oh, then I shower you in rose petals and pink quartz. You know what those symbols mean, right? That's lots of love and appreciation for taking the time to give back. Until next time, my love goes out to all of you. Stay well, stay in flow and I'll see you again for more Flow Dreaming. Still kinda woo woo. Hey friends, I just wanna point you in the direction of a couple of resources that might just light up your day. First, I have an app, it's called Flow Dreaming for meditation and manifesting and it has hundreds of flow dreams and playlists that you can use download enjoy to start sculpting these energies of your life now. Second, there is a YouTube channel for flow Dreaming. I know. Who'd have guessed the best thing you can find on that channel aside from. Also, this podcast is a tutorial. It teaches you how to Flow Dream. I'm right there on the screen with you, leading you through several beautiful and gorgeous flow dreams that we do together. So go check it out. Look up flow dreaming on YouTube and have a good time. Enjoy yourself with these beautiful free resources and if you feel the urge, reach out to me. I am always available summerlowdreaming.com and I'll help you. You and together we'll discover what maybe a perfect personalized Flow Dreaming program for you could be like. To find out how to do that, just go Visit my website, flow dreaming.com until next time. Love to you all.