Heart Healing... as if our Lives Depended on it
The beauty and power of the plant Ocotillo demonstrates gentleness mixed with poignant truth. If we can only be so bold as to follow.
Once again, I sat amidst a large group of people encircling a large ocotillo. It’s upright, spiny branches tipped with emerging flower clusters already a bright blood red. Too faint to see in the waxing sunlight of the day, we sat in quiet as transient Nubian goats grazed among us and the early spring breezes kissed our cheeks. We were setting the stage, communing with the elements.
It has been some time now that I have been working with the plant ocotillo in its wild locales all throughout the American Southwest and into Mexico. I would have to say that there’s no other plant I’ve worked with quite as closely and certainly none other have I shared experiences with so broadly, and intimately, as I have with ocotillo.
It was made clear to me many years ago that ocotillo was a healer of the heart. I had a general sense of what that meant at the time, but as the years roll by, one lesson after another emerges from her spiny branches, another layer of complexity is revealed, a new expression of how the unwinding of the heart is experienced by another human being.
Heart healing is a powerful thing. It is perhaps central to not only our physiology, but also to our mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Perhaps, it is something we are all in need of at this time, to some degree or another.
Is, perhaps, the human experience simply a journey to learn the ways of the heart? To feel the emotions course through us, and once fully felt, allow them to leave our being, released back out into the world to disperse and vaporize, ready to experience life anew?
Yet how easily do we generally allow ourselves to feel what we’re feeling, and let it run its course, unimpeded?
Is not the word courage itself but a reflection of this? To allow oneself to feel what one is feeling, to experience what life has offered us without running to hide, without making excuses or postponing the imminent until ‘we’re ready’? To stand boldly before life and take what is coming to us without retaliation - how often do we do that?
And if we don’t, does the heart suffer? Does the heart, like a proud and wise mother seek to see us in our glory, despite the pain and adversity, embracing it all, triumphantly present and alert, responding to life’s calling?
I believe it does.
And ocotillo does, too. For this, she calls this forward from within us to be healed.
There’s more to come regarding ocotillo and its heart healing ways. Stay tuned!
Have yet to meet Ocotillo, but she reminds me of Devil's Club, a plant I consider a dear friend. Vastly different environments (dry spiny desert versus moist mossy forest), but both protective, spine-full and worthy of reverence. Enjoyed reading this bit of writing, as when Ocotillo appears for me, I'll be able to recognize with certainty. Thanks for sharing your Plant stories John!
I have experienced both your ocotillo tincture and your ocotillo flower tincture. Would you please compare the difference between the two in effect and application? I have used the ocotillo tincture more often than the flower tincture, and I do think there is an “opening of the heart”, a return to allowing the flow of compassion in difficult situations that this plant facilitates.
Although I live in northern Canada, we have hiked in your Bioregion and experienced the ocotillo plant blooming in person. It has a stark beauty, and a delightful presence when it suddenly blooms.