A fierce and unpossessive love.
Mother hawthorne’s whispers of wisdom...
Love is not to be contrived. It is not to be clung to, or grasped for greedily sacrificing another's heart for our own.
Love is symbiotic. And though the input and output may ebb and flow without regiment, the respect for one another is always there. The honor for one another must always be there.
It takes maturity to love fiercely without attachment. We don’t own one another’s hearts, and we cannot demand what love looks like in return.
Love is not a possession, it's sovereign and weaves by choice.
Hawthorne radiates an essence of love so big that it's almost unbearable. Like a mother's heart towards a child that she’s longed for, upon first birthing and taking into her arms. It's love so deep and devotional that you ache in the opening.
Though Hawthorne’s magnitude of tenderness and innocence deepen with each meeting, the closer you get, you will begin to see her thorns. Like love, the protective mechanisms come when a closeness becomes vulnerable. She’s wise, and her thrones carry the medicine of discernment and the ferocity of mama bear. They are not there to attack but protect. Her thrones protect our tender hearts from manipulative and undeserving love, and they represent our fierceness to protect the tender hearts of those we love most.
Her thorns are stealth and camouflaged so well, that they'll strike your hand before you see them. They're placed to strike when one comes near with haste, a lack of presence, or gentleness as a reminder of respect. There’s no need to intimidate, you’ll only feel them if you’ve crossed her. When the heart is wide open in trust and love, it’s vulnerable, and the protective thorns allow the vulnerability to safely be. She carries an innate ability to decipher true love and will teach you to discern the same.
The thorns seem to lessen with age as stability has proven itself, planting themselves on the young branches with fresh growth. They are the sacred container allowing love to be tender as it grows. She teaches us to hold this holy boundary so that love can be what it dreams safe and unrestrained.
There is a poem, Your Children Are Not Your Children…
“Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.”
- Kahlil Gibran
The love of neither our lovers, sisters, or dearest friends are our possession either. They too are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They are with us, but do not belong to us. We may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like us.
We are each the bow and each the arrow and that’s what love is.
We are mirrors, sacred space, open hearts, and clear sight to one another. We do not belong to or owe one another. We do not weave conditionally. The tapestry is woven with our heartstrings dancing vulnerably as we grow individually and together.
As I share this, know that Hawthorne Flower Essence is in the Mother Blend and can be gotten on its own requested through “Single Blends”. Taking her in feels like a rush of love from the divine mother. It feels like a rush of love to all those we love most. And the thorns are the armor and swords to protect just that.
One year making a Hawthorne Essence, I had felt a tree call and as I started to dip off the trail I slipped falling into the ground covered with blackberry vines. It startled me more than anything, and I somehow rose without getting punctured but quickly turned around hearing her no.
I walked until I heard the call again and veered off-trail for another try. Going slowly and carefully I planted myself on the ground beneath settling into the sunshine. In time I realized my flower scissors were gone and Mother Hawthorne had taken them from me as she ushered me in before falling.
I could feel the fierce welcome of a yes with the strong boundary of her throne asking me to simply leave the water beneath the tree instead of picking blossoms. In the process of preparing the bowl of water, at some point, I accidentally bumped the low-hanging branch and petals fell everywhere like snow. This is how the bowl was filled. With fallen offerings from the tree herself.
The best love is like this. Not taken. But flooded upon us when honored and cherished for nothing in return.
With Hawthorne's love,
Abby
