This is the 4th post I’m sharing on the Communication of Color, particularly through the lens of the plant realm. You can find the previous posts here:
The Power of Red in Times of Disruption
Hello!
How are you doing?
By my count it’s day 72 of the “quarantine”* (or whatever you’d like to call it).
It’s also the 10th week of distance learning for my 7 year old, and his teachers are trying to keep it fresh. One of the teachers recently sprung an impromptu dance party on the class. She played “Groove Is in the Heart,” one of my favorite 90s hits by Deee-Lite. Maybe you know it (if not, or if you want to take a trip down memory lane, the video is below). Well, it took me back and got me moving, my heart pumping. And it got me thinking about the heart and about this week’s post about the color Green.
Green is in the heart, according to the chakra system. The fourth chakra (Sanskrit: anahata for “unhurt,” “unbeaten,” or “unstruck”) lives at the heart center, the place where love, compassion, and caring are expressed. This is also where past hurts, jealousy, and relationship wounds live. When there is wounding in our hearts, we may have difficulty empathizing, we may find it difficult to be kind with ourselves and with others. There might be a lot of negative self talk or limits set around our perceived ability to express love. We may feel that the “grass is greener” on the other side, in other words we may be green with envy.
As Kermit says, it ain’t easy being green. Maybe that’s because many of us are living in our heads, cut off from our hearts. It’s always the right time to work on healing our hearts to nurture self love so that we can create a compassionate, loving society. I always look to the Earth for inspiration and guidance for healing. It’s a lovely synchronicity that Earth and Heart are anagrams in the English language.
The first thing I do when I feel disconnected from my heart is tap into the energy of the Earth. I bring awareness to my heart and then I let that awareness dive down through my body and into the soil. I let it continue to travel down through all of the layers of this magnificent planet right down to the core. The core is the heart (cuore, Italian for “heart”) and our Great Mother’s heart beats out the electromagnetic field to nurture us with her energy, and to shield us from the powerful rays of the Sun. Tap into that energy of fierce love and protection when your heart is aching and see what happens.
There are a lot of beautiful treasures from the Earth (aka, stones) to sit with when you are needing a boost of heart energy. You can call on their energy if you don’t have them on hand. Do your best to obtain them from a sustainable source if you seek to sit with them physically. Here are a few that resonate with the heart: green calcite, malachite, moss agate, tree agate, green garnet, fuchsite, fluorite, and chrysocolla. Pink is another heart centered color and stones that feature pink also light up the heart, including rose quartz, pink calcite, rhodonite, rhodochrosite, and ruby in zoisite (which also features green). I find it interesting that pink and green vibrate on a similar frequency - my dad and son are both color blind (deuteranopic) and sometimes have trouble differentiating colors in the pink-green color range, depending on the value.
And of course, the plants! Just being outside communing with the green ones is enough to restore some balance to the heart. If I’m feeling a little stuck or fatigued, simply looking out my apartment window at the lushly leafed-out trees gives me a little boost of heart energy and refreshes my spirit. Houseplants could do the same.
There are so many beautiful herbs that resonate with the heart, some more specifically than others. Many of them feature the colors green, pink, or red prominently. Green often indicates nourishing and cleansing, while red and pink speak to the blood and the heart, both physically and energetically. Here are just a few lovely green allies that soothe the heart.
Hawthorn (Crataegus species)
She’s a fiercely protective tree whose leaves, flowers, and fruit are most often employed for healing the physical and energetic heart. The berries help break down fat in the blood and digestive tract, and the fruit, leaves, and flowers lower blood cholesterol, regulate the heart rate, and balance blood pressure Her sharp thorns are also a signature for her protective nature and her action on the heart.
Beach rose (Rosa rugosa)
Rose (Rosa species)
Swoon! Rose has my heart all a-flutter. We know her well for her love-invoking abilities, her renown as a romance enhancer, her transportive perfume. Rose is also a protector of the heart being antioxidant and cooling to the blood. Her thorns – technically prickles – like the thorns of Hawthorn, are another signature of her cardio-protective properties.
Black Cherry (Prunus serotina)
Black Cherry (Prunus serotina)
The flowers of most cherry species have a gentle soporific quality and the bark of P. serotina in particular is used traditionally to induce sleep, often where there is a cough that keeps one up at night. Like Hawthorn, black cherry regulates the heart’s rhythm and helps lower blood pressure.
Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca)
This gorgeous bitter mint is well known for its heart regulating properties. It’s even right there in the species name, cardiaca. Motherwort alleviates hypertension and heart palpitations while soothing the nervous system. One of the signatures of this plant is the way the leaves grow in a rhythmic or syncopated pattern up the stem. (Thank you Julia Graves for sharing that signature)
My favorite perch, in Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus)
Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus)
One of my favorite trees, Eastern White Pine soothes the heart’s rhythm and brings peace to the nerves. Like Motherwort, the signature is in the syncopated pattern of the whorled branches. Simple spending time with this tree offers a reassurance that everything is going to be okay.
Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica)
Deeply nourishing and restorative Stinging Nettle is like the magnet in our heart’s compass leading us to our True North. Rich in chlorophyll, plant proteins, and other compounds that balance our bodies in just about all of the ways, this plant is a great foundational herb. It has been relied upon for millennia for its life-sustaining properties, notably by ascetic monks living in caves, like Milarepa, who turned green from consuming so much of the stuff.
Unfurling heart-shaped leaves of Violet (Viola sororia)
Violet (Viola species)
This forest-edge-dwelling cutie emerges in spring to wake our hearts up to the season of new beginnings. Drinking the leaves daily for a few consecutive weeks helps to cleanse the blood and nourish the body. Heart-shaped leaves tip us off to this plant’s ability to ease a grieving heart.
*The quarantine, La Quarantena, a term coined by Venetians during the Black Death is derived from the 40 days (quaranta giorni) of isolation of a ship’s crew and cargo to prevent the spread of disease. Our quaranta giorni has now reached settantadue and will likely continue a few more settimana before we shift to a new stage of coming out of our bubbles.
In next week’s post we’ll move on up the rainbow body to the color Blue. Stay tuned…