My friend Patti gives me so many gifts as we live our friendship together.  This year’s gem is really so amazing I had to take it in bit by bit.  Patti is a biodynamic farmer, herbalist, writer and cofounder of The Farmwife Mystery School in Snoqualmie.  What you see in this picture is Catherine’s Birthday Body Butter.  It feels and smells as good as it looks.

Over the past years, Patti and I have gone on long meandering walks together in which we’ve shared our life’s ups and downs.  I’ve opened up some of my most difficult and humbling moments with my friend.  These hard reflections have often been about family issues and how we may have failed each other.

When Patti gifted me this cream, which she made in her kitchen, she explained what it contained.  All the ingredients are beautiful and alive:   shea, mango, cacao and kookum butters, coconut oil and some very potent essential oils.  Little did I know the significance of what Patti included and how it’s been healing my heart.  She added the essential oil of white fir, rosemary and lemon.  I began using the cream and felt an immediate sense of calm and sort of a “let down” of tension or holding.  It felt and smelled like safety.

I’ve since learned that White Fir has traditionally been used for generational healing.  It helps you unearth negative family patterns by bringing them to the light of consciousness.  Once they are in the light, you have a choice about whether to continue participating in them.  Drawing in the scent, helps you stay true to your own healing path.

Rosemary is known as the oil of knowledge and transition.  It helps when you’re having a difficult time adjusting to life events.  It makes it a bit easier to let go of the insistent desire to understand and make sense out of everything.  It also helps you trust.

These are pretty potent energies for me.  My family has undergone a tough time after losing our Mom last year.  Our whole constellation is reconfiguring itself.  I think I’m going to share a bit of this balm with my brother and sisters.   I cherish the times I could reveal myself to Patti – I know now she really heard what I said and understood maybe a fair bit of what I didn’t say.  I’ll be feeling her energy as I use her gifts of healing.