Blooming from the desert
By Kate Short May 9, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Have you ever felt drawn to a place, an inexplicable connection to a landscape or a city? For many women, this is the experience of their coming to San Miguel.

It is around this time of the year, April and May, when many of us begin to wonder what exactly we are doing here, as the dry and arid desert breeze whips through our deserted streets, and our bodies and minds long for the promised rain. Maybe there is much more to it than the obvious art and culture of San Miguel that holds our woman-hearts to this place. Maybe the pull is more instinctual than we ever realized.

“The ancients called the desert the place of divine revelation. But for women, there is much more to it than that. A desert is a place where life is very condensed. The roots of living things hold on to that last tear of water and the flower hoards its moisture by only appearing in early morning and late afternoon. Life in the desert is small but brilliant and most of what occurs goes on underground. This is like the lives of many women.” (Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D., Women Who Run With the Wolves)

Many women, through the course of raising families and caring for everyone else but themselves, lose sight of the very core of their being.

And that inner Self, with your dreams in tow, retreats to a safer space underground. Just like the desert flora surrounding us in San Miguel, we can grow to become sharp and defensive on the outside, even while our inner self is tender, creative and blooming. Think of the majority of plant life you see around you: the spiny bougainvillea, the dangerously sharp mesquite trees, and the ever-present and prickly nopales. A couple of months ago, the mesquite were covered in delicate, fluffy yellow balls, and now the cacti bloom, their inner beauty radiating outward. And yet despite their rough exteriors, these all bear delicate and beautiful blossoms, depending on the season. It is time now, to set up healthy boundaries and say “no” to those people and activities that drain your precious energy. You may ask yourself what the atmosphere you have chosen for yourself is reflectin
g back to you. What lessons does the desert have to teach you about yourself?

A woman’s psyche may have found its way to the desert out of resonance, or because of past cruelties or because she was not allowed a larger life above ground. So often a woman feels then that she lives in an empty place where there is maybe just one cactus with one brilliant red flower on it, and then in every direction, 500 miles of nothing. But for the woman who will go 501 miles, there is something more…” (Estés)

And what is that “something more”? What is promised for you just beyond the horizon? Perhaps it is a life without blame or guilt, a life where you take care of yourself, on all levels of being. Each woman will have her own unique journey to encounter, her own inner landscape to construct, but it must start with one courageous step and a decision to change. No matter what darkness you have faced in the past, today is the day to begin anew and tap into that inner wellspring of creativity, beauty, sensuality, openness and trust, free from guilt, blame or feelings of not being enough. The desert teaches us to open to the possibility that there is always more to life than what appears on the surface. The desert teaches us patience, perseverance and preservation. It shows us that there are seasons for blooming and seasons for withdrawing back into ourselves. We women who live inside this dusty paradise have the unique opportunity to look around us, notice these deeper truths, and learn from the lessons of the deser
t. By nurturing your inner self (creativity, passions, truths, and your personal journey) you open up to the possibility for the outer expression of who you truly are.

Nature is always giving us clues to our own healing. If we but give a little of our attention to its cycles and rhythms, we can open a door into an unknown but familiar landscape. Just as you cannot push the cacti to bloom, the body, mind and spirit will heal and transform in their own time. But with a lot of patience and a little more awareness, you will soon see your own brilliant red flower, in one form or another, coming forth from within, transforming your once defensive and unfriendly exterior with the nourishment of your inner health and beauty.

Kate Short, a graduate from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York, is a certified holistic health counselor with the Open Door Retreat, a recovery center in San Miguel. She also teaches cooking classes based on the wisdom of eating seasonally and locally. She can be reached at flowtome@yahoo.com. 


Healing Plant of the Month:

PINE reminds us to set up healthy boundaries & take the time to go within.

As a Flower Essence (take 5 drops 3 times a day until issue resolved): “[Pine is] for those who blame themselves. Even when successful they think they could have done better, and are never satisfied with the decisions they make.” - Dr. Edward Bach

As an Essential Oil (use in bath, diffusers, body lotions, or to clean your home): Pine helps one to clear out old thought patterns and find clarity in decisions made.