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September 9. 2009 has come and gone. It was a culminating point after the 3 major eclipses (2 in July and 1 in the 1st week of August). Significant because it represents the ending of previous ways, cycles and the beginning of new methods and consciousness. Manifestation of our dreams and a global awakening has begun as I see it.

Not everyone came through the intense period from July to September. Some have left Earth and gone to the spirit/soul realm. All is as it is meant to be. I have said goodbye to a woman who changed my life for the better - Alba. She came to this country from Italy, settled in a new land in Portland, and learned a new language as she attended school and worked as a young girl. She had true grit, horse sense, a huge heart and a sense of humor. She was a dreamer and she reawakend the dreamer in me at a time when the flame was burning low due a series of life changes that took every ounce of energy I had to keep going. She and her daughter Georgia offered me a safe haven and a lot of love, laughter, a sense of family and inspiration. I will never forget her.

The day after dear Alba's departure, I was due to attend a seminar in Nevada City sponsored by a company called Floracopeia, entitled, In the Garden of the Medicine Buddha. I was emotionally very jangled and very relieved to get to the retreat site, surrounded by trees, and no cell phone reception.

The conference inspired me greatly by focusing on the living heart of the earth and the plants and trees that offer us humans their wealth in the form of food and medicine and pure joy from aromatica botanica. No farms no food, no plants no medicine or spiritual connection with the earth. Sunlight embodied, that is the nature of plants. They live on sunlight, they metabolize sunlight, which I find very very very profound. We can imbibe sunlight by partaking of plant food. They respire oxygen. Their immune response produces essential oils in minute amounts which are emitted into the atmosphere.

It was a magical time and it embodied the new energy of the 9-9-2009 - replanting of the global garden as David Crow has termed it. It was a wonderful crowd of around 250 people and we were all gathered from many walks of life. One man came from Indonesia, another from Ecuador. Global consciousness. Sacred Earth. All I know is that my grief was soothed and Mother Earth herself was present - the goddess, Gaia, in her sacred loving consciousness.

Tears well up when I think of things the presenters said. David Crow amazed me with his technical knowledge as a herbalist. and spiritual compassionate understanding of the ecosystem and our interconnection with Earth. In the Garden of the Medicine Buddha connects us all into the mandala of life in a sacred way. We all have special gifts we bring to the mandala.

Just listening to the presenters was proof: a Tibetan medical practitioner - a woman who went to Tibet, learned the language and went through 10 plus years of arduous study, a man who is planting 90,000 trees in Ecuador in an effort to save the rainforest, a man who has a  herbal Community Supported Agrigulture in the Boston area, a representative from Organic India who talked about how the return of organic farming methods is healing both the land and the peoples, and reducing the number of suicides amongs Indian farmers in despair about their lack of crops since Monsanto arrived on the scene, a team who produces distillation units for home use, and a new kind of nebulizer.

Through it all, we were provided with superb organic vegetarian food and given the opportunity to smell, savor, and digest numerous samples of essential oils, some very rare. I went home inspired, grateful, and in a transcendant state of being from the oils and the big visions that engulfed us all. I am still processing the information on many levels as it was so high and so deep, so universal on many levels.