A month ago, Josephine Thomason and I met very early in the morning out at TerraSante to make  new essence of saguaro fruit. In the synergy of two minds are better than one, we made an essence that I think is even better than the one I made years ago (story below) and found to help with “easier manifestation.” This new essence helps with “easiest manifestation.”

 In this time of rain, we can celebrate the abundance of the desert as part of helping ourselves shift into a mentality of abudance and eaisest manifestation. When I rode my bike to the farmer’s market this morning, I stopped and meditated on the abundace of water flowing in the Rillito. Many mornings I gather some mesquite pods from the trees in my backyard, appreciating desert sweetness that we can enjoy now or grind into mesquite meal. What else helps you shift into abundance?

****************  The making of the first saguaro fruit essence ***********************

 People have often commented that many good things manifest for me.  The essence of energy work is that we discern the roots of an issue, make shifts on an energetic level, and then physical shifts happen more readily.

 Yet the concept of struggling to achieve results is such an ingrained idea. Because of that, six years ago I made an essence to help me and others heal that issue. The story of making this essence involved, of course, learning about relaxing into ease. I happened to be camping out in the desert west of Tucson when the Aspen fire began in the Catalina mountains northeast of town. I was camping because I needed to stay away while the fumes from a sealant outgassed in the guesthouse I was renting.

 I had felt frustrated when a delay in the sealant application sent me into the desert as the intense sun of the summer solstice approached, but now I was thankful to be away when the fire started. When the house had aired enough from the sealant application,  I went home to assess the situation.
As I drove into town, I noticed haze in the air, and when my car climbed into the foothills of the Catalinas, I gasped to see smoke billowing over the ridges of the mountain.  While the flames had not come close enough to the property for fire marshals to issue an evacuation order, my landlady and other neighbors were taking the precaution of placing valuables in safety deposit boxes in town and preparing to flee if necessary. I was more concerned about the veil of smoke that hung over our normally pristine landscape, and the helicopters dropping chemical treatments.

 Had I not already been camping out, I might have been tempted to hole up with an air filter. Instead, I simply gathered a few more things to take to my campsite in the desert to the west, where the Tucson Mountains blocked much of the air flow from the fire to the east. Little did we know that the fire would rage for nearly a month.

 While I was far from the blaze, June daytime temperatures reached the triple digits. Without air conditioning, I lived in tune with the desert, doing active projects in the cool of the early morning, slithering into shade in the heat of day to read and dream with the lizards, to emerge again when the sun finally moved below the horizon. In day after dry day, the prickly pear cactus gradually lost the plumpness of water stored from the earlier spring rains, and their pads became thin as cardboard. Other vegetation shriveled as well.

 Yet the saguaros stood tall and sturdy, and with the water they had stored, they produced vibrant red fruit. Like the other creatures of the desert, I craved this sweet wetness. The nearest fruits were far above my head. I could not fly to reach them like the birds, and no one climbs a saguaro cactus! So I called a friend who used to live on this land, who told me she had left behind her gathering pole used to reach fruit. I searched through the brush around the vacant mobile home she used to call home and peered underneath, but couldn’t find the pole.

 As I sat beside a saguaro the next morning, I settled for the vicarious pleasure of watching the birds eating their fill of seeds and luscious red pulp. Bunnies nibbled the fruit that fell to the ground, but my human ideas about germs prevented me from eating what birds had pecked. I admired how a flicker could reach well into the fruit, and imagined myself with that long curved bill and sharp eyes, the black bib to catch the dribbles of feasting, the speckles of black on the breast that could be fruit splatters dried in the sun.

 A flicker right above me aimed not at the juicy part of the fruit, but at the stem that attached it to the body of the cactus. Then-thunk! A fresh fruit almost hit my head as it fell to the ground. I first looked up at the flicker to thank it for this saguaro rain, and then picked up the fruit. Rather than dip my tongue into the red cup to reach the wet black seeds, I thought to make an essence from it to benefit from this experience for years to come. While most existing essences are made from flowers and gems, I had already made an essence of prickly pear pad. The healers who tried it out found it quite effective.

 But I was concerned that this fruit could have picked up some of my energy in briefly handling it. Usually I prayed to be very clear before approaching a plant to make an essence, and used a knife instead of my fingers to remove the flower or plant part. As I meditated, I sensed that it was good to go ahead and make the essence; I had been in such a reverent place that my briefly touching the fruit was not a problem; it was not as if I had been worried or angry and transmitted that.

 So I pulled out one of the  knives  and clear glass bowls I had brought with me for essence making, and sliced off the base where the flicker had pecked to free it. I placed the fruit in the bowl partially filled with spring water. 

While making this essence was itself a lesson in receiving, soon I had another gift. For years I had been doing sound toning for my own healing.  Now I was ready to learn more, and thought when I was back home, I would start looking for a teacher.  Shortly after taking a trial dose of the saguaro fruit essence out in the desert, a friend called me and said she would like to introduce me to a friend of hers, Tryshe Dhevney, who just happened to be a sound healer! I talked with Tryshe over the phone, and later I would learn about working with tuning forks from her.

 This essence of saguaro fruit is a great ally to me, but it doesn’t mean that everything that I or someone else asks for immediately shows up. Other issues may need to be addressed as well.

 To learn more, go to http://www.deborahmayaan.com/pop_ups/essences/plant_parts/saguaro.htm

Blessings, 

Deborah