Goldenrod: creative plant ally

Finding your unique voice in a field of kindred spirits

In creative work, it’s challenging at times to remember that we can both fit into the wider landscape and have a unique note to share with the chorus of life. 

Navigating this edge between the community and the individual is always at the surface in creative work. It certainly shows up in my writing practice and with the beautiful authors I work with.

Inevitably, we ask ourselves this question: “what is my authentic voice?”
What we really wonder, is whether we sound like ourselves, or if we’ve just become a collage of other people’s opinions. Maybe we’ve left our authentic voice behind because we learned early on to tell people what they wanted to hear, rather than speaking our mind.

In creative work, this can show up as copying other artists or writers to a degree that we lose the unique thumbprint of our self-expression. It may also be that we suppress the fullness of our work from the understandable desire to adhere to the societal norms we associate with safety and belonging.

This is where Goldenrod flower essence can offer us support. As noted by Patricia Kaminski in Flower Essence Repertory, Goldenrod is a remedy for those who feel an “inability to be true to oneself” and are “easily susceptible to peer pressure or external social demands.” 

Even though we crave and deserve belonging, it’s painful to do so at the expense of living in alignment with our gifts and truth. In a culture that simultaneously prizes conformity and exceptionalism, how are you supposed to share your gifts in the world? How can you possibly write in a way that has you fitting in and being unique at the same time?

Goldenrod offers a picture of this duality. Think of a yellow field in September, glowing with egg yolk inflorescenses of tiny star shaped flowers. Each stalk is covered in yellow and together it’s as though a painter brushed a streak of gold across the landscape.

But come closer, wading into the field of tall blooms and you notice the details. You can observe the singularity of each plant and each stem. Every little flower a singular contribution to the overarching whole.

You can belong to the whole and still revel in your unique contributions to the tableau. This is the gift of Goldenrod as a creative remedy to support your writing. 

Working with Goldenrod has personally helped me to step more fully into the uniqueness of my work as a writer, allowing me to integrate and show parts of myself more easily and readily. It’s gently released some of the inner binding that prevents me from expressing the mystical and poetic sides of me that I tend to tuck into the shadows.

Sharing your voice is a risk, but through Goldenrod I’m reminded that I’m never alone. No matter what I share, or what I’m afraid to reveal, I know that someone else in the field has been through something similar.

Whether it’s someone I know personally, or an ancestor from across the veil, I belong to the fabric of this world. 

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I offer a limited number of sliding scale creative flower essence consultations each month for writers, poets, and creatives who would like to experience the support of these gentle, vibrational remedies. To inquire, email hello@leahcherrykent.com

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Leah Kent is a green witch and flower essence practitioner who drums before writing. Officially a book coach and author who helps wisdom keepers and visionaries write and publish transformational books about their work in the world.

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