After more snow and below freezing temperatures than usual this winter, I’m starting to see welcome signs of early spring. One of those signs is the red alder tree catkins beginning to grow and turn reddish.
Nourishing Your Soil: Red Alder Tree
Red Alder Tree (Alnus rubra) is native to the Coastal Pacific Northwest and grows in moist woods, streambanks, tracks of landslides, and recently cleared land. They have an uncanny way of finding any little bit of bare soil and often volunteer in many of the plant pots in our nursery. Catkins, hanging cylindrical clusters of either male or female flowers, appear in early spring before the leaves. Alders have a symbiotic relationship with a bacteria that forms nodules on its roots. The bacteria extracts nitrogen from the air and changes it into a form that can be absorbed by plants. Some of the transformed nitrogen leaks out of the nodules “fixing” usable nitrogen into the soil of disturbed sites. By this process, alders are nourished and create a healthy soil in which other plants can thrive.
As a flower essence red alder tree restores healing “nutrients” to the “disturbed soils” caused by trauma or abuse. Traumatic experiences can affect us in a way that is similar to a piece of land being clear-cut or bulldozed. The soil, the foundation for what could grow there, is disturbed and deprived of its replenishing nutrients. This essence works in the 1st charka – located at the base of the spine – and 2nd chakra – located 3 fingers width below the belly button – to bring in healing for the energy circuits that nourish and harmonize the organs and tissues in the lower section of the torso. In this way, it provides healing “nutrients” to the cells, the “soil,” of this area.
Use Red Alder Tree Essence when you have experienced physical, emotional or sexual trauma and are ready to integrate healing into your body/mind. You may have physical symptoms like low back pain, problems with your large intestine, kidneys, bladder or reproductive organs. You may have life attitudes of lack and scarcity, expecting that you will never have enough of whatever you want – money, prestige, power, love, confidence, food, a home. You may have difficulty supporting yourself emotionally or financially.
As Red Alder Tree Flower Essence says of itself:
I AM renewed growth from damaged “soils.”
» More information on Red Alder Tree
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