Peony’s healing properties have touched my life in very specific ways. I want to share a personal story of how I experienced her healing qualities on an emotional and spiritual level. A few years ago, there was a big patch of woods near my house that was my sanctuary, big enough so that when I entered it I could escape any noises or sights of the surrounding houses into a world of my own. I went there daily, on early morning walks for a period of several years. I remember clearly many individual tress in these woods because they helped to sustain and nurture me. They felt like old, familiar friends with whom no words were needed to explain my thoughts and feelings. We simply communicated on an unspoken level.
During one of my morning walks, I noticed pink flags spread throughout the woods. I instantly knew they were marking the land so that it could be cleared to build some new houses. When I saw those markers for the first time, this feeling of uncontrollable rage and anger bubbled up in me and simply consumed me. I found myself standing in the woods alone sobbing uncontrollably out of sheer anger. The other emotion that sat deep in my gut was this feeling of having no control. There was utterly nothing I could do to stop this destruction from happening. I went through my options in my head. One option I actually considered was that I could steal their markers to possibly delay the process or even sitting in the middle of the woods and tying myself to a tree to prevent the bulldozers from chopping the trees. I didn’t do any of these things, I simply continued to walk and wait to see what would happen, hoping that it would take a long time for any action to transpire.
Maybe a month later, they started clear cutting the trees. I will never forget going on my walk early one morning after missing a day and realizing that the process had begun. I was stunned and incredulous at how much had been cleared away in that short period. I went into what had previously been woods and stood in the clearing that had been created and cried like a heartbroken child who had no control. The only thing I could do was feel this enormous sense of grief of losing this sanctuary, this place that had sheltered me. I felt I was betraying the trees and life in the forest who had become my friends and confidantes. This event literally made me sick. It also impressed on me the powerful interconnection between our physical, emotional, and spiritual health; they are not separate. We experience our emotional and spiritual pain right there in our physical bodies.
That same day after returning from the woods, I developed a migraine, a splitting headache in both of my temples, more severe on the right side, that rendered me unable to tolerate light or noise and made me feel perpetually nauseous and sick. Two days after the headache began, I spiked a fever that remained with me in varying levels of intensity for 10 days. I couldn’t sleep. I was restless and felt depleted at the same time. After the fever ended, I developed another migraine that lasted for another 2-3 days.
I was always eager to try different herbal formulas on myself to experience their actions, so I immediately prepared an herbal formula that evolved during each phase of the process. The key herb for me in all of the formulas I made for myself was white peony root – paeonia lactiflora – bai shao (she was being a team player, working with several other plants). I felt her presence, and I knew very clearly that she was the foundation I needed to help me through this.
What did I notice exactly? She softened the anger and helped me access the underlying grief and devastation. I became so overwhelmed by my anxiety and my anger, that I was stuck in them. She provided the stabilization, the stability, the nourishment for me to release all of these pent up emotions, old trauma, that were stored right below the surface, many that had nothing directly to do with the desecration of this space. It was like a boiling pot that had been simmering away finally blew the lid off ran over, revealing the simmering below.
When I was feeling better and fully recovered, probably a month or so later, I visited the place, cleared of all of the trees and spent some time sitting in that space and allowing my feelings to wash over me. The difference in what I felt was so distinct, the contrast of it took my breath away. I felt such an immense appreciation for the clearing away and the new life that was now possible, it brought a fresh round of tears. I felt gratitude and love for all of the trees and plants and beings that had lived there and for their companionship over the years. It felt so surreal to me because initially in my anger and grief, I thought I would never be able to wade through the emotions that surfaced, that I might drown in them.
White peony has always felt like a reminder that there is beauty and peace in the softening, that it will not kill you, and will perhaps make you stronger. I understand what it means to soften emotions like anger and frustration. The softening made it easier for me to be present and to feel the anger and the hurt and the grief that were simmering below the surface and could not be contained. It is like white peony helped to soften the outer edges and helped me to access those emotions that I had previously stuffed down and had not acknowledged. I had clenched my muscles tightly to shut off emotions to protect myself and shut out any pain or unwanted energy or attention. Releasing those emotions helped me to relax and to breathe deeply which opened the way for new things to come in.
One of my favorite ways of appreciating white peony is to take herbal baths with her blooms. Her petals are so soft and luxurious, and her smell so fragrant. My most fun discovery is that I can use the blooms as a cup to hold and pour her water over me as I bathe. I believe there is something alchemical (ie transformative) about the way white peony simply helps you soften to what is already there and actually be with it. In my years of practicing Taoist internal alchemy, one of the key things I have learned is that you invite everything into the mix, all of the emotions positive and negative, do not exclude anything. There is truth in that saying that which we resist persists, or that which we ignore continues to flourish under the surface. The magic of white peony is that she has helped me access those emotions that had been shut off. And that somehow allowing those emotions to break through the surface and into my consciousness, something transformed by the simple process of allowing all of acknowledging all of them, there together. And on the other side of all that was beauty I could not have imagined beforehand.
