 Today I am with Ruth Altschuler and really happy for her to be here to talk about flower essence and the power that you can provide for our healing and transformation. Ruth, great to have you here. Thank you, George. It's always a joy. Especially because what you embody in the language you speak has so many points in common with how I see things and I'm just so happy to be collaborating with you. Kindred spirits for sure. Let me read your bio for the audience so that they can have some context and then we'll get into this conversation. So Ruth Toledo Altschuler's practice as a flower essence practitioner focuses on the soul journey, guiding her clients through initiations, challenges, thresholds, transformations, working on the emotional, mental, and spiritual level using energy remedies. She is certified by the Flower Essence Society and has three decades of experience in this field as an entrepreneur, educator, and mentor. As a flower essence practitioner, Ruth's offerings include online consultations, courses, and mentoring for English and Portuguese speakers around the world. And just for those of you who don't know, Ruth has had a very successful flower essence practice in Brazil before moving to the United States where she practices now reaching people all over the world. So Ruth, I'm looking forward to what you're going to share with us today about flower essence practice. Okay, so I guess I'll jump right in. Yes. Yes. And so what I wanted to bring today is a subject so close to heart. And that is the fact that the work with plants and flower essence therapy as a modality is very much a collaborative modality and a modality that helps to integrate. And I will never forget that when I began organizing courses about flower essences and about flower essence therapy and teaching my own courses in Brazil, as you mentioned, one of the amazing things was the variety of people that would be drawn to these courses. There were dentists, physical therapists, massage therapists, psychologists, medical doctors, homies, biopathic doctors, etc, etc. And of course, a lot of people who wanted to learn about the essences to work on themselves and to use them for themselves. And so this combination and this coming together of people and how essences united all these people amongst the common passion and common interest has always been fascinating for me to watch. Now I want to bring that to another level. So let's talk about how much we humans are connected and interdependent in our relationship with plants. So if we think that it's only because plants exist and have created the atmosphere conducive to humans, and for this I'll refer to the previous interview that I did with George that actually has a presentation that mentions this in more detail. Yeah. And I want to mention that there will be a link. Those of you watching this, you can look for the notes of this video. There's a link to the previous presentation that Ruth did for our audience here. And it's fantastic. So be sure to check that out to get some more background about the power of flower essence. Yes. And so when we think that it's being the existence of plants that created the conditions for the diversity of beings that exist in this planet and that eventually humans came after all this diversity had created these amazing conditions and work plants and especially flowering plants play such an important role. That is where it all begins, you know, this bigger context of how united and how interconnected and how interdependent we all are as beings living here on planet Earth. But plants offer us the air that we breathe the purifying of the air that we breathe and also the food that we eat, even the animal food that we eat also the animals also nurture from plants and breathe the same air anyway. So it's a basic and we can even begin thinking of plants as sustenance, but then we can also look at plants as medicine, and we know how dogs go and eat certain plants when they're sick or cats, you know, instinctively they go towards certain plants for the healing that they need. And so humans have developed a whole language and way of understanding how they can be helped with plants through teas and different kinds of preparations. And there's all this level of herbal medicine that we also have in the traditional cultures. And of course, most of the medicines that modern medicine has a lot of the knowledge came from studying plants and then developing these substances as in the lab, you know, but originally they learned from the plants. Well, we also have other plant preparations like we have essential oils that are distilled and concentrated extractions of the aromatic qualities of plants. And then we have flower essences that are mostly information of plants evolutionary knowledge. So I want to share something with you because I think that's going to be helpful and I'm going to show how in my website, all of this is explained in quite a rich way. So flower essences are just the imprint of what that plant has learned, because in the moment of flowering, the plant gathers all that it knows. And it expresses itself in this uniqueness and flower essences are preparations that contain basically just the information of the life force of plants. And in this page, what our flower essences in my website Essence Mentoring, you can read more about this. You can even see and understand and actually watch a whole, see a diagram but also watch a whole video on the methods of plant essence preparation. And then you can really grasp what that is. And it's amazing because this is a wonderful way for us, and I have this page called flowering plants in part wisdom for our evolution. This is a wonderful way for us to receive information about how to adjust how to adapt how to live in this living world, interacting with different beings with different dynamics. I even have a page and this I think is one that you can share with many people that shows in very simple ways. How plants can help us deal with change, for instance, because they're so used to having to adjust to change. How they help us deal with letting go because plants, they just offer their flowers and then they let go of the flowers and then they let go of the leaves. And how flower essences contain information, and in a special way, how flower essences transmit radiance, beauty, and how they help us express uniqueness, our own uniqueness. As we resonate with how they express each plant in the flowering, showing that unique version of plant expression. And so, each plant really has their own ways. You know, when you talk with someone who likes to cultivate plants, they will tell you, oh, this plant likes this, this plant really likes to be in the sun, this plant really likes to be in the shade and it likes a lot of water. So plants, as humans interact with plants, they tell us what they're up to and what they have to offer. And as flower essences, each plant has a very unique archetypal quality to offer us. So I'll share my screen again to illustrate that. I have, for instance, a blog post in my blog, in which I show how a plant like the sunflower teaches us how to be ourselves in our shining bright ways without overpowering others, but also without allowing ourselves to be overshadowed. But just finding that right balance of self expression and self assertiveness. Whereas another plant like this delicate lily that grows in the Sierras, offers this delicate and gentle holding of nurturing warmth for those who carry within them a sense of lack of abandonment of having felt this lack of nurturing in their early life. And so this archetypal quality helps to meet these places of lack within the emotional life, the emotional level of the individual. So the one of the biggest points that I want to make is that we are living at a time that one of the most important things we need to learn how to do is to collaborate and to listen more to listen a lot more. And as a result of this listening engage in co creative actions and in co creative collaborations. And that's one of the beauties of the modality that I practice because the work that I do is one that goes together. And can go alongside the work of a coach. Let's say you know a writing coach for instance I was talking with our dear friend Rochelle, who is an amazing writing coach. I just know that there are some combinations that can be amazing for her clients that will help their creativity and focus and so on. So many times in my career, I have had psychologists refer clients to me, because they haven't bothered to study the essences and recommend them themselves and also their agreements with their class organizations don't allow them to choose substances for their clients so they, they don't usually do that, but so often I've had psychologists refer clients to me, because when their clients are using the essences. The work that they're doing in therapy evolves so much more fluently, because flower essences are such powerful catalyzers, and they also help people integrate the processes that they're going through the process of transformation. And one of the things that I'm really touched by and really struck by at this time is how different disciplines are coming together and collaborating in terms of the knowledge that is available for us at this time. And how much insight we're gaining because of this cross fertilization between disciplines. Think about the understandings, for instance, of psychology and brain science now, and subtle medicine like modalities like flower essences and EFT and, you know, different modalities that deal with the more subtle aspects. The collaboration between these disciplines is giving us possibilities in terms of effectiveness of healing that we have not experienced before. And we can't do this big job that is required of us in this time of peril in which an awakening of consciousness is so needed if we don't collaborate. And it's been the fragmentation and the separation that's created all of this anyway. So, you know, for our own evolution, it's so important that we collaborate and the understanding and the possibilities that are offered through this work with flower essences and plant medicine off collaboration amongst practitioners and off work done together that the sum becomes more than the parts is really amazing. Is there anything you would like to ask? No, I love what you're saying here. And just to have you walk through some of these pages on your site and have the images show us. There is a power there that, yeah, is beyond words and I'm going to put the links to these different pages in the notes of the video so I encourage everyone to go and look at it again and just behold and enjoy the presentation really of these things. I love that you're bringing in this idea of collaboration and I love that you are saying we need to listen more. Just like, you know, I feel like we need to pay more attention to, well, like the subtleties, like, you know, flowers. Paying attention to it allows us to gain the wisdom that has been gathered and the collaboration as, you know, as you know, I'm all about collaborations to grow our businesses. And so thank you for mentioning that, that, you know, the flower essence can be used in conjunction with other kinds of coaching, other kinds of mentoring, healing. So, so, if somebody were to want to work with you, Ruth, and you know, they're like, maybe maybe they're already doing some kind of coaching for their, for their, you know, for their leadership or for the personal development, how might they utilize your services to in conjunction. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was exactly where I want us to go next. And so here it is, and I'm actually going to show another page that is called online fluorescence therapy and you can find it here in services in my website. And in this one, I kind of give another introduction and this video is really nice because it shows how flowers are present in our lives in these different moments. And also the role that flower essences can play in your process of change and how often the consultations would happen and how long do they take and it's usually we can meet like once every three months, two or three months. Only one consultation once every three or months around every three months is enough for an ongoing process that goes in parallel with other in their work that the person is doing either on their own or separately. And what is interesting to know is that a reason for coming for fluorescence therapy can be, you know, I'm going through change. I am wanting to establish new habits. I am wanting to change some really deep patterns that I've had in my relationships and that are really getting on the way of my ability to experience intimacy and joy and peace in my relationships. Well, so many of these subjects can be subjects that can be helped with the flower essences and so many processes of self healing self awareness also, and also processes of deeper emotional healing. And Ruth, you also bring to the work besides the flower essence you also have additional kind of tools that you bring right to work with clients. Do you want to mention any of those. I would like to yes because one of the things is that my work with the flower essences is usually just the essence consultations but I have felt the need to have some additional tools for process. And I've trained and became very proficient at using voice dialogue that works with inner parts of the psyche. But in the merging of these two modalities and also my knowledge of Western astrology as well that studies the inner archetypes within us. What I found is that I was led to develop some very specialized forms of healing that deal with attachment wounds, as well as relationship issues and that help people transform patterns that are very deep and related to their early journeys with their inner child and all of that so one of the processes that that I've been offering I'm calling inner marriage, because that goes to the core of how our early emotional patterns got established. And there's a healing and a transformation there, and then a whole work on the inner masculine the inner feminine and how they can learn to come together in true encounter and collaboration and partnership. That's wonderful. Yeah. And I could put a link to the inner marriage, you know, page on your site as well. Coming up this year in 2020. You want to say a bit about, you know, you have various offerings you work with people one to one. And you also have a monthly gathering for people in your audience, you have a mentoring program. Tell us more about any of these things. Yes. Well, I do have this monthly gathering that is always free. And it's almost like a practice that people attune each time with in the context of a beautiful presentation with images and music they attune to one plant archetype. So I create the presentation and I lead the circle format, and people really love that experience. It's about an hour, sometimes an hour and 15 minutes and I have a group in English that I promote myself and there's a group in Portuguese as well. I'm sponsored by a company in Brazil and I'm the facilitator. So there's that. And the other piece of my work and offerings is supporting either professional flower essence practitioners, or professionals who want to use their essences in their practice in order to help people to whatever they do, coaching work, relationship work, etc. And for this, I have finally after listening to the need I finally launched the first mentoring group that's going to be mentoring for practitioners. I have that in a page in my website. And there will be more groups, according to demand as we go. Yeah. And so that is this part of me that feels I have a very extensive and deep experience as a practitioner and professional and I have a lot to offer to help encourage and inspire flower essence people, especially here in the United States and in Europe in countries where this modality has not become so well established, as it is in Brazil. And so there's a lot of work to be done to increase the awareness about this modality. And I'm really willing to support my fellow practitioners. Wonderful. So I will be sure to have the link to your, you know, your monthly gathering, as well as the mentoring group, if that's that's appropriate on in the notes of the video and I just encourage everyone watching this if you have been fascinated by essence, you know, and energy remedies to look at how Ruth is describing flower essences on her website. And Ruth, is there anything else you want to share a bit before we close off any other wisdom you want to share with us to send us off. Yeah, maybe I'll just bring in a closing thought about this idea of collaboration and co creation. I really believe that at this point that we've gotten in our relationship with life and the planet. We're only going to survive as a species here as humans. If we learn to listen and collaborate. So it is time that we work in partnership, listening to spirit and listening to nature listening to the earth and working together. We can really find a path forward. But to do that, we need to enhance her ability to attune. And that's one of the gifts that flower essences also often offer. They really help people cultivate that sense of awareness of their integration with these different levels and dimensions. That is beautiful. Thank you so much for your work and for the care that you bring to your audience and just your presence itself is healing. So thank you so much. Well, I thank you in all the same because care and presence is also who you are and I have so much appreciation for our collaboration. Thank you so much.