Phlox, jojoba and Junior Thompson

Phlox tenuifolia

family Polemoniaceae

Desert phlox growing together with jojoba. They support one another these plants growing together. These plants support one another the one is so strong and everywhere. The other one is there but needs a lot of help so we can stand in the sun and grow. I was taken back by the beauty of the phlox supported by the jojoba.

 I understood that we need to be open to support one another. Some of us with different talents, different strengths. 

     I just spent a couple days in ceremony with Randolph "Junior" Thompson  and ate a lot of medicine and I was thinking of how I need to change my life.

How I need to gather songs and flowers and listen to the words of the flowers are singing. May be the medicine already changed my life and brought me to a new appreciation of sobriety and sober living. I need to do something different something that will bring these plant medicine songs to people. These plants are songs. These plants are singing and you can listen to their songs and invite them into your heart. 

    These two plants growing together touched my heart, because my heart is open. The azèè shima, brought back from the medicine garden Texas by Daniela and Junior, the fresh strong medicine of this amazing plant. Praying for the water, praying for the water of the Gila River and all the waters that we drink to nourish and restore bodies. I'm seeing what the rain brought here in the desert, bringing up these flowers, raising up the songs. how these flowers support one another.

I realize that I've been supporting only myself and haven't been true to my calling. We need to support one another like these Plants support  one another so that we can grow and be who we need to be.

      

    I was recently spending some time with Simmondsia chinensis

at about 3500ft/1067m, you can see the opposite leaves, the pairs erect-ascending, dull green, and yellowish-green male flowers are borne in clusters. Their upward tilted leaves are opposite, the pairs erect-ascending, dull green, simple, entire, coriaceous(leathery; stiff and tough, but somewhat flexible) evergreen, obscurely pinnately veined, elliptic to oblong- they maximize their position for photosynthesis in the early morning and late afternoon hours, during the midday sun avoiding the harsh heat their leaves thus deflect the sun. I was sampling pollen when i saw the vine phlox

growing here supported by jojoba.

The Phlox corolla narrowly funnelform, brilliantly highlighted by the dull green Simmondsia background looking vibrantly white creamy colored, the soft lobes , obtuse to truncate. Leaves linear to narrowly lanceolate, flat, glabrous(without surface ornamentation such as hairs, scales or bristles) The inflorescence with 2-3 flowers pedicelled delicately in yellow green; pedicels sparsely glandular to short pilose.

    I saw a lot of things with the medicine. I spoke to several people that have passed on that I needed to say, "Thank you, good morning. I missed you since you've been gone. I've been here learning about the plants, just like I told you I would." I asked the medicine to give me some more years here, because there's a lot of work to do and people need to hear about these plants and use them for medicine. I need to learn so much more and spend time with these plants where they grow. I need to spend enough time with them that I can hear what songs they have to sing and bring them back for the people that need help.

     These two plants grow together and they support one another, even though very different it works. It works because our creator is made it that way the things that are very different work together to help one another. 

     It's been about 25 years since I sat in the tipi, we're back at square beauty with grandfather Bennett, and back at Aneth, Utah with the Fats and the black horse clan. A lot of things of changed I was much more of a young man then now I'm much more of an old man although there are still parts of the young man here. 

      'Junior' and Leeroy said, "you've got to go to the plant, bring some tobacco done with the plant till the plant what you need. Tell the plant what you need for and why you're gathering it so you can make good medicine. The plants, the water, everything that our Creator brought us. Everything the Creator put here, they're all here to make it a better day, make it a good morning and feel really good when you wake up. Be grateful for everything, for waking up. Every day commit and promise  sober living because that's what the medicine wants us to do,  to be clean and sober.

     

Little messages and teachings are everywhere if you just open up your eyes and spend some time with this creation, if you want to know what the flowers, what the plants can do, look at them, watch them, listen to them. Talk to the plants because you're part of our family, listen to them, here with they have to say. Every plant is singing a song and that song can help you on your way. If you want to work with the plants then you have to listen to what they have to say, ask them what you need, tell them you have a need and that's why you're picking them it's why you were going to use them in this way.