Who We Are...

Many of you have asked how Light Expression Essences came to be. To begin, it is important for me to start at the beginning of my education and awareness of "Nature". Many years ago, a friend gave me a copy of Machaelle Small Wright's book, Behaving as if the God in All Life Mattered. Machaelle is the creator of the Perelandra line of flower essences. With the information from that book and what I had already learned from reading about Dr. Edward Bach, M.D., the creator of Bach Flower Remedies, a broader picture was beginning to unfold. Our lives were in for a big change.

After reading Machaelle's book, Wayne and I began to discuss these ideas and talked about implementing them in our garden in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. We already had a lovely perennial garden and a very productive organic vegetable garden next to our house. We were also in the process of expanding our urban garden sanctuary. So, working co-creatively with Nature on a conscious level would have been very comfortable for us. But, before we started the next phase in our gardening operation, we decided that it was time for a much needed family vacation. We decided on traveling out West to show our son, Avery, the grand sites of Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Mesa Verde, Santa Fe, and many points in between. This vacation turned out to be a lovely way for Spirit to work within us all.

We were guided to many loving encounters with Nature while on our vacation and were continually amazed by how many close encounters with rare species of Nature we found ourselves confronted with. By the time we arrived back home in Atlanta, we were invigorated by Nature's power and beauty. We were now ready to begin phase two of our urban garden, or so we thought. We no sooner got out of our car and walked into the house with suit cases in hand when we found ourselves saying "Yes" to an abrupt change in our lives.

Wayne had gone immediately to his answering machine to check our messages and found a message from a high school friend of his inviting us to Virginia. But this was not just an invitation to visit, rather this was a request for us to consider moving to rural Virginia. Wayne and I knew that something was up, so we decided to check it out. Within three weeks of returning home from our vacation, we found ourselves making the long drive to Virginia to see for ourselves what was trying to get our attention. Wayne and I both had driven through the Shenandoah Valley many times, so we already knew first hand its beauty and quaint presence. In fact, on several of my drives through the Valley, I had often felt a pull by the mountains, asking me to stay. By the end of our weekend visit with Wayne's friend, we found ourselves in a realtor's office putting a contract on a house. We knew that it was not the house we were meant to have, but rather our way of saying "Yes" to whatever Spirit was asking us to do next in our lives. When we left on that summer Monday morning to return to Atlanta, we said to our host that we would indeed be moving to the Valley. We were confident that we would be moving into our new farm within a year. That turned out to be a very accurate statement.

The gears were in motion and we were being propelled to Virginia at a speed that was overwhelmingly fast and smooth all at the same time. From the moment we said yes to Virginia, it was as if we were no longer residents of Georgia. Rather, we were just there in Atlanta for as long as it took us to sell our house, pack, and disconnect from Wayne's contracting business. The funny part of it was that we did all of those things with the knowledge that we still had no residence purchased or determined for certain in Virginia.

We had already made several trips to Virginia to house hunt, but had not located "our farm" - until one cold weekend in February. We decided to drive to Virginia and put a contract on a farm that we had seen earlier in the year, but knew that it was still not quite the right one for us. Even though this place offered no sense of permanence, we felt that perhaps this would do until we found "our farm". We were definitely intent on moving to Virginia and left open all avenues to get the job accomplished. Fortunately for us, the easiest route presented itself immediately upon arriving that cold weekend in February. We already had an appointment with a realtor to take a second look at Farm #1 and most likely we would put a contract on it that weekend. The friends that were inviting us to move to Virginia and with whom we were staying said to us upon arriving that they thought our "dream farm" was for sale and that before making any commitments to Farm #1, we should take a look at Farm #2. This was not a problem for us.

We went to our first appointment, took another look around that first farm and tried to determine whether we could make that place suit our needs. The house was in rough shape and honestly, it would require all but blowing it up to get it renovated. The land we concluded was OK, but not really what we envisioned our farm to be. With these less than superlative characteristics, this farm was better than anything else which we had considered. Neither Wayne nor I felt excited about the place, so we told the agent that we needed a little more time to think about it and we would get back with them before the weekend was over.

Meanwhile, we returned to our friend's home and decided to take a look at Farm #2, the one our friends were encouraging us consider. We hopped into our car and our friend, Richard, got into his car and we followed him down lovely winding country roads until he finally pulled off the road, got out of his car, and came over to us with a puzzled look on his face. He said to us that he couldn't understand it; we had past by the house and there was no "For Sale" sign visible. Richard said that he had seen a "For Sale" sign in the front yard in the past week. We all said at once, "Let's turn around, drive by again and take a closer look." We got in our cars and drove in the direction of Farm #2. Richard pulled over once again to the side of the road in front of our "to be farm" and he pointed across the road to a lovely Victorian farm house and said, "That's the place that I just knew was for sale. I saw the sign out front just the other day." My heart took a leap at that moment. Every part of me said, "That's the place, that's our new home." Of course, there appeared to be one small problem ? no "For Sale" sign. Wayne must have felt the same way, because before I could say anything to him about how I was feeling, he was already getting out of the car and saying that he was going to ask the people at the house if the place was in fact for sale. At that moment, I was extremely glad that Wayne was not a bashful person. He walked up to the front door and before he could even knock, the woman who was living there at the time met him at the door and asked if she could help him. He proceeded to tell her the story of our friend thinking that he had recently seen a "For Sale" sign in their yard and that we were looking for a farm to buy. Right away she answered that "Yes, the farm is for sale and the papers were just signed yesterday; but the Realtor had not yet placed the sign on the property." The lady allowed that if we wanted to see the property, we should contact their Realtor. We left immediately to call and make an appointment.

We met with their agent that evening just before dark and we only had a short time to look around before the sun was to set. I didn't need much time to look around though; I knew in my heart that this was the place. We probably spent less than an hour looking through all of the out buildings, barn and house. The land was exactly what we were looking for as well. There were beautiful rolling fields across the road that went with the farm. Even in the dead of winter, you could see that the land on this farm was a superlative among other land in the Valley.

Further back behind the fields were several more acres of woodlands. Around the house area were lovely pastures, just enough space to put some horses, we thought. The barn was huge and in pretty good condition for it's age. Next to the house, there was a large vegetable garden. Everything looked perfect to us, and more importantly, it felt right! With no hesitation in our minds or hearts, we told our Realtor that we wanted to put a contract on this farm that weekend.

We were beside ourselves with joy at that moment. Everything felt totally in harmony with our plans. To top it off, that Saturday was my birthday and we were ready to celebrate! I do not believe that I have ever had a better birthday than on that weekend in 1989. We knew in our hearts that the Universe had directed our friend to that farm earlier in the week and that he had been shown the imaginary "For Sale" sign (in his mind) in order that we be able to make a purchase prior to purchasing something else.

The next task at hand for us was to get back to Georgia, finish a few projects on our house, and get it ready to sell. We moved like a colony of ants preparing everything in order to place a "For Sale" sign in our Atlanta residence front yard. For the sake of budget, we decided that we would need to sell our house without the assistance of a Realtor. At that time, I was working out of our home and felt that I knew our house better than anyone. I could be available at a moment's notice to show it. Once again, everything worked perfectly. Our house sold within three months of it being offered and we were out of there and on our way to Virginia on the exact day to which we had committed back in February.

This had been an exciting five months from the day we found our farm, to the day we finally went to settle finances at closing. If ever there was something Divinely guided, it was our process in moving to Virginia. In one year, we decided to relocate, found a farm, finished renovating our Atlanta home, sold our house ourselves, and firmly landed in rural Virginia. We were exhilarated and exhausted all at the same time.

Once moved in at the farm and unpacked, we stood ready for whatever else Spirit had planned for us. Our lives had just changed dramatically. I had a feeling that it was only the beginning of the changes that we were about to experience. When the physical and emotional trials of relocating subsided, we discovered, as "luck" would have it, that Machaelle Wright's "Nature" research center was only an hour away and her only annual workshop on co-creative gardening was in two weeks. "Luck" again intervened and two places opened in the workshop. Wayne and I jumped at the chance to attend.

Machaelle's workshop was a powerful learning experience. It took months for us to assimilate all the ideas and working concepts. As always, once ideas are absorbed, more concepts form. We began to map out our garden in our minds. Several months passed and I discovered a place of worship that was endowed with wonderful, gifted and seeking souls. It was there that I met Christen McCormack, who was to become one of my dearest friends. She was conducting a workshop on communicating with Spirit; Wayne and I registered immediately. Christen taught us dowsing as a way of Spirit communication. Dowsing comes from the ancient Chinese word "Tao" which means God/The Way/The Order of Nature, the way Nature works and is connected to all. For me, dowsing was a tool that provided a connection to the God within through the use of my pendulum. I also discovered that I could communicate with "Nature" and the Devic community through the use of dowsing tools.

Back to our garden…. Wayne and I, shaky at first, had begun to co-create our first garden that Spring. We muddled along with what we knew and that first co-creative garden wasn't bad for our efforts. The next winter (all good gardens start in the planning stage in the dead of winter), we made a list of all the tools we needed and added a friend to the list, Shirley Smoot. With my new found gift of dowsing and Shirley's gift of the ability to hear Spirit to validate my findings, an "Energy Garden" began. In putting together the design and ingredients for the garden, I was guided to add elements from the Mineral Kingdom for balance. Every good garden has rocks in it, right?

This garden, our garden, had requests for coexistence with specific stones. Using my dowsing skills, I went over lists of rocks and gemstones. I found there were ten gemstones which the Overlighting Deva of the Garden had in mind for the altar area. At the end of my day with Shirley, I had before me lists of flowers, herbs, vegetables, fruits, rocks, gemstones and the overall design of the garden. Yes . . . it was a long day. There is a great deal of effort involved in mapping a garden such as this. "Nature" is very specific. We began to order seeds and plants; however, I gave little thought to stones, thinking that I could pick them up at any rock store.

During the next few days, I was out with Christen when we began discussing Flower Essences. I told her that Flower Essences didn't seem to be necessary tinctures in my life. She suggested Mineral Essences and gave me a brief description of their process. My little voice said, "What about the gems for your garden, could it be you need essences from those stones?" On return home, I checked with the Overlighting Deva of the Garden who replied, "Of course, it's good that it didn't take you a fortnight to come to this realization."

The list of stones took on a whole new meaning. I felt an uncontrollable urge to create the essences "NOW". Initially, I thought that I needed help to find the stones so I asked the Deva if I could request the help of Judith Gott, a friend and jeweller in Atlanta. An overwhelming "yes" resounded and I telephoned Judith who agreed to the quest. My mission didn't sound strange to her at all. However, a project we thought would take weeks turned into months in search of the perfect stones. After many trials and tribulations, Judith finally phoned with the news that the stones were on their way. I later discovered that the reason it took Judith so long to find all of the requested minerals (stones) was because she, as well as myself, were unaware of the fact that there was only to be a specific stone from each mineral group that was to participate in what was to become Light Expression Mineral Essences (LEME). In order to guide her to the exact minerals wishing to be part of the LEME Collection, Spirit had to play a few games with Judith in order to keep her from purchasing an incorrect stone for this project. For instance, the person that she was to meet would not be there at the agreed upon time; or, the stone that she was told was available was gone by the time that she arrived; and so on.

Because Judith had an understanding of the importance of this project to me, she was persistent in her quest for the minerals on my list. The stones were exactly the quality and specifications that were requested. We were jubilant. If I had felt confident at that time of my ability to hear Spirit's promptings, I would have had a much easier task than Judith did in acquiring all of the needed minerals. In time, I did indeed develop the ability to hear clearly the communications from Spirit pertaining to the project that I was involved with. Beyond that, after using the Mineral Essences for a while, my abilities to hear Spirit's guidance increased by light years.

Our second garden, the "Energy Garden", was underway, although for the first few weeks it appeared to all passersby as a garden of strings. You should have seen it ? there were lines of string going up and down and across to define the labyrinth style rows of this garden. Once the stones had arrived, I became anxious to get to the next process, but first I had to cleanse them. Luck again played a part. The full moon was upon us. I put the stones in the center of the garden on top of a larger flat rock (the altar area) and left them to be renewed by the moon.

Shortly after the cleansing, Christen and I began to get the information from the stones on the essence process and purpose. At that time, I assumed that these essences were for my personal use. It wasn't until we had finished the definitions that Christen and I realized that these essences had a far more significant purpose and mission. Christen spent a great deal of time working with each stone for its definition and I did the dowsing intuitive work to confirm the information that she was getting and to get the "recipe" for each individual stone's essence. Ten stones, ten definitions later it became obvious that there would be two more stones in the group. I thought I would start immediately making essences. Not so. I was to wait another two months before everything was "energetically" correct. The recipes looked simple enough but proper sun time, proper moon time, proper rest time was complicated.

Once again, Spirit was bringing to me the help that I needed to move forward with the project. Because I doubted my ability to hear Spirit, Spirit brought Christen to me to "jump start my intuitive ability to connect with Nature and receive the needed information." I had, at the time, the strange notion that I didn't have the gift to hear guidance, when in fact, hearing was what I did best. What I was in need of at that time was confidence in what I was doing.

It took a while for all the gears to click into place within my conscious mind in order for me to realize that in our own individual ways, we are all here doing spiritual work. And, I specifically was being asked to make these essences. Once I had aligned with this idea, I found myself very open to hearing Spirit's guidance. More and more information was coming to me every day about the work that I was being asked to do. My confidence grew along with my abilities to communicate directly with Nature. This process that I was going through was actually a natural progression in opening to my Soul's purpose here on Earth. By the time the minerals were ready to be made into essences, I found that I was also ready and prepared to participate in the process of making them. The minerals weren't the only things needing to be cleansed. That summer, I did much to release dense thought patterns of my own that were interfering with my new job description. The day that I began the process of making the first Mineral Essence felt like a birthday.

Unlike Flower Essences, which are all made pretty much the same way, taking basically a half-day to make each Flower Essence - Mineral Essences, I found, take much longer to prepare. All of this work has to do with infusing a frequency into a solution, and the frequency of a stone has a much different quality than that of a flower. Thus, a stone can take up to several weeks to infuse its frequency into the water. I was amazed at how long it took me to make the Mineral Essences. With the stones in the water being out in the sun for days, the evaporation rate was very high. I usually had to go through the process twice in order to come close to the needed amount of essence solution. All of the stones with which I was working required different amounts of days and/or nights in the garden. I was also receiving information during the time I was making the essences about how to use them for the greatest good for healing. One of the clearest pieces of information that came through was that you should always check yourself for Flower Essences at the time of using the Mineral Essences. This single bit of information is most important in the understanding of balance.

Finally, I sat in awe before all the mother essence bottles. They looked complete sitting in their brandy solutions. As I began to work with all of the newly made essences, I was aware that I was acting as the guinea pig for this project. The first day, I took all of the essences (my husband Wayne watching, thinking I might vaporize!). I consumed the essences with water and waited. I only had to wait a few seconds to experience what felt like a locomotive being driven up my spine. I was a believer. Three months after taking the initial ten Mineral essences I knew it was time to begin the search for the next stone that was wishing to become an essence. Stone eleven came first (naturally!). Several days before I actually ventured out to find the next gemstone, I connected with the Overlightng Deva of the Mineral Kingdom and asked for guidance in locating the next gemstone. It took little time before I was shown a shop and was told that the next mineral for the collection would be found there. Upon arriving at the rock and mineral shop, I sensed immediately the area in the shop where my next gemstone was located. I found the gemstone easily, made my purchase, and returned home eager to begin making this next essence. That was easy; one stone compared to ten! Several months after the eleventh essence was made, I received a prompting that it was time to track down the twelfth gemstone.

The twelfth gemstone was a challenge. Of course it didn't need to be, but for some reason I chose to make it difficult. I was taken into a different store, not as orderly as the last. It looked as though a dump truck had spread its offerings and driven off. I found the stone that I was sent to find immediately, but ego stepped in: "No, this couldn't be the right one." I left after an hour of searching. I dreamt that night of the stone I originally held. It was the right stone. The next day, I drove back to that rock store and brought it home. The process of making the last essence in the set had begun. At this point, clumsy at first, the definitions began coming to me in small sentences, which eventually blossomed into paragraphs. When I found myself making Light Expression Mineral Essences for the first time, I had no idea that there would be more essences to make. Nor did I have a clue that I was being asked to turn it all into a "real" business. I was simply following my guidance on faith that what I was doing was correct. By the time I finished what is now known as Light Expression Mineral Essences Collection I, I was clued in on the understanding that there would be two more collections of Mineral Essences. What I didn't know at the time was that in addition to the three collections of Mineral Essences, an entirely new and different series of essences were waiting to be created and brought into the material plane.

The second collection of Mineral Essences came along during the fall of 1992 through the winter of 1993. At first it was a slow process, almost without any enthusiasm, but by winter I felt myself being pushed into my car almost every day in search of new stones. As I was guided each day to go out and get another stone, all that I would be given the night before was a town name, or maybe the name of the shop where the next stone would be waiting for me. Some days I literally went out in search of the next stone with a map of Virginia on my lap, not totally certain where I would end up. By the time I had over one half of the stones for the second collection, I had found myself coming home some days with stones for the third collection. It almost felt as if Nature wanted to be sure that I would do all three collections, by committing me to purchasing the stones for the third collection in advance.

Since starting this entire adventure with Nature, I have found it easier to just go with the flow rather than ask too many questions up front. The process seems to go smoother that way. By the end of the winter I had sitting on our kitchen counter and window sill, all of the stones for the collections of LEME II and III. I even had one essence made and defined. As Spring arrived, I was back out in the garden with stones, bowls, and water making the essences. Only this time something different was happening. As I picked up each stone to get the information on how to make it (for each stone has a different "recipe" for its completion), I found the definition quickly coming to me. No time to waste putting this collection together, I thought. I found that some weeks I was able to accomplish much with the making of the essences and other weeks life would ask to be lived and I experienced delays. Another thing happened while making the second collection of Mineral essences. I was being asked to begin a new series of essences, soon to be known as Light Expression Vibrational Nature Essence Series. By the time that I had completed the making of the 36 Mineral Essences, which took another year, I was well into the process of making the new Vibrational Nature Essence Series.

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