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Also known as Dancing Ladies, this orchid is known as Lluvia de Oro in central Costa Rica: Rain of Gold. A local orchid aficionado in her 80’s, Marta Sanchez, noticed that we were interested in this orchid and invited us into her home and garden so we could collect an essence of it. The essence of this orchid inspires boundless generosity, kindness and open-heartedness. It helps us open our hearts to the possibilities and surrender to the surprises of the present moment. It boosts our courage to extend ourselves and form new bonds of love. Read more here!
Notice when your heart hardens. Notice when your heart softens.
Notice when you shut down. Notice when you open up.
By being intentional when taking our flower essences, we remind ourselves, our guides and the universe what it is we want to embody. Choose one of the phrases below that most resonates, or make up your own! Every time you take your elixir, close your eyes and set your intention:
To take it one step further, as you take your elixir and set your intention, visualize everyone else in this program, all around the world, feeling light and free. By connecting with others in our group, we exponentially multiply the benefit + ripple effect!
Location: Both points are located on the forearm. San Jiao 5 is located on the back of the hand / outer side of the forearm - we take two finger breadths up, and it’s right in the middle of the bones, right in the meaty tendon. Pericardium 6 sits on the opposite side of the inner forearm - 2 breadth fingers up and right between the bones, in the meaty tendon. (Watch Erin’s demonstration in the video to see where the exact acupoints are.)
Indications: Imagine the heart as the emperor of the castle. Pericardium 6 is that "Inner Gate", like the front door, and the guard at the front door that watches and allows everything in and everything out that makes sense and is healthy for the heart.
San Jiao 5 is the "Outer Gate" that acts like the drawbridge beyond the front door. This point is a little bit more in the outside world, and has a little bit more ruling of what is allowed in. It looks at what is safe to allow into the castle, into the heart center.
And so the dynamic of these two points really helps to balance simple human connection.
Learn more about Erin’s work and book a 1:1 consultation with her here.
When do you find your heart hardening?
When do you find your heart softening?
When have you experienced mistrust in the last few weeks?
When have you experienced the joy of human connection in the last few weeks?
When have you felt the need to be guarded & self-protective?
In what situations are you pleasantly surprised by someone's kindness?
Prefer to have a printed journal with the writing prompts?
Download the Rain of Gold Orchid Journal here.
Offer spontaneous acts of kindness.
Random acts of flowers ~ surprising a random stranger or a loved one with a stalk of your favorite flower.
Cook a meal, drop off dessert or write a love note for your neighbor or someone you feel your heart has hardened towards.
Close your eyes and think of a situation or person you find yourself feeling guarded or holding back. Pause and notice how your body feels. When you’re ready, anoint yourself with some Open Heart anointing oil over your heart center or anywhere that needs some extra TLC. Close your eyes and notice if you feel different. Observe what arises.
I will help you experience:
Use me when:
So the Rain of Gold Orchid was an orchid that we were looking for specifically. In some countries it's called Dancing Ladies. It looks like a dancing lady and Taylor and I were like searching for this orchid in central, central southern, south central Costa Rica and I remember actually before we found the flower we had this like really interesting experience.
And I share this because maybe it can help instruct the sensation of the place that we collected the flower in. So we found this waterfall. We were staying with a friend who owns this brand new resort and we stayed in this crazy lotus tent and then we went to see this waterfall and the first time we went, I think we went with a group of girls, right?
And everybody just like stripped naked and went in and swam in the water and the water was like the most beautiful aqua color. It was like this color, it was crazy. And then we went back for some reason. Oh, we went back because we were looking for that particular orchid. We were looking for Rain of Gold at this place. And I don't remember what inspired this but suddenly we were like stripped naked and we went skinny dipping and we were taking photographs and it was like this totally surreal moment.
I've never experienced anything like this before in my life where it's almost like you become one with the jungle. It's like nothing about your experience seems like strange. Not, that's really strange for me. I don't very often just like rip off my clothes and go running around in the jungle. Never actually. that's not a common experience for me but here we were swimming and searching for the flower naked. I mean strange.
Taking photos and there was just such a sense of like not only oneness with the place but also safety. We didn't have any concerns of like what if people come or whatever. It just felt so natural and so safe and so welcoming.
So this is like the energy of the place that we were in and the weirdest thing. We looked and looked and looked and looked and looked all over in the vegetation and we didn't find this orchid. And so we ended up leaving the place and we were driving down the road and you'll see in the video that we posted in the blog post, this cute, short video that we shot of Marta, the woman that we met.
But it was so weird because, I don't think we told the story in the video, that we'd been searching for this flower all over the jungle side like butt naked, right? And then we couldn't find it and so we felt like okay, well we've gotta go get on our plane and drive back to San Jose and we just, we didn't make it, we didn't find it. We couldn't find it. Fail.
So we're driving down this rocky road and we just see one like jutting out of the side of the, like the wall near the road. We were like no way, that's so strange. So we parked the car and we're like lookin' at it and it's like way up ya know we couldn't reach it and so we're just kinda like scratching our heads looking at this flower and that's when Marta appeared from the other side and she was watching us admire this flower and she just sort of said, "Hey, so do you like that flower?" And we were just sort of like, what's going on? What, why is she asking us?
Anyway, long story short. She and her husband invited us in and it turned out that this was one of Marta's favorite orchids ever and that she had acquired one from somewhere as a gift and she just like grew tons of them in her backyard. She had so many of this particular orchid variety in her backyard. The weirdest thing. And I share this story because I think sometimes we doubt the so-called magic or synchronicity in life and sometimes when you put the call out there it comes from a totally different direction.
And so you know we may have spent the entire day combing the jungle side for this particular orchid and then suddenly it appeared through this beautiful 80-some-year-old woman who was growing tons of them in her backyard and she held that flower in really high regard. It meant a lot to her. So, one of the most bizarre ways that we've come to collect a flower. Typically that's not how we collect necessarily. Although, we have collected from some really special people's garden's before. But like how cool that she saw us and she like felt this kind of longing inside of us to have more of an interaction with that particular botanical.
Long story short, here we are with Rain of Orchid from south central Costa Rica. Bless her heart. Thank you, thank you, thank you Marta for letting us collect from your orchid that you tended to so lovingly and Rain of Gold is for that feeling of open-heartedness, generosity of spirit, for breaking down barriers, for dissolving any sense of like mistrust you know?
And in a climate like today when we're longing for facial expressions and warmth and love and affection and smiles and human connection, Rain of Gold amplifies our capacity to break down the barriers in our hearts and to soften and to notice when do we hold back, when do we guard, when do we protect ourselves, protect ourselves and when do we feel like we can soften and open our hearts whether it's to strangers or people that we love or people that we have difficult relationships with?
This month we are pairing the catalyst elixir. And just as a reminder, orchids tend to be kind of strong flower elixirs. Although, I feel like Rain of Gold is kind of a gentler orchid. But we paired the catalyst with an anointing oil, Open Heart. It's the perfect combination. If you hear children's voices, that's the micro-school that's in our building. So you can use Open Heart as a support as the Rain of Gold works its magic in your system.
And if this is your first time experiencing Open Heart, for me it's like cherry liquor. Taylor always says it smells like bananas but you can decide what it smells like for you. It's a really rare, a more rare rose and tonka bean and some really expensive oils. So it's really divine. So totally enjoy that and use that as a support to help you in your continuing process of noting to yourself.
If I were gonna say a particular awareness anchor for this month is to notice when do you harden to external phenomenon or to yourself or to a response inside of yourself and when are you able to open and soften despite whatever is arising in your environment or inside of you? Or you can notice if this language resonates more with you. Harden, soften, open, harden, close down, soften, open or hold back or extend.
So just noticing, right? And remember like you don't have to fix, solve. There's nothing that you have to do. There's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing you have to figure out. It's really just an awareness practice and in the noticing, in simply being aware of what's happening, things will already start to shift and change and your own inner wisdom will start to sort things for you.
So just noticing when do you close down and protect yourself and when do you feel like you can stay open no matter what is arising in your environment?
So sometimes when we're collecting flower essences, as we look to the overall kind of macro experience that's happening when we're collecting the flower or around the time we're collecting the flower as like an indication, not only of the energy that's coming through the environment but also that's sort of leading the way to the flower that we're looking for. So when we arrived in San Jose, I just wanted to share the story because it's like an amplification and our magnification sort of, of the flower essence.
So Taylor and I flew into San Jose. I'd never been there, actually. I'd been to Costa Rica several times, but flew into Liberia. So we flew into San Jose. I didn't know anything about it as a city. I figured I was probably just like the rest of the Costa Rica, right. No, it was totally different. I mean, we flew in at night and we got lost for what seemed like hours. Maybe it was only an hour. I don't know. It just seemed like hours, right. And we just kept going in circles. We couldn't find our Airbnb. It was a little crazy. And then we started reading the instructions and it was like never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ever park your car on the street or you'll be broken into or your car will be stolen. So always make sure you go to this especially designated garage spots or places with a fence where you pay the guy to look at your car because never, ever, ever, ever leave it on the street.
We finally ended up finding our Airbnb and there's like clearly, right, like tons of parking on the street to make it more convenient. But instead we had to park like three blocks down so that we could have this fellow look after our car. And then we walked, dragging our luggage to the Airbnb on this really empty street at night. And there were some fellas like watching us type in the code. So we're trying to hide the code to this Airbnb which is super cute but it was just like in this crazy environment.
So we're in this position where we feel a little bit unsafe, right. I speak Spanish so I'm comfortable, but I don't know anything about being in this new city. But we just kind of kept staying open to this situation, even though we were starving and lost for so long. And we ended up later that evening... I think we just walked around and asked people where to go. And we ended up at the most amazing restaurant where they had kombucha on tap and they had the most amazing food and it was just a really comfortable environment. And we could eat there at like 11 at night. We were so late. And it was open air and it was just so beautiful.
And then the next morning we found the cutest place to have breakfast with flowers and passion fruit smoothies and really kind to people in this cute little neighborhood. And I'm sure you've had those experiences as well where you feel a little bit like, uhhh, where am I?
And if you can just keep staying open to the experience, like the miraculousness of life and its glory kind of presents itself to you.
Then when we left San Jose we were driving to a friend of mine's resort. And I remember we were driving at night as we typically do. We're always driving at night cause that's just like what we do. And that's when you can't collect flowers. So we were driving at night and then there was this other weird experience where we were forced to get off on the road. There were like, just like guys in uniforms, but little shady, right. And didn't really feel right. And they closed the road and they were forcing everybody to go into this kind of rest stop area. Seemed real weird, kind of, you know when you get that feeling. But we just kept staying open and went into the rest stop and got some food and eventually maneuvered our way through it.
And it was fine but we kind of kept having experiences like that.
So how this relates to the Rain of Gold, which is the whole reason we went in the first place was to find this particular flower. It's like that feeling of, can you stay open even though a part of you wants to be really guarded and protective? Can you be aware? You know, we don't own that. Like advocate, just being totally like unaware. Or also don't want to advocate like shutting down on your intuition, right?
We've all done that too, where it's like, oh no that couldn't possibly be when all your red flags and bells are going off. You definitely want to listen to those red flags. But if you can continue to stay open and you have no choice in the matter, if you can continue to stay open and not get clamped down and stressed by what's happening you can still remain open to the kind of synchronicity of what you want to happen versus like tapping into the weird wave of fear that... who knows spirits. There could have been like a lot of different influences. So just kind of like keeping yourself not spin out. Spinny outty.
And I remember once when we were driving, I was driving there, driving back. We stopped and it was, we were at the top of the mountain and we stuck our heads out of the car and it was super dark pitch black and probably the most amazing stars I had seen in years. I mean, just jaw dropping stunning stars. Was like cannot believe I'm seeing something so incredibly beautiful. And then also hearing like somebody's cell phone. Fear, it's behind us in the pitch dark, you know, like, okay, let's go.
So it's like, you know, being aware of any possible real danger but also being open enough that you can actually experience the miraculous quality of life. I think that's really important right now.
And today is not to let fear or these waves of externally generated fear overwhelm us to the point that we can't be open to simultaneous experiencing the miraculous nature of life. And so, just sharing a couple of stories from our trip to collect that flower because I feel like it's totally in alignment with the teachings of this particular orchid.
So question for this week... maybe more like a noticing..
See if you can notice situations that feel a little tenuous or you feel a little guarded and see if you can experience something unusual or unique or beautiful by just remaining open.
And one more story I have about Rain of Gold. For some reason, you know, this is how this flower is expressing itself – in stories. So one more story from collecting it, and that is, the whole reason that we went to Costa Rica during this particular trip was to find this particular orchid, and because a friend of mine who lives in Miami was opening this new resort, and he wanted us to check it out and evaluate it as a potential retreat site.
He wasn't even there. But you know, it's like that special kind of like, you know, when someone invites you, it's so easy to say like, nah. And he wasn't even going be there. But he invited us, and it was like, yeah let's go! We could take a three-day trip to Costa Rica, and drive all the way down. Sure, why not?
So, my friend wasn't even there, we ended up meeting with his business partners, and their wives, and their families, and they were amazing. And then it turned out that the chef he had hired for the resort had previously worked with another really close friend of mine who owns a resort in India.
So it was this crazy synchronicity.
And we ended up just spending an amazing time with these people, enjoying incredible meals and enjoying their children and their kids and you know, one of those experiences where you just, on a whim, you like say yes, and then you end up meeting really cool people who start out as strangers, and then you have really amazing conversations with.
And, yeah, and then Taylor was also reminding me of when we actually collected the orchid, Marta like gave us an entire plant, and we'd already spent so much time with her, it didn't make sense to like, you know, cut some off and put it in a bowl in her backyard, and hang out for another hour or two. So, we went to look for like a secluded nature place so that we could actually do the making of the essence. And we were chasing the sun because it was getting late in the day, and so we were looking for a place, and we ended up finding this really beautiful place so that we could actually make the essence and get some of the sun rays.
But again it was like, going down these weird roads that we didn't know where we were going, and people going by, and wondering what we're doing there, and we didn't know if it was safe, and, you know, just like to keep staying open to the experience.
And I just find it really interesting that we set out on this trip, not only to evaluate the resort place, but we were so clear that we wanted to find this particular orchid flower. And so that the whole trip, the whole three days of experience in getting to actually find this flower at the last minute, like, you know, we spent three days in Costa Rica, and it was like, the last few hours that we found this flower.
So all these experiences sort of initiating us into the ability to find and collect this orchid. So all that to say, one of the best teachers that I've found for really helping us, again, stay open, especially in situations where we feel like an outsider, or awkward, or different, or barriered, or protective, or unsafe. Am I safe? Am I not safe? Should I be guarded? Should I hold back? In those types of situations.
This would be a really good flower essence to take anytime you are traveling internationally. Or camping, or going to a new area. Or going to meet new people or strangers. To do a retreat with people you don't know. This is the flower essence that we would send to all our retreat participants before they came to our annual retreat in Costa Rica. Sort of get everybody ready and open.
And right now, that kind of experience is really important I think with so many people covering their faces and not being able to see people's expressions. So many times like, I'll see people around town with masks on, and I don't even recognize them, right? Because I can't see their whole face, which I find so odd that I couldn't recognize a person. Right? But you can't see their face.
So, it's a wonderful essence for this time period, for helping us take greater risks in terms of reaching out to people and staying open no matter what.
So, question for this week to contemplate would be:
When do you say yes? Even if you're not quite sure, or you're holding back, or, maybe you don't know. Maybe everything's not going be all neat and tied up, and maybe it will be challenging for you; or like an adventure.
And yet, when in your life have you said, yes, and what happens when you do?
Something else that occurred to me as I was watching the original video that we shot with Marta when we collected the Rain of Gold, is that I remember just feeling so overwhelmed by her generosity and kindness and open-heartedness that she would let us, two perfect strangers, into her whole world and receive us with so much love.
She told us so many stories about friends of hers who had died and she had this like really joyful, joyful attitude about herself leaving or dying. She was in her 80s and felt like she had lived a really amazing life and she was ready whenever it came. So she had this amazing perspective about death that was so joyful.
And she also said, "It's so hard for me to cut down these orchids because they're my favorite. But the more that I cut them down, the higher that they grow."
And that just is such a good reminder of the abundance of nature and the nature of all things.
The truth is that everything is in abundance.
So this elixir also helps us dissolve tendencies of holding back in terms of like being stingy or not wanting to treat ourselves or wanting to like tighten up and no don't enjoy that ice cream and don't take that time off and don't take the holiday vacation and show up on your mmm, whatever, those weird things that we do. And also very specifically with things like money, being able to let go or part with financial resources, knowing that you're gonna get 10 times the amount back as what you invested in.
And being able to like really infuse whatever your choices are that you make, to be able to infuse it with that kind of energy of like joyous expenditure because it's coming back in, rather than like, "Oh I'm gonna spend this but," it's like it puts out a certain kind of energy in the world and around you and inside of you.
And so Rain of Gold will help us also in this moment in time, just be free. Like feel free to be generous, feel free to give away possessions of yours, to buy the expensive plant or invest in buying another house or send a bunch of money for some stocks or something. Like be free with your resources knowing that you will get tenfold in return, as that is the nature of life and this whole mother earth is, everything is in abundance, right?
I always remind people of like view of a fruit tree, you always get too much fruit you have to share it with your neighbors. If you have a garden, you always have to give away your stuff because you have too much, it's like over abundance. And so we can feel free to let things out because they will come in and they're everywhere. So we don't have to worry.
So the question for this week is:
What happens when you allow yourself to splurge a little or to feel free with your generosity of time, energy, resources, knowing that it will come back to you tenfold.
