06/08/2026
Passiflora incarnata
With her intricate flowers that draw me in just like they do the bees. They send me buzzing around the garden from flower to fruit completely in awe of their strength, beauty, and simple wonder. I collect the flowers and the leaves and marry them in warm golden honey. A syrup for dream time and rest, for strengthening and settling my cyclical thoughts. I stare into the flowers crown of fine filaments spreading out in all directions and it reminds me of our nervous system. Despite her wild look, everything has a perfect and precise place, this aligns with how a simple syrup or tea of the leaves and flowers can bring about a feeling of calm and peace and a settling to those feelings of angst, turmoil, and worry. Inner chaos dissipates like soft bubbles rising up out of the creek along the water’s edge.
In the evenings before I sleep, I reach for this sweet elixir and take a few droppers under my tongue. Like clock work, I usually feel it first in my neck and shoulders where I carry more tension, a softening happens, my shoulders relax and the pain there begins to diminish. This is when I’ll usually read, write in my journal, pray, and begin to slow my mind down so that sleep can find me. Creator knows I be running from rest and my body and spirit needs extra support to make it happen.
Passiflora is gentle in her effectiveness, it’s not an all at once can’t keep my eyes open feeling, it’s more like all at once my body has relaxed and my mind feels quiet. A balm for tired muscles and tension stored within.
I admire her in the garden and watch the vines climb and reach to an endless height. Wrapping, grabbing, supporting and being supported. All day an army of little marching ants work dutifully to collect the sweet nectar from her vines. Every year I watch the ants move in for the first half of the season (this is when I harvest) and the second half in about another month, the butterflies will be back and they will begin their honorary ritual of life. Soon, the entire garden will be fluttering with gulf fritillary butterflies. Without the Passiflora, they would perish forever and without them, I think the same would happen to the Passiflora in time.
There’s this perfect balance found within the spirit and life of this plant and it’s something I always enjoy pondering and trying to embody myself. So many ways these plant and animal kin show us and teach us the big things, but they often come in such ordinary or small packages that we overlook them all together. Passiflora reminds me it’s okay to slow down and prioritize rest and recovery, these things are imperative and synonymous to vitality and balance.
Grateful for plant wisdom 🌀🙏🏽🌱
