A Funny Shape

Have you ever seen one of these old European gardens with bushes that are trimmed into funny forms and shapes? I remember one garden around a castle. There was a bush in the shape of a square, another one looked like a ball and the next one looked like a duck. You wouldn’t guess what these bushes were: They were cedar trees! Cedar trees, cut and trimmed and tied into strange shapes that did not even remotely resemble a cedar tree anymore!

Aren’t they amazing trees, those cedars? They survive that kind of treatment when most other trees would not. What is even more amazing is that they still remember how they were meant to be by nature and, as soon as the trimming stops, they grow a straight trunk (or stem?), reach upwards towards the sky like their wild sisters and after some years you do not see a duck or ball or square anymore, you see a real cedar tree standing there.

Do you remember when you were forced into a shape that wasn’t yours? When you had to learn to fit in, when you had to smile when you were angry, to be nice when you were upset? You probably were not physically bent and broken. Yet most of us were forced into a mould; were filled with beliefs that cut down our natural beauty, that limited our joy, that made us follow rules that did not feel right.

As homeopaths we make remedies out of almost everything, and of course, also out of the needles of a cedar tree. We call this remedy Thuja, which is simply its Latin name. As a remedy it connects us with the wisdom of the cedar tree which helps us to remember who we were originally, how we were meant to be before our sense of who we are was confused and distorted by punishment, criticism, ridicule or by beliefs about who we are that were forced into us. We got confused when we were told that we were not smart, not beautiful and/or simply not good. We might have tried to hide behind a façade, behind a hedge of trimmed cedar trees so nobody sees us. Thuja is also one of our main remedies for this kind of confusion. What a blessing to have a cedar tree grow in our inner landscape, in the landscape of our soul, and remind us of who we truly are. What a blessing that there is homeopathy, that there are remedies that help us to find the path back to our true nature.

Thuja might not be the perfect remedy for you but there is a remedy specifically for you that can help you to find the way to your true self and to health. If you want, we can find it together.