Hedera helix

Ivy grows on trees and rocky walls, suffocating and killing even stately trees and cracking old, sturdy walls. It is the flower essence for breaking free from situations and mind sets that have a strangeling stronghold on us.

These often subconscious believes and mental contracts (“I will stay small and insignificant if you stop attacking me”) create a lot of tension. In the same way that Ivy cracks walls and buildings by its stranglehold, these mental patterns cause our muscles to cramp around the bones. Ivy flower essence relaxes muscular tension held especially in neck, shoulders and upper thoracic spine caused by them.

The light green color of the flowers guide the energetic effect to the heart chakra, and the spherical flower head, the umbel, points to its effect on the head. Ivy can make us feel connected to the universe. Ivy addresses the scenario of trying to press life out of a rock, grabbing ahold for dear life of a hopeless situation, and when we feel that someone or a situation has us in a deadlock-like stranglehold. In co-dependence, it addresses the imbalance where we make someone into our rock to rest on, making ourselves weak; as well as when we become someone else's rock in an imbalanced way. It clears convoluted and confused thoughts, allowing us to see the entangled patterns we have gotten ourselves into, as well as how to get out of them. This is especially true again of unhealthy patterns that seem to have us in a stranglehold.

Since we often hand over our power when under duress, overpowered by someone else, these situations also allow the bully to then siphon off our energy. This is common when children become overpowered by a parent who wants to live off of their energy. This makes Ivy essence helpful in certain cases of soul retrieval. While it is as hard and tedious to undo those early, often pre-verbal and subconscious contracts as to rip old ivy off of a stone wall, when taking Ivy flower essence, the energetic ties fall off effortlessly: the vine releases the tangle. The image of the energy being siphoned off are the suction “feet” with which the ivy vine “cements” itself against the support.

Many people feel instantly calmer when taking Ivy essence. A six year old girl adopted from China whose emotional maturity is three years of age said “it calms me down”. It also calms people in stressful situations, such that they feel bound or torn, for instance by the grief over losing loved ones.

One of my clients felt that the prolonged stress of the abusive situation with her slave owner type father was straining her physical heart. When starting on Ivy essence, it highlighted the energetic struggle, and she felt how the abuser was trying to own, to clutch her heart. She perceived this as his energy tentacles penetrating into the flesh of her heart like ivy roots boring into rock, and how that had been leading to heart palpitations. As she continued on the essence, she recovered her sense of personal power, the energy ties consequently dropped (as she no longer perpetuated them from her side), and thus the palpitations stopped. As a result, her fifth thoracic vertebra which had been blocked since her father last attacked her as if wanting to kill her became looser and became adjustable – after 3 ½ years!

A collegue of mine reports: “When I took the Ivy a few weeks ago, I was already a bit exhausted and shut down from a conflict. I immediately felt it in my heart - there was an explosion out and then my 3rd chakra opened up and there was fire between my 3rd and heart. Finally some grounding. I immediately had some new perspective about my conflicted relationship. The gateway opened for me to realize how I was giving away my power and becoming smaller than I am to keep someone else from feeling uncomfortable.” She went on to confront the demeaning situation, demanding to be treated with respect. “I took Ivy some more to work through a lot of conflict in which felt taken advantage of by others. At some point I realised that my unintegrated 7 year old trauma of energetic incest made me permeable to other people's energy. Essentially, when I was 4-5-6, I was encouraged to have a sense of self and be independent, but when I was 7 (the age my mom was she was apparently molested), she began projecting on me and energetically took over my energy field and sense of self.

She was afraid and angry and wanted me to be like her - adult - so I wouldn't be vulnerable like she was as a child.  Family members had also recently told me that it seemed like my mom didn't want me to be myself, that she wanted me to be a little version of her.

A clairvoyant healer told me she could see a disharmonious relationship between me and life, that I feel like I'm giving and giving and giving and that I have no more to give. Like Ivy strangling the life out of what it's growing over, and I felt like I was about to die.  Finally, she looked into my relationship with my partner and saw that since I am used to be energetically taken over, he was doing it in funky ways: being MESSY and taking over our space!  The healer gave me some things to talk with him about. Because he is friends with her, he took it all to heart and has changed the way he had been projecting "Mom" on me as well as the way he cleans up after himself - he is beginning to create more order in his life. 

So, in short, I was being energetically overtaken like IVY does. The process I went through on Ivy was about getting a clear sense of who I am -- my gifts, self worth and uniqueness at first. Then it was about my permeability and retreating to be in my own energy. Finally, it was about learning to keep my own energy field clear in and around me and connecting with people by connecting with the space and energetic flow between us... finally, not letting them into my field.”  

Ivy essence would make an excellent essence for bullies – fierce bullies that won't let go of the pit bull type, like Donald Trump. I am imagining the same for unshakable addiction patterns that tie into the above.

Dreams: Ivy flower essence can evolve our dreams about those above mentioned psychological situations. A woman with a history of sexual abuse in early childhood had had repeated dreams of dogs biting her hands off (the raping father taking away her powert to handle her own life). After taking a bath in the essence felt that not only did her father continue sucking her life force from her heart, but that he also continued to suck her sexual energy. She went on to dream that she was taking a bath in a healing well (her inner well spring) in a cave (her womb). An old hyena with only two teeth showed up (the canines in her dreams had always represented her father). For the first time in such a dream, she was not terrified. The hyena came close to sniff her hand and put his face against hers, but she was able to master her fear. This is the first dream of this kind she did not start awake from in a panic. Later during her course of Ivy, she had another dream about a dog, even less scary than this one.

Indications: co-dependence, challenging relationships in which there is a battle of power, energy-vampirism (predator and victim), deeply rooted destructive or disempowering beliefs, mental and energetic entaglements, feeling that a person or situation is sucking our energy, binding spells (predator and victim), confusion, extreme feelings

Attributes: dropping abusive energetic ties, brings to awareness the subconsious patterns that make us hold on to abusive relationships, cuts heart fetters, feeling more relaxed

Uses in Bodywork: on heads and shoulders for release

Energetic Qualities: Ivy widens and relaxes the aura, thus relaxing the entire musculo- skeletal energy and releasing mind and emotions along with this, especially in neck and shoulders. It helps the entire system unwind and is grounding. The image is that when the muscles cramp around the bones like the ivy vine tightens around the rocks, the essence will release the mental emotional tension that gave rise to this. Ivy particularly effects the heart (calming) and head areas (expanding). When given in the appropriate situation, it is calming and grounding, also calming the heart.