Red Clover- A Nourishing Herb and a Catalyst for Self-Actualization

Hey Beautiful, today, we’re talking about Red Clover Blossoms. I'll share with you why Red Clover is a wonderful herbal ally for women and for lung health. I’ll also share my personal and direct interaction with Red Clover. This is not a video that solely focuses on an impressive list of therapeutic qualities and phytochemicals of Red Clover. This video is primarily about the insights that I'm learning from Red Clover on a personal and spiritual level. Red Clover teaches us about protection, Qigong, receiving, reciprocity, deep listening, and self-actualization.

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If this is our first time meeting, my name is Maria Chowdhury, and I'm a midwife-herbalist and Qigong practitioner. As a midwife, I've helped hundreds of babies be born safely at home, and as an herbalist, I created an herb company called Birth Song Botanicals. We make lots of herbal remedies for women and children and sell them all over the world. You can check us out at and learn more about our herbs at Birth Song Botanicals and more about Qigong at pathwithharmony.com

Last year the Red Clover grew abundantly in my garden. It grew a little off on the edge. I could see it from the front door, but I needed to walk over to it to harvest it. This year the Red Clover leaped over and started growing directly in the middle of my garden's most prominent place. Now, no matter which path I take to enter or leave the office, I have to walk by the Red Clover.

Since she is making herself more obvious and growing directly in my path, she captured my attention. It makes me ask, what are you trying to show me? What do you want me to understand? When I stop and listen to the messages and teaching of Red Clover, I'm humbled and want to share her message with you too.

Red clover flowers (Trifolium pratense) is rich in nutrients and often included in Chinese herbal formulas to support bronchial and respiratory health.  We add Red Clover Blossoms to our Children's Daily Immune tincture because of Red Clover's ability to move phlegm and mucus out of the respiratory tract. Women look to Red Clover to regulate their irregular periods. Red Clover supports perimenopausal women with their transition and with their hot flashes. Red Clover can be enjoyed as a nourishing herbal infusion or in an herbal tincture such as Menstrual Harmony. If you want to know more about menopause and hot flashes, check out my video.  Women who struggle with fertility issues also turn to Red Clover for fertility support. Red Clover helps cleanse and nourish the uterus, so it is tone can be ready to support a healthy pregnancy. If you want to learn more about fertility, check out these related videos.  Because Red Clover is known to enhance and support fertility, we blended it in our Fertile Ground Tincture.

Red Clover is a member of the legume family. Legumes like soy are potentially anti-cancerous. They help protect the body from abnormal growths like tumors and cancer. This common and delicate flower can be quite a protector against potential illnesses such as cancer.

A word of caution, though, Red Clover contains phytoestrogens – plant compounds that mimic estrogen – have led many doctors to warn against using red clover preparations if women have had reproductive health disorders, including endometriosis fibroids, or breast and uterine cancers. Of course, we have a fibroid video too!

One more related video you might like to check out is our plant walk video. In that video, I compare and contrast some of the common white clover plants' features and the more medicinal Red Clover plant features. Both of these are highly nourishing and might be growing in your yard.

Let's transition from the plant's scientific and medical attributes and start sharing my personal experience of listening to and spending time with the plant.

Cleanser-Nourisher-Mover-Protector

Red Clover is a cleanser and a healer. She helps things move through you so you can release and detoxify. And she helps you move through things. We are in a time of rapid consciousness shifts and awakenings. Red Clover helps protect and clear you as you move through the stages of awakening and self-actualization.

Daily Commitments and Qigong Practice

Like Qigong, Red Clover illustrates the value of our daily practices and commitments. It's the little things that you tend to and care for that matter. In Qigong, we value the quality of our practice over the quantity of our practice. It's better to practice Qigong a few moments every day when we are fully present and engaged. Rather than doing long absent-minded sessions to get your reps in or to meet some arbitrary goal.

So, what are we doing when we practice Qigong? In brief, a Qigong practice intends to cultivate, circulate, and store energy. When we grow medicinal herbs, what are we doing? We cultivate the plant, harvest the plant, and preserve or store the plant by making medicine. Practicing Qigong and herbalism have similar intentions. Both are investments of time and energy. They both require your full engagement for mastery.

Red Clover teaches us that it is better to come every day and pick a few blossoms rather than wait to pick them lots of them all at once. Let me explain. When you directly connect with the Red Clover plant, you create an energy exchange. The first day she starts to bloom, there is 1 bloom blossom. You ask if you can harvest it, and she says yes, please do. The next day there are 3 blossoms. If you collect those, there will 6, then 9, and the number grows.  

It is like a breastfeeding mom. It is all about supply and demand. When a baby nurses, it tells the mom to make more milk. The more the baby nurse, the more milk the mom makes. If the baby does not nurse, then the mom feels over full, engorged, swollen, and painful. The milk gets stuck, and her breast becomes clogged. The energy, the qi is not flowing; the exchange is not happening as it did before. If this continues, the mom's body will stop producing so much milk, and her supply will prematurely dry up.

Receive Me

This energy exchange is essential to Red Clover. Harvesting Red Clover flowers is not about taking. It's about receiving. It's about allowing yourself to receive beauty, pleasure, energy, and medicine. Red Clover says, "if you don't show up every day and open yourself up to me and allow yourself to receive my blossoms, my love, my medicine, my message, my purpose, my fullness, my energy, then I cannot fully become who and what I'm meant to be! I cannot become whole or live as my most real, authentic self. If I'm not tended to, cared for, exchanged with, invested in, and allowed to be received, then I can't self actualize. This is a mutual exchange of reciprocity. Harvesting and receiving me is an act of love.  

Essentially she's saying, let me love you, nourish you. If you show up and invest in me, then I'll protect you, keep you healthy, and I'll have more energy to give. Together, you and I both can up level to live as our best selves.

Sometimes, I don't think we understand the gravity of not having a daily practice or self care commitments. I don't think we realize how much this actually costs us. We might think, no big deal, I didn't harvest a few blossoms today. I didn't communicate this time, and I didn't practice today, I didn't meditate today. I'm busy and Ill just do it next time.

When we are operating at the level of self-actualization when we realize that we cannot fully become self-actualized without each other and our commitment to growth.  Every missed opportunity leads to less energy, lack of progress, and lack of alignment. Each missed opportunity leads to more stagnation, more frustration, and more confusion. 

You come to realize that if you don't practice, that not only did you miss out on the beautiful moments spent in the garden, you missed out on the process of mastery. You didn't cultivate or store enough energy or medicine to have in reserve for when you need it later. Now you feel depleted and empty. Mostly these missed moments are examples of how we undervalue our own self worth and personal transformation. This directly impacts our confidence, happiness, clarity, progress, alignment, and connection with our higher self, with others, and ultimately with nature and God.

I talked about these types of investments, commitments, risks in the Summer Solstice video. Also, in that video, I explored the urgency of awakening. Check it out.

Timing

Red Clover has two messages about timing:

• If you tend to the blossoms daily, they will be plump and fresh. If you wait to pick them, they start to turn brown, wither, and ultimately the plant does not produce the amount of herbal medicine and nourishment it could have. 

• Red Clover has been asking me to make a video about her since before she started blooming. For weeks she says make a video about me! I say, good idea! I'll do it. But I waited and waited before making this video. I've waited for the perfect timing. I waited to find the right words to say for the ideal outside weather. I've heard and understood the message but did not take action because I was waiting for perfect conditions to present themselves. The truth is, there are never perfect conditions. When you hear the call, it's time to heed the call and take action. Don't wait or the time and opportunity will pass you by, and you'll have missed it.

Do you know why I didn't get to this video last week even though it was really present with me?

The reason I did not do it is because I am growing this youtube channel. I've taken a course to help me get traction and have a growth strategy. Understanding how youtube works enables you to master youtube. Part of the strategy is to master keywords. And a way to grow your channel is to see what topics you are already known for. What topics people are already looking for, and you come up. Those keywords have more relevance for your channel, and you are more likely to rank higher for those words. I rank for terms like tinctures, home birth, breastfeeding. I don't rank for words like personal messages from red Clover. Also, in growing this channel, it is advised not to jump from topic to topic. Find a few things to talk about and stick with them—that way; the viewers know what to expect from you and your channel. Again, a video about the personal messages from red Clover doesn't fit that description very well.

So why am I making this video then? 

I'm doing it to honor the message, the messenger, and because I am the type of person that knows who we are becoming is more important than what we are achieving. We don't want just to achieve. We want to become, to grow, to create a new thing, a new way of living. We want to self actualize. Living out our life purpose is a whole body, whole heart, whole soul process. To love- to understand God- to have deeper intimacy, more prosperity, and be aligned with our values at the highest level is far beyond achievements and metrics.

Listening

The last insight I'm going to leave you with is listening- deep listening.

I recently re-read the book- The Alchemist written by Paulo Coelho. As an herbalist and Qigong practitioner, I love the term alchemy. Alchemy is the process our soul goes through to become better. In several of my recent videos and posts, I've referred to Qigong and herbal medicine making as alchemy.  

Briefly, in the story The Alchemist, there is a message that reminds you that the world has a universal language understood by all things. The story reminds you to listen to the world's language and see the omens, the signs, symbols, and messages in nature and all around you and let them guide you.

At the time of this recording, we are amid a global pandemic, and many of us are in quarantine. Sometimes I am connecting with the universe, and other times I'm connecting with the algorithm on my computer.

The message here is not to confuse the language of the world with the algorithm on your phone. While yes, it is true we are connecting with each other on Facebook and youtube. We are all a part of the human collective and higher consciousness. And yes, part of that collective consciousness is found on Facebook and Youtube.  

However, FB and YT are an algorithm. An algorithm is a machine. It is a synthetic machine that is designed to keep you on the platform longer. We are so susceptible and influenced by others, the news, and social media.

I'm bringing this up for a reason, I myself have said the word alchemy several times in my posts and videos. At that time, I did not see that word everywhere. Now on my FB feed, I see multiple adds about feminine alchemy. Alchemical herbal studies, alchemist labs. 

Although that's cool, and I do like those things, we must discern the difference between the language of the world and signs that we are on the right path from the algorithm. The language of the world will lead you to your destiny, and the algorithm will keep you trapped on your device.  

This listening piece has two parts: I just shared the first part.

The second part is about acknowledging that we all need teachers, mentors, and other people on the path to validate us, see us, to recognize us. We need to know we are doing it right, and we are heading in the right direction and not crazy.

That leads us to the computer, books and "experts" to tell us about our experience. The thing is, we are in unprecedented times. We are at the forefront of our humanity. We are evolving and awakening at such a rapid rate that there really aren't experts that know more about your destiny than you do. Our lives are different from our mothers and grandmothers. Our lives are being created at this very moment like never before.

To hear the language of the world or the message of Red Clover, or even your soul's impulse, we have to stop looking for the answers from someone else. We have to go into direct connection. We have to go into direct with your higher self, with source and direct connection with the plant, with the qigong practice, with the relationship you are creating and the business or career you are building. 

How we learn and how we know things are changing. In our recent past, we looked to the experts and books. Now we are being asked to listen deeply and have a direct connection. When I'm with the Red Clover plant and have a direct link with the plant, it doesn't tell me about the phytochemicals and estrogens. Books and other herbalists tell me about that stuff. While this is valuable, relevant, important information, it is not direct teaching. 

The plant shows me where it likes to grow, how it wants to be cared for. It shows me how it looks similar and different from other clovers. I perceive messages from the plant- like allow me to share myself with you, I will cleanse, nourish, and protect you.   -This is an example of what is a direct connection is.  Most of the time the message is not specific, it’s broad and general.

In Qigong practice, of course, you need a teacher! I'm blessed with many beautiful teachers, mentors, and friends. I could not have gone as deep and wide in my practice without them. At the same time, when I'm leading a class after I've taught the initial movements and breath pattern, I'll say something like, I'm going to be silent now so that the form can teach you. Allow the qi to show you how it flows and heals. In order to have this direct connection with the qi, you must learn to be in alignment and to listen.

If you'd like to practice Qigong for Women with me, you can sign up for my weekly class. It is donation based and appropriate for all experience and mobility levels. To learn more and to experience a free class go to www.pathwithharmony.com.

Well my friends, I hope you enjoyed hearing the messages from Red Clover.  Keep listening to the plants that pop up on your path! Until next time, drink deep and always walk in beauty!