The Seven Guideposts-Flower Essences:

"In actual experience we go back and forth from one step to the other. That is why I call these the SEVEN GUIDEPOSTS. Spiritual life is more like a tangle of roads than a single, obvious track."

Easter Lily—The First Guidepost
Opening of the inward path-the first guidepost on the journey. The union of opposites cancels the limitations imposed by the one pointed ideal because two things thought to be incompatible are brought together. The reconciliation of opposites creates a vessel into which the impulse of the divine can incarnate. Purity and sexuality meld.
Symptom: "The nun/whore complex." Excerpted from SEVEN HERBS: Plants as Teachers by Matthew Wood.

Yerba Santa—The Second Guidepost
In this state the divine impulse spreads throughout our entire system removing dross to the surface and bringing health to every part of ourselves. We know what is called for but cannot carry out the impulse. It's about learning to survive in the inner world. Yerba Santa will clear psychic toxins out of the room.
Excerpted from SEVEN HERBS: Plants as Teachers by Matthew Wood.

Iris—The Third Guidepost
On the third guidepost on the spiritual path we must gain control of our personal space so that nothing can penetrate or escape without our permission. The lesson here is learning how to overcome addictive patterns that draw us continually from being centered. The keynote symptom: "feeling as if stuck in the mud, as if there was a weight on the neck".
Excerpted from SEVEN HERBS: Plants as Teachers by Matthew Wood.

Sagebrush-The Fourth Guidepost
This stage of spiritual life begins as a journey that requires little but ends by requiring everything that we hold dear. Works for people stuck in unwinnable situations. This includes healing of deep-seated, self destructive repetitive behavioral patterns that begin as far back as childhood. Mother Nature's promise that in the midst of unnatural destruction life will spring up anew.
Symptom: "I will never get what I want." Whenever there is a split between different parts of a person this remedy will be caIled for. There may be alienation between thinking and feeling, desire and attunement, life-giving imagination and the rational mind. Excerpted from SEVEN HERBS: Plants as Teachers by Matthew Wood.

Cat's Ears- (Star Tulip) The Fifth Guidepost
The secret to the unfolding of spiritual vision is learning to grab hold and let go in the right proportion. One who turns away from the world to listen to the voice of a higher world. The stage of unfolding of mystical faculties. There is a threshold between this world and the next, between the worldly mind and the imagination. The herb which has a special awareness of that crossing point is Cat's Ears. Dwelling in gray, as in dusk between day and night. Cat's Ears concentrates on development of inner awareness by adhering closely to the whispering of the sound current, the voice of the divine presence in the inner world.
Excerpted from SEVEN HERBS: Plants as Teachers by Matthew Wood.

Black Cohosh-The Sixth Guidepost
One of the great ironies of spiritual life is that we have to let go of everything we want but grab hold of everything we fear. Only in this way can all parts of us be exposed to the cleansing action of the divine.
Symptom: "As if a black cloud had settled over her and enveloped her head, so that all was darkness and confusion: it weighed on her like lead on her head."
Excerpted from SEVEN HERBS: Plants as Teachers by Matthew Wood.

Lady's Slipper-The Seventh Guidepost
Spiritual completion. We feel inwardly clear about who we are and where we are going. When a student reaches this stage on the medicine path, he receives the sense of an "inner medical license." This comes only from inner awareness. Society does not value the dreams of the dreamer. Inner authority comes up against the wall of money.
The symptom: "doubts what he knows to be true." Lady's Slipper will re-establish our root.
Excerpted from SEVEN HERBS: Plants as Teachers by Matthew Wood.