Date Sex, Flower Powder, & Jungle Paradise

gorgeous fruity rose

I spent the last two days in a peaceful bamboo and banana tree forest, full of flowers, fruits, and pure fun. I lost myself in the vibrant green lusciousness … enormous avocado and loquat trees, tiny unraveling ferns and clovers, and water lily pond with a soothing waterfall. There’s nothing like leaning up against two bamboo trees, perfectly aligned to support your back, staring up at swaying banana leaves and fertile bunches of date flowers hanging from the palms.

All around are carpets of bright orange nasturtiums, soft pink primrose flowers, and other secret treasures, like white and yellow bog irises, fiery red pomegranate flowers, exotic-looking cashmere plants, and explosions of elder flowers. I chewed on sour grass and ate hollyhock petals and sweet mulberries. I got intoxicated with aromas of fruity roses and tulsi – holy basil.

This living garden so lush and full of revitalizing plant medicines and nourishing food … I ate elderberry leather (kind of like the fruit roll-ups we ate as kids, this one made with tangy elderberries, which have anti-viral properties) and drank herbal tea with dried olive and artichoke leaves, peppermint, and comfrey. I was especially enchanted by the kumquat trees, whose kumquats were the sweetest I’d ever tasted, each one with its own unique burst of flavor, pure candy treats.

Coincidence or synchronicity would have it that I arrived to this magical place on full moon, and the timing was perfect, so I made 3 flower essences: banana flower, date flower, and white water lily.

Banana trees are so interesting, with their wide trunk and exquisitely expansive leaves, so gentle, almost feminine. The life cycle of a banana tree is short–only 3 years–it shoots out from a potato-like root with ‘eyes’, grows tall, flowers on top into a huge gorgeous purple bud of petals, under which each petal bloom the actual flowers that later turn into bananas. After the bananas come and go, the tree dies. And from its roots many more banana trees grow.

Date trees come in male and female forms and need to be close together to pollinate each other to produce sweet fresh dates. If the male and female trees are not close enough together, you can cut a big bunch of male date flowers and dust them over the female date flowers to help along the process. The male date flowers are so rich with pollen  you can shake the flowers on your hands and it collects into the finest, most exquisite powder that can be used on the face!

And who doesn’t love water lilies? In all their beautiful colors and magic carpet pads that float on the water’s surface, they transform tea-colored water into a kaleidoscope paradise. Water lilies bloom for several days, opening their delicate petals in the morning sun and closing back into a bud in the evenings. I’m told that the night-blooming lilies need the hot sun as a catalyst to get them to open at night.

I was so enamored and intrigued by this magical place.

What are your recent experiences with flowers and plants? What’s in bloom where you are? What do you hold dear?

Banana flowers underneath larger purple petals, green bananas in the background

powder-filled date flowers

headquarters of this magical place