Flower essences and botanical energies are somatic and often offer a variety of benefits for our human soma!
Saewon Oh shares about the intimate connection with plants that is possible and offers a path to healing, self-discovery, and profound transformation.
In this episode, we explore:
A larger definition of Soma and Plant Medicine
Human connection with the earth
The subtle bodies of plants and how they interact with our human Soma
Flower essences and vibrational medicine
The somatic and psychic experience of working with plants
Connecting with oneself before connecting with plants
and so much more!!
Saewon is an essence maker, subtle energy worker, healing artist, and founder of Sun Song, an embodied research lab for plant collaboration, earth-based healing, and vibrational flower essence therapy.
Follow her on:
Instagram: @_sunsong_
Website: shop-sunsong.com
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IG: @aimeetakaya
LISTEN WHILE READING!
A: Every day, there is a forgetting, and every moment, there is the possibility of remembering. Remembering who you truly are, awakening to your body, to the inner world, and experience of being alive. Here is where you find the beauty, the joy. Today, here is where you can free your Soma.
A: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Free Your Soma, stories of somatic awakening and how to live from the inside out. Today, I have Saewon Oh here with me. She is the founder of Sunsong. She's a subtle energy worker and an essence maker. We're going to be talking about the somas of plants, the subtle bodies of plants and how they interact with our human Soma and also this bigger picture of the consciousness or the Soma of the Earth. We're going to play with and define that word Soma for you. If you're unsure what we're talking about yet, don't worry.
We're going to get there. Saewon works with people who are interested in deepening their connection to the Earth, who are sensitive to subtle energy, and maybe have been wishing to develop that sensitivity further. She works with people who love plants and who love vibrational medicine. We're going to talk about all of that today. I'm so excited to have you here with me. Welcome Saewon.
S: Hi, Amy. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, totally.
A: Well, we met each other at the art walk, I think. It was in Joshua Tree a few months ago. When I heard about what you do, I just thought this actually is very somatic in its own way. People may not use that word to describe working with flower essences specifically, but I could immediately see how it was a very somatic practice and a very beautiful practice of working in collaboration with other energies that also exist alongside us on this planet.
Energies that we may not normally notice or tap into or really get a chance to connect with and respect, but in your work, that's exactly what you're doing. Maybe for people who aren't familiar with this, can you just tell our listeners what it means to work with flower essences and to make essences? Yeah.
S: Thanks so much for that intro. Absolutely, this work is somatic. And that's why I was equally so excited when we met and I heard more about your work, because the language with which plants speak to us is obviously not the same as humans speak, has the ways in which humans always speak to us. And oftentimes it is this bodily sense of knowing and sense of feeling. And of course, you can ingest a plant and physiologically fuel the ways in which this plant works upon our ecosystem. There's herbs that have various actions that speak to us.
And then when you're working on the more subtle realm, and you're really connecting to the plant spirit, it could come through feelings, senses of knowing, emotions that wash through us. You know, and also through clairvoyance, clairaudience, you may see things, you may hear things. And to me, I see that as a translation that occurs in our ways of using our intuition to receive information in just a more expanded sense. So we're using all different kinds of senses here. It's really a very, it's a very somatic and a very psychic experience of working with plants.
And I think some people have this idea that only certain special people can do this kind of thing. And I want to challenge that and say that we as humans have, you know, we have lived with plants and relied on plants and grown with plants throughout our entire history here on this planet. And we absolutely have a strong relationship to them.
And I do believe it very much was direct communication as well as intuition that allowed us to even know how to best work with plants, how to receive their medicine, and how to process it all. And that kind of deep connection I think, is still accessible. But we live in this stay-in age where it's just not as readily accepted and like that's considered like strange or woo-woo or whatever.
And so, you know, we're ultimately in a more like sense, we're just in a more desensitized era right now. And so I love to create spaces where people can really just put that aside and start to open up and deepen that relationship. And then it's amazing that people who have never even tried this before are able to receive so much information and wisdom and guidance. And oftentimes it's really exactly what you're needing to hear now to heal, to gain greater clarity, to experience universal spiritual truths. And sometimes even just messages for the collective as well.
A: Wow. Yeah, that's so beautifully said. I think that you know, living in an age of desensitization, you know, even a few generations ago, people were much more in touch with the earth, you know. And there also, I feel like, is this tendency for us to think of ourselves on the planet as some kind of like person in charge, like, you know, humanities, like in charge of the planet or something.
And I think that that is kind of slowly being debunked when we kind of realize, like, actually now there's a lot that's going on that we don't even really fully understand and is actually being directed by perhaps other forces or other non-human energy on the earth. Like say, for example, the book that I'm thinking of when you were talking was Botany of Desire, you know, this concept that humans think, oh, we propagated all these plants and bred them to be, you know, this one plant to be like cauliflower and kale and all these things.
Or did we, or did the plant consciousness get us to do that so that it could proliferate and so that it could survive and be spread in all these really inventive ways, right? So that its consciousness would, you know, be, I guess for lack of a better word, propagated or created into something larger and bigger.
Perhaps there was a relationship that we had with plants that allowed for these kinds of things to occur rather than this kind of small ways thinking about it where humans just did this weird thing. You know, maybe there is a bigger relationship that's going on. And I think that's what you're pointing to here.
S: Yeah, absolutely. I loved reading that book and I love thinking about all the ways in which, you know, these plants are influencing us all the time. And, you know, I see this as decolonization work where switching the paradigm. We are not at the top of the pyramid as humans. In fact, we have so much to learn. And so it's deeply humbling to realize that, oh, well, I've been sitting here trying to figure something out in my brain for so long and suffering over it. And maybe actually I could open myself up to getting some guidance from a flower and actually just softening this imbalance of wanting to do and extract and figure out and take and receive and surrender.
A: Beautiful. That's very well said. You know, tell us a little bit about how you got into this and how Sun Song was created. Tell us a bit about, like, you know, you speak so wisely about these things that comes from experience. Tell us a little bit about your experience.
S: Oh, my gosh. I mean, it's such a, I don't know how to sum up the story, but I will say that at a certain point in my life, I really started to question all of the normality around me, all the institutions. And after I graduated college, I really, and having gone through this really big existential crisis of feeling like, you know, the schooling that I went through didn't bring me deeper answers that I was seeking. Yeah. And then I just kind of had this little ping where I realized, you know, I saw a flyer for an herbal school. And I thought, you know, I feel like this is, you know, something's like lighting me up here. Something's really intriguing to me.
And I had already had profound experiences with mushrooms and, which, you know, aren't quite plants, but other beings and, you know, just realizing like, wow, there's so much more to reality and consciousness and everything that I've kind of just taken as, you know, the one right path. And I decided I feel like, you know, if I'm able to have profound experiences with certain plants, like psychoactive plants and mushrooms, then I think that all plants must have intelligence.
And I wanted to learn more about that. And also, you know, it's the love of plants and like food as medicine is just part of the culture that I grew up with in my family life. And even though we didn't grow up, you know, I'm a like second-generation Korean American and my dad's out of the family comes from like a long line of just all farmers.
And, and, you know, I didn't actually grow up with any kind of organized religion or really even much spirituality, but something that was always shared was like this love of the earth and plants. And I began to recognize that as something special and something to deepen. And so I started learning and then I just kind of continued learning and learning. And I thought, oh, maybe one day when I'm an elder, I'll like share this kind of work.
And, but as you continue along this work, you start to develop intimacy and deepen more of a relationship. And I started to also make vows in exchange for all this wisdom that I'm receiving. Like, I want to share this, you know, I want, and I want this consciousness to spread. And so, you know, at this point, I just feel like I have the pact with the plants and the flowers and then, you know, eventually turn that into business.
A: Awesome. I mean, I love that you have this broad definition of plant medicine, it sounds like because I think that it's becoming this buzzword with like ayahuasca, you know, and different kinds of combo, like these psychoactive plants, but plant medicine is actually like just all plants that have a medicinal relationship with us, like a beneficial relationship. So I think of like eating your veggies is plant medicine, you know, the way that the vegetables nourish our bodies and your bio, you know, and then spreading that definition wider to the realm of herbalism, right?
There's so many ways in which we can start to have this relationship with plant medicine that is more, I guess, widespread and profound and not just about like really giant leaps and consciousness that also plants can take us on, right? And I appreciate that, you know, in your story, there was this point for you where you realized that of all the learning that you had done in college, it wasn't answering the deeper questions in you that would bring you a sense of satisfaction in the world. And so many times people go to school looking for something like that, they go to school looking for, you know, going deeper into their passion.
And so much of the diet, the learning that we do is so didactic, it's very mental, it doesn't necessarily get into your body in the same way as a like experiential kind of education, or a more practical like trade school kind of education, like going to an herbalism school, where you're actually drinking and ingesting these herbs, you know, and then learning about their different uses and actually experiencing them, right? There's a difference between that and just taking a quiz and answering questions about herbs.
S: Yeah, definitely. Thanks so much for pointing that out. And I feel like that you are getting really to the heart of it. It's like, yeah, it's like the mind and understanding things conceptually is just one layer. And I think that having an embodied experience where you really build like a full, I feel like there's like, yeah, I mean, sometimes it can be hard to like mentally conceptualize when you've had like this full body experience of something. But, but I feel like those are the ones that are more powerful, those kinds of experiences. And I think that they go deeper into our cellular memory as well and can, you know, can be incredibly transformative.
A: Yes, and it can take time to process stuff like that too, where there's not a mental construct, because it's a new way of learning for many of us, because a lot of our world is very much based on mental learning. And when there's another kind of learning that kind of comes in, as you said, there's sometimes no words for it. I get that often in, you know when I'm working with people somatically doing somatic education, where we finish a session and they sit up and they feel really different in their body, but they can't exactly tell me how it is that they're different.
They just know they feel different. And it takes a few times of doing this work for them to have words for it because there's a new kind of processing that they're experiencing, right? Did you have some of that experience when you worked together?
S: Yeah, I remember in moments when you were like, you know, how does this side feel compared to this side, like a side you had just worked on? And it definitely like, I knew it felt different, but it was hard to describe exactly. And then we talked a lot about this resensitization, this muscle amnesia, right?
Or, or, yeah, bodily amnesia. And I just love that concept and the idea of waking things up. And I just made so many connections with my own interests and work as well. It's yeah, it's like, you're helping to do that in the physical body. And I feel like I'm helping to do that in, yeah, I mean, I guess like, it's also physical, but I feel like it's, it's a lot to do with just like our deeper holistic sensory abilities of feeling the invisible.
A: The energetic body, right? Kind of a more ethereal body. Yeah, yes, yes. Those, you know, I kind of, we talk about layers and our brain likes to compartmentalize, but more and more, I'm starting to realize that those are just constructs for us to have communication about it. But in reality, the physical and the energetic are one. And so as you're working and I'm sure you've experienced this with people, when you work on an energetic plane, you're also working with their physical body.
If we were to put like little electrodes on them, you might see like their heart rate shifting and changing, you might see their breath shifting and changing, you know, you might see their brain waves shifting and changing as they're working with like the subtle plant medicine, right? So it is a physical experience, but it's like working on this energetic plane to affect the physical body, right? And with the work that I do, it's kind of the other way. It's like we're working with the physical system of your body and then the benefits or the changes vibrate out into your energetic body.
S: Yeah, exactly. And I love the way you put that. And yeah, it's, you know, that kind of brings me to thinking about, you know, why I got interested more in like the world of essences after I started studying herbalism, because, you know, I love learning all about plant medicine. But I ended up kind of going deeper and deeper into this niche of working with essences. And some people maybe have never heard of essences before. So I can define it, but you know, most commonly, there's, people talk about flower essences.
And it is energetic vibrational medicine. And on like a, you know, on the physical level, it's basically water and some kind of preservative usually brandy. But the fascinating thing about water, and I could go on and on about how fascinating and interesting water is. But water is a memory holder and water is very malleable. It's a shape shifter and it holds information just like a crystal does. You think of it like a living, like a liquid crystal. And so, you know, using this really simple and beautiful and perfect technology of being able to infuse things into the water off and with the support of some sunshine, some of the sun, we're able to infuse flower energies into the water. And then just like with homeopathy where you're working with little microdoses, you can ingest little drops of this water.
And that can help shift our own energy field. And why we work with flowers is because flowers are, first of all, they're the most like potent, like they're like the reproductive organ of the plant, like the most potent, creative aspect of the plant. And flowers are just so healing for us. They're so healing for our bodies and our spirit. And so we can take in this medicine and then, you know, it can really help to shift our own consciousness and in a very healing way. And then, you know, there's other kinds of essences too, because everything, not just flowers, have an energy body, right? Which I think is what you define as soma.
Yeah. And so, you know, you can make essences with gemstones, you can do it with sound, you can do it with anything with this spirit and vibration. And yeah, I just got more and more interested in the subtle aspects of it. And I remember at some point, I, in my 20s, I was living in Korea for about three years.
And I met a dear friend and mentor who owned this incredibly magical little tea house where she would make experimental teas. And we just both really connected on plants and learning, getting really curious about them. So we'd meet and make teas and plants. And she taught me so much about subtle energies, like we were making teas and things that she would take, we would taste them, and then we would talk about it.
And actually, because my Korean is not that great, we'd have to rely on nonverbal communication a lot. And I remember she would, her way of like describing a tea or a plant that she would ingest, she would often use shapes. And she would often talk about these like, what I see is like these energy structures that she would into it. And I just found that so fascinating, because I didn't have that same language that she was using.
And through that processing, you know, it just helped me deepen more and more into it. And actually, she's the one that took me to Tai Chi classes once a week. And, you know, that was around the time that I started getting interested in Reiki and other forms of energy healing. And, you know, I really see the plants as like the teachers that helped to resensitize me to be interested in these things and then to start exploring them more.
A: Wow, that sounds like a really, really enriching experience. And having a teacher with that language barrier has benefit, I think, in this specific realm that you were learning in. So how perfect that you had this one pathway of language is like shut down. So that means other pathways of communication must open up, right? That's kind of like when someone goes blind, their hearing improves their tactile sensation and, you know, body awareness improves in certain ways, because no longer see, right?
So if you had the language barrier, it would mean that you had to take her energy in differently than you would if we could just speak with her automatically, right, without having to think too much about it. So that's actually really cool that you had that experience in that specific way. I can see how that would build, yeah, a deeper awareness in your system of the different styles of communication that exist, right? Yeah.
Yeah. So kind of going back to Soma, which you touched on a little bit for not everybody who's aware, you know, Soma is a Greek word that means body, but it's different than the word body, because it means a body that is being experienced, right, internally, that is having an internal living experience.
So Soma is not just a human body, it could be a tree, it could be a plant, it could be, you know, we don't know, but minerals may have some kind of consciousness. We can't, you know, maybe scientists can't measure it right now, but they could also have a living consciousness that we're unaware of, right? This planet itself is a Soma, it's a living body with an internal experience that's going on all the time.
And so when we talk about something being somatic, it is some way in which we're connected to that internal experience that's going on, that we're interacting with it, that we're listening to it and using it as a resource for knowledge. And so in this way, you know, you're talking about these different plants that you work with having their own unique individual somas. Can you give us an example or two of different kinds of plants that have maybe different flavors or energies that are distinct?
S: Yeah, because they're all so different. I guess something that comes to mind is one that I worked with most recently, oak. Actually, when I've been working with my whole life, I grew up around oak trees, but I have this monthly Essence-Sturney group and the last one was oak and so, and it's fresh in my mind, but oak, well, it's tree medicine. So all tree medicine, there's a very supportive grounding element to the tree as you know, the tree being this, you know, oftentimes very old wise being that is firmly planted into the ground, right? They say like the the branches of the tree usually are the same size as the root systems down below.
So there's always that as above, so below kind of geometry there. But yeah, oak can really help us to actually surrender more when we've been overworking. And so it's really great for people who tend to overwork and I, you know, that might be because of your personality type, but also I think just being in this capitalistic system that we're in, we're all programmed to overwork. So I think it's helpful for everybody, but it can also, you know, show you places where you actually can work more.
You do have reserves of energy and you can commit even deeper and put your roots down even deeper. And yeah, it just helps to balance out that giving or receiving energy in your life so you don't burn out. So I could say like that's like one example of like tree medicine, it's really balancing. And then I could think of other plants that are, yeah, maybe have more of like, not as much of a balancing energy, but are really like helping you move like a flow, helping flow and helping you really kind of break out something that might feel restrictive.
Like octio comes to mind, another one that I've been working with. That's a really incredible plant. And that grows in the desert. And Akatiyo I think of as more of this current energy, even the way it grows, it's very wavy, but also fierce protector.
There's thorns all over it. You know, a lot of the ways plants look can tell us a lot about the energy of the plant as well. But Akatiyo is one that, it's a great feminist plant, it can really help to heal the womb and the sacral chakra and bring you more creativity, and help to heal any kind of trespassing or sexual trauma that may have occurred. And kind of like a more of like a liberating, busting out kind of an energy. And then yeah, there's other energies that I, other plants that I feel like are, promote more introspection, really help you to feel more safe in a womb like something that pops into my mind is one of my favorite flower essences, the Mari Posa Lily. And it just looks like this cute little cup, like almost like a tulip shape.
And when I think about that flower, I think about just like living in that little cup, like in a cocoon, sorry, maternal nurturing and helps you to be in a safe space so that you can become that, you can have that caterpillar time, that chrysalis cocoon time before you turn into a butterfly. And so those are just some examples.
A: Beautiful. Yeah. I mean, I think about the way that there's all these different herbal medicines that we consume, you know, in supplement form or in tea form. And it doesn't actually seem that wild to me that, you know, flower energy could be just as potent, right? But maybe like, as you were saying in the beginning, there may not be the same kind of really direct biological responses when we take this very micro dose form of a flower essence in a way it's interacting more with our energy body, rather than there being like specific compounds, you know, that are in the tea or the tincture, you know, those would be like not as micro dosey, right?
They wouldn't be those who would be stronger, more potent ways of interacting with the plant. And there's frankly, like contraindications sometimes, because plants are powerful, you know, and sometimes taking certain herbs, you know, you want to avoid them if you're pregnant or you want to avoid them if you have this health condition because they can really make substantial, intense changes in your physiology. But working with flower essences in the way that you're speaking, you know, or working with essences instead of a tincture, or, you know, taking the herb, ingesting the herb, it seems like in many ways, it's more subtle and therefore, you know, more safe for some people than it is to take the stronger dose. Can you say a little bit about like the benefit of this essence idea and the micro-dosing versus a more, you know, macro experience?
S: Yeah, that's a really great point. I love that flower essences are, I say they're like subtle but potent. And, and one of the things I love about them is that you can actually work with poisonous plants that are powerful as a flower essence, like you would absolutely not want to ingest, say, de tura, which, you know, is, has the power to actually kill if taken at a certain dose, and, or can make you very ill or could just, you know, be something that you want to want to do without, you know, there are certain shamans that actually work with de tura and indigenous traditions that work with de tura, but like, I would not recommend anyone to just do that.
But as, you know, but with these poisonous flowers, you can actually still receive a very, very, very subtle micro dose version of the spirit of certain plants, if you feel called, you know, and that's the other thing I really feel like still, everyone should be using their discernment about which plants you actually want to be working with and really tuning in, like, is this something that it's calling me? This is something that, and especially if you're making the medicine, this is something that I have permission to do. But I love that, you know, and a flower essence will not drastically, in a violent way, affect your system. And you can still really form this relationship and get to know them on this very more micro level.
A: Beautifully said, yes. And maybe this is a great time for you to expound a little bit on the ceremony of this, because as you just said, having that connection to your own body wisdom, right, to your own Soma in this process of working with plants is really important.
And maybe in the beginning, a lot of people aren't necessarily, like, as tuned into that as they think they are, you know, and so sitting there, they, you know, I'm assuming that part of what you guide them into is a bit of ceremony of connecting with, like, what they feel called to connect with or what they feel called to work with inside themselves, right, like what's showing up to be healed in this moment with the plant and is this plant, you know, in harmony with that goal. So there must be some kind of more ceremonial aspect to this that you guide people in because that you can't have a connection with something unless you have a connection with yourself.
S: Yeah, so true. And definitely grounding is important. Opening up a sacred space, grounding, and, you know, oftentimes I'll help people ground by imagining a cord or root systems going down into the earth and really establishing that connection, but then also connecting everyone to their hearts because this is where we actually can speak to other beings on a more interdimensional level. And so being grounded there versus just, you know, in the mind.
A: I've heard people refer to, you know, our heart is oneness. Our brain is divided, you know, and our brain is going back and forth between like imagination and logic, trying to figure everything out. But our heart knows oneness. And so in that way, we connect with other energies through our oneness with them, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Awesome. So tell us how when people work with you, like, what are they experiencing? You mentioned this monthly group that you have. Is that over Zoom? Is it open to everyone? Or is it something that, you know, is there a prerequisite for? Tell us a little bit more about how you work with people.
S: Yeah, this is a monthly group that I've actually been doing for over three years now. We're about to enter into our fourth year. And it's on Zoom, we meet online, and anyone can join. There's no prerequisites. It's just if you are interested if you want to connect respectfully with a community of people from all over the world. And I mail it's you can sign up seasonally, I mail out essences, free essences every season.
And actually this year, it's changing. It used to be mostly flower essences, like pretty much flowers every now and then something else would pop in. But this time, we're going to be doing gemstones as well. And maybe some other surprise essences, but it's all going to be kind of tongue-in-cheek calling in a mystery school.
And, you know, you're going to be receiving essences that'll be surprises, like, you won't know what they are until we actually gather online and try them. And we're not going to have any preconceived notions about them, or we're going to experience the energies and then it's gets revealed and we talk more about it. And the whole point of it is ultimately for everyone to honor that connection that we all have and create this open community research to be shared.
A: That's awesome. I love that you're kind of making it surprise and shifting things a little bit as it sounds like an experiment to kind of see, like if people can connect differently when they don't have a mental construct, and they haven't been like creating a story already around it.
S: Yeah, exactly. Right. Because those things can influence, you know. So yeah, that's one thing. And actually, also what's different this time is that we used to gather once a month and now we're gathering twice a month because I also do a lot of like journey work and hypnotherapy and what I like to call quantum journeying. And so based on whatever it is what we receive in the first session, that's going to inspire some kind of quantum journey change work that we can do later in the month. That's for anyone who's interested in like diving more into this kind of relating or this kind of like a lot of it is just about like self-discovery to and just deepening that relationship in our ability to connect.
Yeah, and that's actually signups are happening soon. And then I tend to teach workshops online and I want to do more in person. And I do one-on-ones as well. And I make custom formulas and along with emotional clearing work and yeah, just kind of lots of different things.
A: Beautiful. Yeah. You have a very gentle and focused energy about you, you know, and it's been my honor and privilege to work with you as a client doing some hands-on bodywork. And we, you know, kind of touched on that a little bit before, right? But I would love to hear, you know, how has the somatic movement work that we've done and also that you've been doing on your own, how do you feel that shifted your energy field? How is it opening things up for you in other areas besides just like your lower back? Yeah.
S: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love, I'm loving working with you so much. I'm like telling everybody all the time, I'm learning the somatic work and it's changing my life and like truly like doing the one-on-ones and I'm excited to do more with you at your retreat. And yeah, I think that I do so much work in the subtle realms.
I consider like the kind of joke that like the astral plane is my office. And you know, I've been really getting the message that I need to focus more on my physical body. And so I'm on this big healing journey right now, doing more things for my body.
And I, you know, addressing the fact that like, yeah, for a long time I've had a lot of chronic just tension in certain areas of my body, especially like my shoulder area. And so being able to find relief for that in this really gentle, subtle way has been really incredible. And I feel like it's amazing because you realize how much emotion gets stored in these areas. And so it's just deepening the emotional work. Like working with the essences is all about emotional healing and then to then go in there and release things, also in a really subtle way in the body, you know, it's just continuing to deepen that and like change the stories that I've held here in my body for so long. And it's liberating.
It's definitely liberating. And I think that I'm calling in more workshops in person because there has been in this past, you know, past few years, because Sears started during the pandemic, but I'm just really wanting more connection with like the actual physical plants and their bodies and out in nature.
And when I get the chance to do that, and when I'm guiding sessions, when guiding like workshops with people out there, it inevitably always turns into movement and kind of dance and something that wants to be interpreted through the bodies. And so just welcoming in more of that. And you're helping me to resensitize areas in my body so that actually more information can come through. Like it's like, I see it as like clearing work. And so the more like it's cleared, the more new stories one can write in the body. And yeah, it's so profound.
A: Oh, thank you. Yeah, that's such a beautiful description of it. The the clearing is, you know, it's working with that muscle amnesia. And why is there this, you know, tension or this tightness in our bodies that we can't seem to like change, right? We might stretch or pull or do certain exercises or, you know, sleep for 10 hours. And yet still we wake up with these muscles still being maintained in contraction.
And it's because it's been forgotten by the conscious part of your brain that can actually change it. And so that's literally what we're doing. You know, that's literally what you're doing when you do these movements that I've shown you as you're reminding your brain how to let go of that muscle pattern.
And that muscle pattern doesn't just exist. Nowhere, it's from a living experience that you had at some point or multiple living experiences. And each living experience that we have has usually some emotional state that we were in, you know, when we had that experience. So like, for example, you know, people who've had car accidents, they're in the car accident and they get whiplash and now they're back and their neck hurt, right? But they were not a blank slate up of just an empty body in a car accident.
They were in some kind of emotional state when that accident occurred, they were at some kind of point in their life. And so then that tension pattern that they think is just the car accident is actually the car accident plus kind of compounded or with that emotional state of that period of time in their lives, right? And so when we release the muscle patterns from the car accident, we're also releasing that held emotional state that kept them stuck in some kind of mental or emotional cycle or some belief pattern that they had about themselves, right?
So it's always multi-layered and it's really fascinating to work with people who are sensitive to these things because like you experienced, you release the emotional charge, you know, as the muscle is releasing and there's this kind of clear feeling that one can receive or sometimes there's like a feeling or a thought that comes up a day or two after releasing the muscles and it's like something you were unaware of that you were still holding on to.
S: That is so interesting, yes. And I see it as so connected. I mean oftentimes when I make potions, I pair it with doing something called Emotion Code, which, you know, is a system that was developed to use muscle testing to identify trapped emotions in the body and then actually a magnet can help to, using a certain meridian in your body, can use a magnet to help release that emotion from the body.
And depending on what level you are at with processing that, I feel like there's sometimes it's like so profound that you can have this like huge physiological change. Like one time I had a client who actually wanted to learn more about the energetic emotional roots of her eczema that had started forming like a few years ago and like days later it started going away.
So and it actually fully went away. So, you know, it's like it boggles my mind that that's possible. But, you know, I'm getting kind of, I don't know if I'm getting sidetracked, but basically like, you know, that kind of work is possible. And then I see the essences as being like this subtle energy that can come in to fill that void because whenever you kind of clear something out, oftentimes something else wants to be, wants to fill that space.
And I think it is possible for sometimes the same pattern to come in and fill that space because that's what we're used to. But I think also like you can bring in other supportive energy. And yeah, it's so, so interesting. You know, I never thought about like being in a car accident and then all the other emotions that you're having at that time as being compounded. And so it's like you're helping people to go back in time and release things and like kind of pick up from a certain period, which is essentially, you know, trauma, right? Yeah.
A: Yeah. And how readily the person's body is willing to go there, you know, that's the thing too. And it's kind of like with the flower essences, like the flower can only communicate, you know, what you're ready to receive, right?
Yes. It's the same way with the somatic work, like the work that I, you know, have done with your hands on, you know, I'm inviting your body to let go of that pattern, and your body's only going to let go to the degree that it's ready to. And so we just keep asking more than once we ask with the first movement and the first movement, your brain's still trying to figure out like, what are we even doing? And then the next few times that your brain goes, Oh, we could let go of that. We could let go of that thing that I've been doing that I didn't even know that I was doing.
And that's kind of how it works. Your nervous system is always guiding this experience. And kind of going back to this concept of like, you know, the gentleness, the softness of like a microdose versus a more macro experience, which can accidentally like, re-traumatize somebody or cause a big physiological shift that, you know, in some ways is a bit traumatic, like to have a really strong physiological shift in a short amount of time, you know, is probably technically a trauma, because it's a sudden change in our experience that we were not expecting, right?
Or that maybe we weren't ready for. And so many times, you know, my background was in hot yoga. So I did really aggressive physical movements, very forceful, intense contractions for the first part of my career as a movement teacher. And I learned a lot from that. But I basically learned that my body doesn't want to be forced. That if I keep forcing my body like I will pay the price, my body will revolt, my body will let me know, that doesn't work. That's not actually how this works.
The experience of being alive as a collaboration with energies within my body and without, it's actually a cooperative experience. And that goes back to kind of that paradigm shift that you're talking about too, right? So the subtle work is actually where it's at in terms of making long sustainable changes for ourselves and for the planet.
S: Yes, so much yes. And how incredible that you were able to perceive that and listen to that and like honor that message from your body. And I agree like this about this paradigm shift. I mean, I think that it is part of the patriarchal structure to think that, you know, stronger, louder, more forced is somehow superior. But actually, I think that there's so much power and strength in softening and listening and receiving and all that as well. Yes.
A: And, you know, I can definitely see how this work that I'm doing would make sense to someone like you or to anyone who works with subtle energies, because, you know, when you first do these movements, they sometimes feel like nothing compared to what you're usually used to doing to address discomfort in your body, which usually comes with like a strong sensation. Like when we stretch our muscles, you know, there's a little bit of like damage kind of going on. And so our brain sends us these positive brain chemicals to deal with the discomfort of pulling on ourselves, right?
And when we're doing somatic movements, it's almost like the inverse of stretching where we're doing a little contraction and then a slow release, right? And that like isn't sensational in the same way as like stretching or intense movements, just like working with a flower essence is not going to be the same thing as taking mushrooms. It's going to be a lot more subtle and you're going to have to open up and awaken a new way of relating, right? Not only to your body, but to this plant in order to really understand what's happening and tap into it.
S: Absolutely. Exactly. I think it's a wonderful practice to just say in what appears to be nothingness and appears to be stillness. And then with enough presence and attention, it starts to really open up and you realize, Oh, it's not nothingness. It's not just a void. There's actually so much information there.
A: Absolutely. I mean, I've definitely experienced that with just seated meditation and doesn't even have to be like in a, I could be sitting on the city bus and being in kind of a meditative or contemplative state where I'm just aware of the sensations of the clothing on my skin or the temperature on the bus or the smells and environment or the people and the subtle movement in their bodies and the way that everything is kind of happening in real-time. There's always so much there. And there's even so much there if we close our eyes and we sense inward. So I definitely relate to what you're saying about breaking away from that idea that nothing even exists.
S: Yeah. A friend once said to me, I always try to remember that the magic is in the small things. And I often go back to that. And I love remembering that. And, you know, it's like sometimes we get caught up in seeking so much outwardly. And then there's like these little glimmers that come through these little quiet moments that actually often feel the most profound.
A: Yes, beautiful. Well, it's been such an honor to share your work and share what you're up to in the world. Tell us a little bit before we kind of go about what does some mean to you. Like what does that name represent?
S: Yeah. I mean, when I think of song, its frequency, its vibration in some kind of beautiful design. Right. And then sun, you know, I think when I first when I was thinking of the name, I was actually trying to think of something conceptually more like a flower song. But that didn't really sound right. And then I was thinking a lot about like this the relationship between the flowers and the sun and thinking about flowers singing to the sun. And so yeah, Sun Song came through. And, you know, the sun is life force energy is what feeds us all. And it actually, you know, after I thought of it, I realized that it's the name of a Sun Raw song. And I'm a huge fan. So so there's a little nod to Sun Raw as well, the musician. Awesome.
A: Yeah, well, I love the name. I think it's a really beautiful name that rolls off the tongue quite well. And I think that what you're offering people is just very high vibrational, high-quality work. And so, you know, if you're listening, and you're curious, maybe you've already been kind of curious about getting deeper into, you know, the realm of plant medicine or flower essences or working with subtle energies, definitely follow say one on Instagram. And maybe you can say a little bit about where people can find you or reach out to if they're curious about working with you.
S: Yeah, so I'm on Instagram and my handle is underscore s, u n s o n g sun song and then another underscore and then my website, it's shop hyphen sun song calm. And that's about it. Yeah.
A: Awesome. Well, it's been such a pleasure speaking with you today. And I look forward to our continued work together somatically and maybe some future collaborations. I can just imagine us like doing some really luxurious like centering somatic movement in a forest somewhere and then everybody going into their plant journey.
S: Amy, I would love that. I would love that. Yeah.
A: Beautiful. Okay. Well, we'll speak to you again soon. Thank you so much for coming on again. Thanks for having me.
A: You've been listening to the Free Your Soma podcast. To find out more information about today's guest, check the show notes. And to find out more information about me, Amy Takaya, and the radiance program, visit www.freeyoursoma .com.
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