Pages from the Somatic Alchemist's Grimoire
"Finding Medicine in the Wild"The spiral of remembrance and softening
Opening Invocation
The Morning Spiral
The morning began in electric, buzzing frustration. The kind of thick, sticky frustration that clings to your skin no matter how many deep breaths you take. For days, I'd been stuck in a difficult pattern, endlessly replaying a painful dynamic with someone from my past—a constant feeling of being trapped in a story I desperately wanted to end. Every potential path forward felt blocked, wrong, or impossible. I'd cycled through anger, then guilt, then helplessness, endlessly spiraling through this cycle over and over again.
I hated that I had to depend on someone who'd already hurt me. I hated that I'd ignored my gut, dismissing the quiet warnings that now echoed loudly. And I hated how small I felt now—suspended in this dynamic that kept me tied to him in ways I couldn't untangle. My body felt like a live wire, buzzing with restless electricity, an internal fire shaking within me. Sleep had been scarce, and when I finally drifted off before dawn, I dreamed a single, simple message:
"Stop. Pause. Recenter. You're reaching too far outside yourself. You're forcing an outcome."
When I woke, I knew that was right. My whole system needed an exhale.
So I leashed up Roxy and went for a walk—not to fix anything, but to let my body move through the storm. The air was cool and still heavy with summer, the kind that smells like dew and old grass. The kind that says, something is ending.
The Encounter
The Wild Teacher Appears
We walked the path around the field, a route we took multiple times daily. But today, along this familiar path, I saw something I hadn't seen before. Two tiny white flower stalks poking delicately through a sea of tall grass and thousands of other seasonal wildflowers. Quietly rising maybe six inches from the earth, the small, white blossoms twisting delicately upward in a spiral—so precise and tender they almost didn't look real.
I stopped. I was drawn to them the way you recognize someone across a crowded room even though you've never met. "Those look like orchids," I said out loud to Roxy, as if she might confirm it. I crouched down, touched the edge of one petal, and felt the faintest excitement in my body—recognition without understanding.
I didn't have my phone to look it up. I told myself I'd come back later to identify them. But the image of those twin stalks wouldn't leave me. The world was full of color, noise, and movement, yet my attention kept circling back to those quiet white spirals.
Later that day, as the Pisces Corn Moon lunar eclipse approached, I couldn't shake the pull to go back. The air felt charged—the kind of energy that hums through the skin before a storm. I grabbed a glass jar, filled it with spring water, and headed out to the field. I delicately plucked a few blooms from each spire, and placed them gently in the jar, nestling it in the tall grass under the eclipse sun. The idea came as instinct, not plan. I was making a flower essence, but in truth, it felt less like I was making an essence and more like the flower was inviting me into its process.
The Message
The Spiral and the Still Point
When I finally identified them, everything clicked. Hooded Lady's Tresses Orchid — Spiranthes romanzoffiana. Even the name sounded like a spell.
Reading about it, I felt that deep, electric recognition again—the kind that hits in the chest first and only later makes its way to words. This orchid is known for appearing in disturbed soil, thriving where other plants struggle. It realigns and integrates the energetic body after trauma—physical or emotional. Its spiral shape represents remembrance, resilience, and the healing that comes from within.
And suddenly, the entire sequence of my week made sense. The rage, the helplessness, the dream, the impulse to walk—it had all been leading me to this field. To this plant. To this medicine.
I had been spiraling in my head, chasing control, forcing outcomes, and tightening every part of me that wanted safety. The orchid's spiral mirrored my own, but with a different purpose—it wasn't about tightening; it was about unwinding. Its spiral didn't constrict; it integrated.
The message was clear:
I didn't need to fix or force the situation. I needed to soften enough to let something new align itself.
The Medicine
Nature as Mirror
Quiet Presence
The Hooded Lady's Tresses orchid grows quietly, camouflaged among the grasses. It doesn't demand to be noticed—it invites presence. That in itself is medicine.
Reclamation & Realignment
Energetically, this orchid speaks to the reclamation of one's life purpose after trauma—the realignment of the inner compass that gets thrown off when we live too long in survival mode. Its roots thrive at the edges—where water meets land, where certainty meets surrender. It's not a flower of dominance or display; it's a flower of quiet endurance.
Resilience Without Tension
For those of us with connective tissue conditions, that meaning lands in the body: resilience that doesn't require tension. Healing that comes through listening, not fighting. Integration that happens through softening, not striving.
The orchid's spiral reminds me of the vagus nerve's winding path through the body—the same circuit that governs safety, connection, and the return to calm. When life feels chaotic, the spiral becomes the map home.
The Integration
Healing in Motion
That morning, I found medicine in a six-inch flower. I found proof that the universe leaves breadcrumbs in fields, waiting for us to notice.
I still don't know how this difficult chapter will resolve, and that's okay. The orchid didn't promise me an outcome; it offered me alignment. Since that morning, whenever I catch myself forcing, I think of that spiral—each blossom opening one at a time, no rush, no demand.
Healing is never about perfection or certainty. It's about the small moments when we stop running and remember that softness is not the opposite of strength—it's the beginning of it.
Spell for Softening
When I spiral, may I remember the orchid's patience.When I brace, may I breathe into the edges and let them widen.What is meant for me will return like a flower in disturbed soil.I trust the wisdom that finds me when I stop trying to control the wild.
Somatic Invitation
Take a slow, steady breath. Feel where your body holds the impulse to "fix." Let that spot soften by one percent. Place your hand on your sternum and imagine a spiral of light unwinding from your heart, traveling down into your pelvis and up through your throat.
Ask yourself: What am I forcing that could unfold instead?
Stay with the question, not the answer.
Symbol Key
Element
Earth & Water (meeting at the edge)
Natural Ally
Hooded Lady's Tresses Orchid (Spiranthes romanzoffiana)
Moon Phase / Season
Pisces Corn Moon Lunar Eclipse → Samhain Threshold
Body Portal
Vagus Pathway, Heart, Pelvic Bowl
Theme
Realignment after Disturbance, Releasing Control, Softening into Trust
Ritual Colors
White for clarity, Soft Green for integration
The Connective Coven
The Connective Coven is a living grimoire — a gathering of stories, symbols, and somatic wisdom for those learning to trust the body's magic again.
Written by: Julie Griffis, PT, IHWC | www.connectivecoven.com