Ghost Pipe has a quiet solemn energy bringing heightened awareness of our ancestors, familial spirits, Holy Spirit, and our place in the spectrum of time. It helps us tap into networks that exist across other realms and find resolution with the shadowy parts of our past and of our generational line.

Ghost Pipe is a non-photosynthetic - Unlike most other plants, this species does not produce chlorophyll, the green pigment used for photosynthesis. It only grows in protected forests, coming accross it is pretty rare. It is said to connect us to our great ancestors and recent dead. When sitting with ghost pipe it feels like the type of plant that sits in between dimensions. It rests in between life and death. It also references being a sense of support for those who greatly fear death, those who have recently lost a loved one, those with a terminal illness, or those with loved one with a terminal illness. Ghost pipe holds us and quietly reminds us that death is not the end. Death in this physical form is a transition and a natural yet beautiful part of the human experience. It grounds us in the knowing that we have “died” or “transitioned” many times, and each time we were okay.

In the same way that it supports us through death transitions, it also works as a divine guide when we are in an ‘in between’ state in life like shifting from working in corporate landscapes to working for yourself or shedding hustle culture from your auric field so that you can enter in relationship with yourself to remember what nourishing your soul feels like.

Ghost pipe is the ancestor of the forest. It reminds us that being different, functioning different, and thinking different is safe. Just like no two moments are the same, neither are we. As an ancestor of the forest it reminds us that we are never alone. It showed me this visual of my ancestors sitting on my shoulder. “You are one but you stand as ten thousand.”

The spiritual crisis referred to as the “dark night of the soul” seems to be a rite of passage on the journey toward union with God. Indian Pipe does not dismiss it, the only way out is through, but it does contain the blueprint for how to be sustained through a higher Source while being in the dark.

While mugwort helps bridge to the deeper selves, Ghost Pipe is particularly good for working with the rational self. The rational self is the product of a lot of outside influences: people’s external pressures about how we should behave, what we should do, what we should say, etc. Sometimes, we end up living to the expectations of others rather than following our true path. Ghost pipe is very good at helping us slog through those layers and get to the heart of the issues at hand.

Thus, ghost pipe offers us distance, perspective, and new understandings.  The best way I can describe this is with a metaphor of the forest and the trees. We live our lives on the ground, in the middle of the forest. Some of us might be walking a clear path in that forest, and others might be wandering (by choice or not). Ghost pipe helps temporarily lift us out of the forest and let’s us see the broader picture–it helps us expand our perspective. It puts us ‘in the in between.’

Flower essences always meet each person where they are to support imbalance shifts. They’re work is subtle and transformative, rooting down to the core of an issue. Indian Pipe works on the alignment of both the root and crown chakras so we align with the Earth below and the cosmos above, to become the ‘hollow bone’.

The stems are just like hollow bones, or clear conduits. Rooted deeply into the Earth itself, and assisting with the translation of the trees, Indian Pipe helps ground those who struggle to find their way. It illuminates hope to those who seek their truth and are willing to do the work and face their fear and pain.

Indian Pipe flower essence assists us in standing with the truth of our pain and to bear witness to it, instead of confining it to an expression within the confines of our physical nervous system or energetic emotional body. Think 'alignment', 'hollow bone'. To journey into the pain and ask the hard questions is the medicine of Indian Pipe. It is a still and quiet plant, and only those who are truly ready to bear that silence, which sits beyond fear and pain, will gain the full benefit of what this plant has to offer around personal truth.