by Patricia Kaminski
It is always a joyous time when we plant the Hopi Blue Corn at Terra Flora. Blue seed corn from last year’s harvest is treasured and kept in a sacred place to bless us during the winter months. For indigenous peoples, corn was not only grown for food, but its seeds were a key ingredient in medicine pouches and ceremonial offerings. A modern materialist would skeptically suppose such an act is meaningless since these seeds are never consumed. What is not seen with physical eyes (but can be felt with the heart if we attend to it) is the powerful radiation of potential life within the corn seed. In late spring, we have the splendid opportunity to experience these life forces as they unfold on the physical plane with stunning momentum and metamorphosis.
Ah! Maize-ing Metamorphosis:
The Astonishing Beauty and Form of Corn in its Brief Growing Season
Emerging from moistened blue seeds in warm and fertile soil, a single monocotyledon leaf finds its way from earth to sunlight. Flourishing in the expanding light, these green leaves multiply and grow upward, ever more luscious, and richer in chlorophyll, while its branched network of roots marry themselves firmly to the earth. In summer’s expansive warmth, the corn plant rapidly elongates, forming a vertical stalk with multiple rows of leaves embracing the stalk to form “leaf collars.” Buds emerge along the stalk, forming the nascent ear. As this ear cob lengthens, luminous silky hairs emerge from the corn husk. Meanwhile, at the apex of the corn stalk, a branched structure of tassels is formed. Ripening in the warm rays of the sun, the tassel flowers are embraced by air currents that loosen the golden pollen. Each tiny germ of pollen is then received by one of the light-saturated silica-silk hairs enfolded in the corn cob husk. From this exquisite union of tassel and silk, tender milky kernels nub their way forward, growing ever firmer and richer in blue hue until they ripen fully within the sheath of the corn husks, becoming solid and firm seed kernels by autumn. It is marvelous to observe how the leaves metamorphose to form intricate layers working inward from the periphery to enclose the corn ear. During these developments, the Corn grows to great stature, especially considering that it is an annual plant, generally 6-8 feet in height.
The Original Name of Maize Means Universal Mother
The original name of Corn is Maize and can be traced back to the name of the Mayan peoples who first established intimate communion with this plant. Starting with a wild grass, likely the species known as teosinte, the Mayans (also later in collaboration with other indigenous tribes of the Americas), worked with supreme devotion and care over a span of approximately 8,000 years to co-create what we know today as the corn plant. Endowed with ancient powers of clairvoyance, the Maya perceived in the wild teosinte a spiritual Mothering force that could become a nurturing physical food, when brought into further manifestation by human hearts and hands.
We can think more broadly of the archetype underlying this perception as connected to the ancient conception of Virgo or Demeter-Ceres who are depicted holding sheaves of grain. These cosmic beings help guide spiritual mothering forces toward embodiment in the earth, so they can become physical nutritive substance, thus forming a bridge between heaven and earth.
Indigenous peoples often say “Maize is our blood.” Indeed, the word “maiz,” means Universal Mother, or She Who Sustains Life. Dr. Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a traditional Hopi farmer who founded the Native American Agriculture Fund, teaches that “Corn is the Mother in the truest sense that people take in the corn and the corn becomes their flesh, as mother milk becomes the flesh of the child.”
Blue Corn Maiden: She Who Dwells in Winter’s Depth and Bestows Summer’s Light
When we contemplate the Corn’s majestic form and elemental signature, we cannot help but feel a wondrous marriage of heaven and earth. Something of the wide spaciousness of the blue sky is brought into the earthy solid form of the blue corn. She grows with strength and stature; her kernels are firm and very densely arranged. And yet, she is filled with light and levity as she spires skyward during summer, her green leaves radiant and her silk and tassel flowers luminous. She provides a form of nourishment that feeds both body and soul. Indeed, in the various legends imparted about the Blue Corn Maiden, she is the one who is most beautiful, filled with virtue and inner radiance. Her journey is that of a Being who is able to live both within the depths of earth in winter but also bring the blue corn in the summer season of light and warmth. This quality of grounding and connection with earth density, while still retaining spiritual alignment with expansive light, is the key healing aspect we have found in the Corn flower essence.
Corn Flower Essence: Integration of Earthly Depth and Spiritual Spaciousness
The flower essence of Corn is used widely to facilitate grounding and embodiment. Corn shows the way one can inhabit the body and yet maintain connection to higher more refined and expanded structures of light and levity. The use of the Corn essence is especially pronounced in urban areas where there is stress from living in close quarters or high-rise apartments. It is used for various forms of claustrophobia, such as being in an elevator, or traveling in an airplane or subway. Many practitioners have found that Corn is also indicated for certain foot problems, especially those involving restriction or confinement of the feet due to the design of modern footwear. Japanese women have reported that Corn flower essence seems to treat a kind of miasm or thought-form still in the feet of many women due to centuries of foot-binding, in which it was believed that the feminine identity should remain pure and elevated above the earth. These thought forms are actually reflected worldwide in the wearing of “high heels,” separating women from full energetic and beneficial connection with earth currents. In cases involving the feet, Corn flower essence is used as a topical application such as a foot soak solution or mixed with Self-Heal Creme, as well as being taken internally.
In general, Corn flower essence helps one to find the right balance of coming into alignment with earth forces and yet retaining one’s inner sense of spiritual levity, inner freedom, and spacious connection to light. The Corn flower essence has been a highly beneficial essence throughout the world during the Covid-19 pandemic, where many have needed to live in confined spaces and in close quarters with others for prolonged periods of time, along with other restrictions on travel and daily movement. Dr. Marina Angeli is a renowned flower essence therapist and master teacher in Athens, Greece. She recently reported the following experience:
Corn immediately dispersed all the discomfort that I had started to feel after months of lockdown!!!… Suddenly the walls ‘evaporated’ and I felt practically no difference between being inside my house or outside of it. There was just freedom and space around!!… I felt that I had all the space that I needed. It was a miracle that happened in seconds…
I think this was the first time I really realized what this essence is about. Perhaps Corn can help in problems of claustrophobia, too, and also in cases of people who feel pressed because they cannot move out from the place where they are, either because of health problems, the weather, having to live in very small apartments, being hospitalized, imprisoned, tight work conditions, psychological issues etc., whenever there is a feeling of one being ‘locked in’ somewhere.
Corn’s Creation: The Sacred Responsibility of Human Hearts and Hands
The spiritual heritage and purpose of Corn is deeply threatened in today’s world. Biotechnology and genetic manipulation of corn seed deviates drastically from working with the spiritual archetype of Corn in a living and sacred process. Not only is such manipulation problematic for the context of sustainable life around such plants, but the motive for doing so is based upon power and greed. These moral forces stand in stark contrast to the ideals of spiritual alignment and devotion to nurturing life that formed the core of Corn’s evolution for thousands of years.
Beyond the agricultural reality of growing modern corn, what is the quality of the product itself? The food substance is processed into high-fructose corn syrup and other commodities that are mostly deleterious for the metabolism. Even more concerning, the vast majority of corn is used in confined animal feedlots to fatten cattle artificially under inhumane conditions. These animals require ever growing amounts of drugs to stay alive in such conditions, since they are not allowed to graze on green grass in the manner for which they were divinely created.
The deep and urgent truth is that the corn plant is a profoundly sacred gift entrusted to human care. Corn is one of the few precious plants that have been fully developed in co-creation with the elemental world. Human beings have literally been given responsibility for its continued life on earth. Its seeds are so firmly enclosed in their husks that they cannot be dispersed by the wind, birds, or other elemental means for germination. Corn needs human hands to help with its planting. Left to itself, Corn would drop its ears to the ground, and produce many closely clustered plants that choke themselves to extinction. Only the proper spacing of its seeds by human means ensures its healthy growth.
On every level, Corn is truly a picture of how a heavenly archetypal potential can be born into earthy time through the loving devotion of human hands and hearts, a role usually assigned to other elemental forces working in Creation. Perhaps the sacred purpose and holy gift of Maize can only be re-claimed when it is born again in our hearts as a healing and moral force.
Key Distinctions with Other Flower Essences
The following are flower essences that have similar themes to that of Corn flower essence and yet are distinct in their healing notes.
Green Bells of Ireland – Like the Corn flower essence, the Green Bells of Ireland brings renewed forces of connection to the earth. In the case of Green Bells of Ireland, a more conscious opening of the soul to real and living forces in the elemental world is facilitated. This especially applies to how our sense experiences and daily perceptions inform our connection to the earth. Green Bells is indicated when this relationship is superficial, abstract, or disembodied through technology. Corn can be used very beneficially with Green Bells, but its particular role is to support the vertical integration of space and matter, and density and levity within the body-soul matrix.
Hound’s Tongue – This flower also addresses issues of levity and gravity. In the case of Hound’s Tongue, there is a predominance of earthly forces that predispose one to a purely material, intellectual consciousness. By contrast, in the case of Corn, the body feels confinement and unease in its relationship to the earth and lacks the ability to integrate inner spaciousness.
Shooting Star – The Corn flower essence and Shooting Star both assist the body and soul to find a healthy connection to the earth. Shooting Star is indicated when the soul’s cosmic identity is so pronounced that a healthy integration and appreciation for the earth and body are absent. While the Shooting Star type lives outside the body and is not properly incarnated, the Corn type typically feels pressed into and confined in the body and the earthly living situations, without the ability to feel inner light and balanced breathing between levity and gravity.
Sweet Pea – Sweet Pea helps those who do not feel rooted in an earthly place of living. A sense of belonging is lacking regarding one’s place on earth as “home” or community. The land and surrounding forces do not “speak” to the individual as forms of nourishment and meaning. It is typical for the Sweet Pea type to have lived many places or to have been uprooted from home and community in such a way that a kind of numbness exists in the soul in relation to the land where one lives. While Corn flower essence is very often used with Sweet Pea, its particular healing note is to bring healthy incarnation forces that help both body and spirit live in soul balance on earth.
Rosemary – Both Corn and Rosemary are essences that help with grounding and incarnation. In the case of Rosemary, there is distinctly a quality of warmth that is absent – physical and/or soul warmth. Rosemary is typically indicated for those who have endured trauma or abuse and have disconnected from their bodies, especially the warmth mantle that holds the “I” forces in the body. Rosemary can also be beneficial for the aging process or various forms of mental deterioration, resulting in a loosening of the warming forces of the Higher Self from the rest of the body. Corn also helps with these incarnation processes but works more on the interweaving forces of light and matter, or levity and gravity to help bring balance and equilibrium.
Clematis – The Clematis personality has a dreamy sensibility, preferring to remain loosely incarnated in order to receive artistic and psychic impressions. The challenge of the Clematis personality is to bring its worthy talents and abilities fully into practical manifestation on earth. By contrast, the Corn individual feels too tightly confined or compressed by earthly forces and does not so much feel the natural flow of higher inspiration and expanded soul reality.
Further Resources
A complete list of resources regarding all of the many historical, spiritual, social and ecological factors involving Corn is beyond the scope of this short article. However, the following short list can be a helpful starting point:
https://www.lanouk.com/native-american-legends-blue-corn-maiden-and-the-coming-of-winter/
https://nativeamericanagriculturefund.org/michael-kotutwa-johnson/
https://www.inhabitantsfilm.com/hopi
http://maize.teacherfriendlyguide.org/index.php/what-is-maize/cultural-uses-of-maize
http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Ca-Cr/Corn.html
https://www.natureinstitute.org/article/craig-holdrege-and-stephen-l-talbott/genetically-modified-corn-is-leading-to-insect-resistance?rq=genetic
https://www.natureinstitute.org/heredity-epigenetics-and-genetic-engineering?rq=genetic
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/why-high-fructose-corn-syrup-is-bad
https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/the-shame-of-concentrated-animal-feedlots
