The Boundaries Empaths Most Need
I walked along the head-high hedge, gathering hawthorn berries in the fold of my handkerchief and snacking on rose hips. Yarrow bloomed at the edges like the frill of a skirt and stalks of blackberry reached out to tug the cotton of my sleeves.
I wasn’t trying to find a way into the hedge. Instead, I was letting the hedge show me a way of being.
I had never experienced true hedges until I visited the British Isles. In the United States we think of hedges as square-cut mounds of monoculture— more utilitarian than beautiful. But in the Isles, hedges are living, wild things. In-between places where magic happens, and protection is rooted.
Planted in fairy-dense thickets, hedges work as both living fences, keeping in cattle and sheep, as well as marking the boundaries between places.
Hedges are shelters for medicinal plants, songbirds and wildlife. In folk belief, hedges are where the faerie live. It’s in these mystical, interstitial, boundaried places where magic survives.
And as empaths, these hedges have so much to teach us about how to create boundaries that bring us alive.
Boundaries are hard for empaths. If you’re a sensitive person, it can feel like the most challenging thing in the world to erect a boundary. To say no. To claim one’s inner space for one’s own.
But what if your boundaries could be a place of life-giving vibrancy for the world? A space where magic can take root and deep diversity sheltered?
What if the boundary you most need is a hedgerow?
I don’t know if it’s the energy of the world right now, or the particular rigors of being a new mom, but lately I’ve been noticing that I need even more “space” around my sensitive self than ever before.
Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I visualize my life as a vibrant garden, and the boundary that surrounds me as a thick, green, verdant hedge. A place of brambles and berries and life. A space that allows in the joy of the living world and yet protects me entirely with it’s sheltering arms
The thicker it grows, the more life is attracted to me. And the safer I am to allow the energies I most yearn for to come in.
So what about you?
What would your hedgerow look like?
How would it feel to know you had the space to expand because your hedgerow was there to shelter you?
What would be possible if you had this healthy, wild, protective perimeter?
And what would change if you knew that just by creating this boundary, you brought more magic to the Earth?
As empaths, with the power of vibrantly open hearts, we need such boundaries in order to keep our magic alive. If you’re feeling the call to work with the hedgerow of the heart, check out my class Herbs for the Heartgate and the accompanying essence collection to meet some of these wild, hedgerow medicines (like hawthorn and rose).
And if you’re ready for a deep dive into working with your energy body and attuning to the subtle realms of nature, don’t miss my friend Maryam Hasnaa’s course Etheric Gardening.
Maryam is a living example of a sensitive who has planted a profoundly abundant hedge of life around her magic and, by doing so, created incredible offerings to share. I’m honored to have filmed a class for the course called Revealing your Life Purpose with Plants. Learn more about the program here and, as Maryam says, “Lay claim to your life and begin planting all that you wish to see.”
