Understanding the Soul Signature
of Joshua Tree

by Patricia Kaminski

The unusual branching formations of the Joshua Tree, featuring pronounced twists and turns, is related to its most predominant healing characteristic. The flower essence from this tree gives a remarkable strength to the soul to turn toward its future. The expression of individuality within the soul, is always a process of coming to be, involving a dynamic of turning from the past, in order to achieve a new orientation.

The flowering of any plant always involves extraordinary receptivity to new cosmic forces. But in the case of Joshua Tree, this activity is both a culmination and a new beginning. Once flowers appear on a branch, it can no longer continue growing. The plant must seek a completely new direction. This unique flowering signature is the central distinguishing quality of the Joshua Tree.

We can go further to understand the significance of this activity, when we realize that for the first decades of its life cycle, the plant does not flower – it only grows upright as a "stem,” with soft tender leaves under the protection of a "nurse plant." Gradually the leaves metamorphose and become much harder and more pointed. The Joshua Tree holds back its flowering impulse for many years, until a certain "hard" maturity is achieved. At the point of flowering the blossoms are full, white and luscious - like moon spheres, whose light they so readily reflect. And yet these "soft" flowers evoke from the plant a new moment of exceptional force and strength, as the plant then orients in a new direction. With each of these conversions, the Joshua Tree develops its striking shape and individual expression.

This same dynamic is also true of the human soul. We are not born as free individualities. Instead we emerge from the cultural milieu of our family, race, community, and nation. Only gradually do we find the strength to create from our own center, and from within our own unique expression of individuality. This process involves an integration of what is receptive to the past, and yet also firmly capable of creating the soul's own future.

Joshua Trees have life spans approaching half a millennium or more. The elder trees reveal a remarkable history of how the tree has grown. Each branch end represents a past flowering culmination; each twist and turn a new direction once taken. The past is ever present, yet the future potential remains for another new initiative, and new beginning.

From the point of view of the soul, we can consider the image of the “family tree." It is rare to belong to a family tree that is composed entirely of vibrant, healthy individualities. Instead, we can speak of "generational karma" that is passed through the collective psychic reality of the group soul. This soul condition is described in many spiritual teachings – for example, in the Bible as those "sins that are visited unto the third and fourth generations" (Exodus 20:5). It is only by becoming a free individuality that each person is able to break the links of generational karma, thereby healing not only the individual soul, but eventually liberating the psychic condition of the entire family tree.

From this point of view, we can understand why the Joshua Tree is so intimately connected to the forces of the moon, with large, waxy white-green flowers emanating their sweet fragrance in the moon-suffused night, accompanied by the pollinating activity of the Pronuba moth. The moon is a regulator of conception and birth mysteries, clearly experienced in the body of every woman.

From an esoteric point of view, the Moon (not the physical planet but the spiritual dimension of the Moon) is the lodge where souls live before coming to birth on earth. In this sense the Moon is also a container for those "night-time" forces which cannot yet clearly be seen by the soul – what is regarded in Jungian archetypal psychology as the collective unconscious.

The modern initiate, Rudolf Steiner, explained that the concept of "original sin" should not be understood as a "curse" upon the soul, but rather a given psychic reality. Through the moon sphere a bridge is built into the astral field of the potential mother and father at the moment of conception. The soul cannot come from the Moon sphere without incorporating the psychic field of its mother and father. By traversing this field, the incarnating soul also then takes on the generational karma that lives in the blood of its ancestors.

The path of liberation and enlightenment for the soul is to awaken to its own individuality and to make choices that are not condemned or conditioned by the past. From this point of freedom, the soul gains compassion to understand, and to heal, rather than unconsciously participate in the residue of karma that is passed within the family tree. This is the great gift of the Joshua Tree Flower Essence.

Dr. Pedro Sastriques has used Joshua Tree flower essence for many patients at his clinic at the Psychiatric Hospital of Havana, Cuba. His words give an excellent summary of the essential qualities of this flower essence:

The hidden contact with the psychic world of our Generational Tree is not perceived, even though it is present in each moment. Joshua Tree allows us to find it. This essence will clean family patterns that are sclerotic and obsolete, that darken the soul, forcing us to drag a negative karma originating from our ancestors. Joshua Tree will help us be reborn with a higher level of consciousness and a joyful hope for a new beginning.

Botanical Profile of the Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree Flower Essence:
Creating a Spiritual Structure in the Human Soul