Sweet Pea

Positive Qualities: Commitment to community, social connectedness, a sense of one’s place on Earth

Patterns of Imbalance: Wandering, seeking, inability to form bonds with social community or to find one’s place on Earth

Definition: Many souls are like pilgrims, searching and seeking for their place on Earth. When this condition is overemphasized, the individual is lost in wanderlust, unable to form true social bonds of caring and commitment. Such people move from one place to another, or from one community of friends to another, without becoming truly involved. They become hardened in their stance as “outsiders,” and are deprived of true soul growth by being unable to establish roots in family or community life. At the heart of the suffering of one who needs Sweet Pea is a deep feeling of homelessness. Such persons do not have within themselves “a sense of place,” or love for the Earth. This alienation can come from the experience of literal homelessness, or for those who were required to move a great deal during childhood. This imbalance is also related to urban and suburban living conditions — high-rise apartment complexes, urban ghettos, or anemic suburban developments — which rob the soul of its natural feeling of interest and connection to the Earth and the forces of Nature. The Sweet Pea helps such persons to come in contact with their feelings about “home.” By acknowledging and experiencing this pain which has numbed the Self, the soul can begin to heal, and find its true connection to the Earth and to other human beings.