Tulip Love

Title for Tulip Love book

Introduction

Tulip means “Perfect Love” in Ancient Persian Mythology

This Book is an invitation for us to remember; the Delicate Flower that exists Deep Inside us, the Childlike Beauty inside our Core Being, the Strength of our own Inner Ruler, and an explanation of how to adopt an alternative Healing Modality for Individuals and in our Communities.

Do you want to love more deeply?  Feeling touch-deprived and stressed out? Do you yearn to connect with your hidden power and open up to blossoming?

Tulip Love comes as an invitation for you to embrace your own sacredness, to connect with your own inner childlike qualities, to express your unique, mature Regalness (Regality) and inner worth, to be Love, in its fullest expression. I wish to share my thoughts and ideas of how we can take better care of each other and ourselves through what I call Tulip Consciousness. This Tulip Healing Model will be introduced, accompanied by exercises with various insights, and comes in answer to an urgent need in an alienated society where people feel estranged, stressed out, touch-deprived and mainly love-deprived. It is a wonderfully balanced model for both men and women.

  Besides the Individual and Group Healing, other related topics are Tulip History and Botany, Mysticism, Symbolism, Archetypes, Exercises, Insights, Tulip Society, Poems, the usage of Tulip Thrones and Tulip Crowns, as well as my own private experiences. The connection to an outer intelligence or angelic realm—the Tulip People—is discussed, accompanied by a picture from the National Geographic Magazine, displaying Tulip-looking people on rock paintings. Tulip-Related art motifs that I have painted throughout my life, will explain some of the healing concepts in a visual manner. In addition, parallels will be drawn to certain concepts of the “Tree of Life” in Kabbalah, and you will also gain a personal and collective perspective of what Tulips stand for.

  I have numbered the chapters according to the Fibonacci Spiral* and its sequence, out of the need to weave our past into the future. The Fibonacci spiral is one way to guide you through the book, as it is the most organic spiral form that can be observed in nature, and it grows exponentially. It would be confusing for the reader, however, if I did not also use the traditional numbering of chapters. This way the energetic effect of its intention will remain, though in a more subtle way. According to the Fibonacci spiral, each chapter’s number builds upon the experience of the one before it, creating an organic structure, weaving the chapters themselves into each other. Its ratio grows in relation to the number before it (1,1,2,3,5,8,13 etc. 1+2=3, 3+5=8). Thus, the chapters are interrelated, symbolically creating an inevitable link to further growth from individual to group consciousness to a more supportive and nurturing community, all reaching out to a larger pool of collective consciousness. For example, those chapters that deal with the individual aspects of the Tulip Consciousness slowly build a bridge to the benefits of the Tulip Healing Modality in a larger community setting. Therefore, metaphorically, we are guided to know how to revere where we came from (the past), including family, country or nationality. We cannot move forward (the future) in a constructive manner without looking back, lovingly.

  In this book, I share how this flower consciousness has matured over the years, as well as some personal accounts and family history, with the hope that this will help others. At times, I write about a certain innocence and certain beliefs that might be hard to accept, or may be interpreted as too childlike to live out in our challenging modern lives. Nevertheless, I believe these ideas have validity and beauty.

  This world needs more softness. It needs to return to innocence, to turn away from our overly critical minds and perceptions of how we should be in the world. When I use the term God, I mean to include all kinds of faiths and beliefs, or if you so wish—Divine Will. Personally, I connect with Elokim; for a Native American it might mean the Great Spirit; for a Christian believer, Jesus; for a Muslim, Allah; for a Buddhist, Buddha, etc. We are all here together, and “whom” we believe in is secondary, as we are all “God’s Children.” They say that a loved “person” has many names. It is equally true of our Beloved God.

Tulips, with their subtle presence of amazing grace, have been with me since I was very young. It all began when my sister and I spent our childhood summers in Northern Sweden with my sweet grandparents. We often brought a wonderful basket filled with nurturing food for a sunny picnic delight. In the midst of this idyllic setting, we were surrounded by an endless sea of wildflowers, blueberries and mushrooms. We enthusiastically picked the flowers and decorated our heads with their delicate nature; soon we had adorned our small selves with the glory that I believe flowers like to be remembered for. Little did I know that later in life, I would passionately love to adorn people with Tulips (by means of a Tulip Crown)! Or, more precisely, to adorn and adore them. In the years to come, both my sister and I drew multitudes of flowers. She was more into wild flowers, especially daisies, and I of course was obsessed with Tulips. My grandmother had a wonderful garden planted with these favorites. Since then, I have been on a magical journey with these delicate creations of God, in my art, my dreams and in healing work. I do not know any other flower that holds the space for love so elegantly, openly and beautifully contained in its cup-shaped form. The Tulips are teachers of integrity, stemming symbolically from a true chalice pouring out divinity into dried-up, yet thirsting hearts. I feel very fortunate to have such an intimate relationship with these flowers.

Since I was so drawn to Tulips, in my dreams and in my paintings, I also kept searching for the deeper meaning of their symbolism. At the same time, I went about my life, studying various disciplines like architecture, drama therapy and fine arts. At one point I was upset by the fact that after all this schooling I still was not sure about the real purpose of my life, so I sought counseling. During those therapy sessions, I saw how powerfully Tulips were linked to my life purpose. I had asked the counselor to guide me to clarify my life dreams, as well as questions about what I was supposed to do in this life, or how I could clarify my deepest desire. Through a guided-imagery journey I ventured into the landscape of the unconscious world, where I found myself (and my Inner Child) as a little girl walking in nature. Further down the road there were Tulips growing in the fields. Seeing these beautiful flowers I immediately started to feel alive, and with great enthusiasm began to pick the Tulips. With my hands full I ran to people and put Tulips “into their hearts.” As I did this the little girl in the guided imagery, and inside me, became so content and overjoyed that she really did not want to do anything else! All she wanted to do was to give people gifts of Tulips—straight into their hearts—as a symbol of love.

From the very core of my being, my dream is to open people’s hearts by the magic touch of Tulips.

  A while after that experience, I went to study for a Masters at UCS/New College, California, and wrote a thesis in 1997 called The Kin of Kiva—Sacred Alternative Healing Sanctuary and Arts Center. The main purpose of creating a retreat village such as this is to invite people to be part of a deeply healing community with two centers. One is for day-to-day living, while the other is a spiritual cultural area. It too is based on the Fibonacci spiral as a sacred geometric form that constitutes one of the two core centers. It is an intimate expression of sustainable, community living on land designed with organic architecture and sacred geometric forms paralleling human organs. These forms are basically feminine, and the blooming concept becomes essential throughout the village. The Tulip Temple Healing Sanctuary was born as a continuation of this idea, and is planned to be part of this village concept in the future. (For more information, see Kin of Kiva Thesis in Bibliography section.)

  I hope this flower consciousness will inspire individuals and communities to adopt the Tulip Temple Model for their own healing, with friends, in their neighborhoods, or in organizations. Careful instructions of how this system works are documented in the book. From my own experience, I strongly advise following the guidelines suggested in Chapter 21, as they provide for a safe and efficient structure to hold such events. (A Tulip Temple Manual is also available for purchase.) In addition to the flower-conscious concepts of Tulip Love, which represents the Divine and perfect expression of deep love, Tulip Love also stands to reclaim the innate healthy feminine and masculine aspects in our society, partnership, as well as celebrating the beauty within and around us. The union of our inner female and male, the union of the Inner Child and the Grown Up, the spiritual connection between the Divine and our bodies, is the merging of two opposites, two archetypes, into oneness. Tulip Healing is geared to individual and collective healing, balancing childlike innocence with the Mature Regalness living within us all.

  I stand for the powers within us to reclaim our basic dignity as a loving species and a compassionate, heartfelt human race. At our core, all of us were born fragile, small and dependent. We were all born needing a Mother’s love, a Mother’s milk and her protection, in addition to the Father’s wings of guidance, and more. All this shows how connected we are, through our common experiences in life. Let’s recall that we are all the same and rid ourselves of the masks that hide our true existence—the true contours of our inner trembling. If only nations could also see that each country and each religion was perhaps created out of the same hope—to be a special child in the eyes of Mother Earth or God—to be a special country. Individual or nations, we all need to be especially loved in our own unique manifestations! It is my hope that reading this will take you through an exciting adventure, wherein you may have “aha!” moments or insights into the magic experiences in your life, as well as into your own cherished Self. The choice of the magical Fibonacci spiral, via the chapters, is intended to enhance the maturing of our interrelatedness. By reading this book, I hope you will spread the Tulip Love Vibration; expand the flower consciousness; the love for Your Self; shed more truth on your life’s journey and our amazing world.

Eva Ariela Lindberg

**Certain Tulip words or expressions are described in the Tulip dictionary section and in the glossary at the end of the book. The Tulipomania phenomenon I nickname “Tulip O’ Mania” as it indeed was an “Oh” time in our history. The reason the Tulip Healing space is called a temple is because it signifies a sacred space, yet is not affiliated to any religion nor intended to offend people of any religion. The usage of the word temple safeguards the need to revere people in a context of community healing, as it mainly indicates the importance of sacred space for the healing to be held within its boundaries. References to sexual organs and at times certain expressions are used in order to understand our inner psyche and humanness, and not to elicit any provocative or disrespectful images.