ONE OF A KIND… (OOAK) collectible hand-painted stone, infused with courage, resilience and motherly love.
EVERY SO OFTEN… I fall in love instantly – not just with people, but with other things too – like animals and plants, smells and colours, the taste of something or the way it feels against my skin. And when I do, it’s more like a recognition to a previous encounter than a response to a new connection that has just been initiated. I’m not besotted or adrenalised, like in a fleeting infatuation, when your thoughts race, your pulse stumbles, and your feet barely touch the floor. I haven’t lost my wits to a sudden rush of hormones exploding out of nowhere. I’m still fully aware, fully grounded, fully myself. It’s more like I’m hooked; pulled in on a line towards something that already knows me. Like a child pulls you. Or a pet. You have a connection, a bond, that creates a chord. And every so often, you meet one of these chords from another life. One that has survived time travel and rebirthing. And you just know: you’ve met before, you belong. The energy of that is like a magnet – one from which I cannot detach myself, nor want to. And over time, I’ve come to trust these magnets. They are useful. They tell me things I need to add to my life. Because echoes of the past that resonate in the present, are echoes of things that were important enough to fight fate over.
I STUMBLED UPON… this plant while researching an entirely different project, and it had that familiar clarion call. I couldn’t turn away. I couldn’t dismiss it. I was transfixed. There was a resonance in its presence that I couldn’t explain. It drew me in like a forgotten mother. Like if the earth is our Mother, our True Mother, the Mother of everything and everyone: then this plant, to me, with her pale white, almost translucent petals, is her breast, her milk. I’ve been nurtured here. A part of me was raised here, long, long ago... And now, I’m being drawn back – differently, deeply – to be nurtured once more. Layers of me need stripping away; parts long overdue to be shed. She calls to that wounded and abandoned child: the one not seen, not heard, not held, not acknowledged, by those she most yearned to exist to. She offers a place to lie down and be reabsorbed – back into the earth, the Mother – so that the adult part of me might go on; stronger, brighter and more capable.
I KNOW THAT’S… a lot to read into a moss-clad rock and a silken waterfall of creamy white tendril and petal. But I’m intoxicated by this fragile bloom. Even her name, Monotropa Uniflora, is like a poem – conjuring up a whole book’s worth of stories about the families of tiny, not-quite-human creatures who live in the damp, labyrinth-like caves behind her veil, her petals and tendrils a curtain-like door keeping ill intent away; a barrier to bugs, spiders, worms, snakes, and birds.
REVERSING OUT… of my brain and back into reality, this plant has long been steeped in mysticism, death, transformation, and the unseen. With her ghostly pallor (she is translucent) and her quiet emergence from the decay of the forest floor (she grows from rotten things), she carries the weight of spirits, liminal spaces, and forgotten wisdom. Some say she is a messenger from the underworld, a bridge between worlds, a flicker of something just beyond reach binding life and death in a way that refuses to be fully understood.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES… and herbalists have relied on her for relief – soothing pain, calming the nervous system, and easing the weight of emotional wounds. She is known as a nervine, a remedy for those who feel severed from themselves, lost in the spaces between, and has been used for deep grief, deep shock and deep dissociation. It is said she brings a sense of grounding – a way back – guiding those who feel lost, fragile and untethered back to themselves, their friends and family and the world.
GROWING IN DARK… moist, undisturbed woodlands, surviving without sunlight, she is a powerful symbol of resilience, adaptation, and hidden nourishment – teaching that life can emerge from the most unexpected places. Growth does not always require external light: it can come from deep within, from long-dormant spaces, from the broken-off parts of us. She is a plant of thresholds, guiding those navigating the unknown, whether in times of loss, transformation, or spiritual awakening. Elusive, rare, and ephemeral – appearing suddenly and vanishing just as fast, much like a dream or a glimpse of something beyond the veil – she reminds us that not all growth is visible, that strength can be found in shadows, and that sometimes the most profound transformations happen in the quietest, darkest places.
FUN FACTS:
- She is like fog, jelly, wax… and melts away upon touch, dissolving into a fleeting moment of beauty.
- She is a parasite, feeding off the fungi she grows against – but unlike the fungi, who feed from the tree, and the tree, which feeds from the fungi – both giving and taking from each other symbiotically – she is a “cheater”: taking only, never contributing.
- She is extremely rare.
- She turns grey, and then black, as she dies off.
- She has many names – Ghost Pipe, Ice Plant, Bird’s Nest, Fit Plant, Ova Ova, Ghost Flower, Corpse Plant and Indian Pipe.
MY PAINTING… of Monotropa Uniflora, my favourite of her names, is not merely an image, it is a tribute to her quiet resilience. It symbolises the beauty that emerges from vulnerability and the strength in accepting our hidden, sometimes painful, parts. It is a call to acknowledge what we often push aside; to let the soft, healing magic of the unseen mend our fractured edges. In embracing the ghostly allure of Monotropa Uniflora, we learn that, even in the darkest, coldest places, life – fragile, mysterious, and transformative – can bloom anew. It is also a message to share and to make sure that those we share our lives with do too, so that none of those relationships tend towards the parasitic. Because all take and no give is where stories of vampires come from and why those who are over-givers, people-pleasers, mother to all lost souls, tend to get used up and burned out.
I HOPE THAT… this pebble can transform your life in big and beautiful ways, releasing you from bonds you didn’t know you were carrying, freeing you from long-held beliefs about needing support in order to succeed, and birthing you anew: fresh, vibrant and strong. Let her heal your grief. Let her mend your wounds. Let her shelter you awhile while you tend to your soul.
MONOTROPA UNIFLORA
She rises from the ruin, pale as mist;
a spectre spun from roots unseen;
a hush of waxen tendrils kissed
by silence deep and evergreen.
No need for sun, for golden hands –
she drinks the dark, she feeds on loss;
her bloom, a hush that understands
what lingers past the final cross.
She is the mother of the lost,
a breast of earth, a whispered guide,
for those whom time and grief have tossed,
like petals to the turning tide.
Come lay your sorrow in her shade,
where ghosts of past selves ebb and flow,
where wounds that time has never swayed
soften, settle, break, and grow.
She knows the weight of quiet ache,
the hunger etched in fragile bone,
the way the ones who give and break
become the hollow, not the home.
But here, within her spectral glow,
she asks for nothing, takes no toll;
she only offers what we know –
a place to gather, to be whole.
So press your palm against her stem;
let her dissolve upon your skin –
a fleeting touch, a requiem
for all you were, for all you’ve been.
And when she vanishes to black,
her healing sung, her wisdom sown,
you’ll find the path that leads you back –
not lost, not broken, but your own.
👉🏻 WHAT TUGS… at your heartstrings?
👉🏻 WHAT CALLS… to you like a forgotten friend?
👉🏻 WHAT CHORDS… are you tangled up with to you detriment?
👆🏻 I HOPE YOU… find as much pleasure from gazing into this stone as I did in painting it.
👆🏻 INSPIRED BY: magical plants discovered quite by chance, and all of the wonderful things I could find out about them.
DIMENSIONS:
• Pebble: 7.5 x 7cm; 3 x 2.8in
MATERIALS:
• Posca Paint Pens
• Baker Ross Multi-Purpose Acrylic Craft Varnish
PLEASE NOTE: this is not a toy, it is delicate, it is meant for ornamental purposes only. If you do happen to drop or accidentally scrape or chip it, you may revarnish it with a thin layer of clear gloss varnish, making sure to allow significant time for it to properly dry. If you get it covered in dirt, grime or drool, you may gently wipe or rinse it. Deeper damage may require touching up the image with paint pens and then revarnishing. Rest assured, most minor incidents can be rescued, but the responsibility lies with you.
🔒 © Rebecca L. Atherton | All Rights Reserved, 2024.