{B.C. CANADA} THE MAGIC OF WHISTLER

I felt a jolt in my tummy as the majestic blue and green mountains came into view.

I was driving up the road from Vancouver to Whistler, British Columbia, and it was as if my body was plugging itself into an electrical outlet.

Nine years prior (pictured above!) I had traveled here on a full moon eclipse to collect flower essences. I had made wishes to find exactly the flowers that humanity needed most.

With every wish fulfilled, and surprise visits from a beautiful black bear, butterflies and a snake, I had made fifteen flower elixirs that would form the basis of our initial line of products that would benefit thousands of people.

Retracing my steps back into this powerful landscape, I reflected on the bizarre concept of time and how rapidly life zooms by us. When I last traveled these roads I was so much younger. Since then I worked harder than I ever had in my life and my business grew from one person (my little self)—to a whole crazy team of people. Now … I have crows feet around my eyes, two funny gray hairs poking out from the top of my head and I’m a little bit wiser.

A handful of special folks along the way helped me grow the business—we expanded into the spa industry and online, with customers in more than 15 countries. I learned everything about running a business by being a hustling entrepreneur: accounting, social media, pitching banks for loans, running a team + evolving our vision. I run my business the way I like it: no micro-managing and everyone makes their own schedules. We only hire people who are the perfect fit and I follow my intuition for everything. We celebrate our successes, learn from our mistakes and make a lot of decisions collectively as a team.

What most blows my mind are the thousands of flower-powered people in our community who have benefitted from the flowers collected in British Columbia almost a decade ago.

Flowers like Wild Fireweed opened our hearts and helped us forgive. Pink Spirea inspired us to laugh and play, Yarrow revitalized us after sooooo many hours on the computer + phone, and Arctic Lupine slowed us into a state of peace. Dandelion has relaxed thousands of people’s muscles, at home and at the spa. And so many more treasures from this place have touched people's hearts, without them ever having to travel to BC.

When I was here before it was Autumn and there was a golden light emanating from everything. Now it’s Spring and the mountains are majestic and breathtaking, possessing some kind of magic and intrigue.

Driving up the winding roads, everywhere you look is beauty.

Waterfalls pour out of the rocks, islands are thick with evergreens and a million shades of blue layer the mountaintops into a soothing backdrop. The creeks and rivers are rushing with snow melt and wildflowers splash the roadside with color.

In Whistler, Taylor and I located the same forest trails from before, this time the ferns were unfurling and reaching up toward the sun after a snowy winter.

The air was filled with a musky, floral, powdery scent, which we learned comes from the craziest botanical I've even seen in the forest: Meadow Cabbage. They are exotic, tropical-looking plants that seem more suited to Thailand or Malaysia than the Alpine forest. Spreading out all over on the forest floor, it’s as if Mother Nature got confused.

Not confused at all, this leafy, green plant makes its way up through the snow and ice every spring, seeking light and sky. As the black bears wake up from their winter hibernation, they munch on these vibrant cabbage leaves. Their flowers reach full size at a couple feet high, resembling an enormous jack-in-the-pulpit: a fluorescent yellow cape creates a canopy around a superman stamen so huge and so full of pollen that when you bump into it, a magician’s cloud of pollen smoke floats out and settles to the ground.

I've collected many flower essences for the greatest benefit of all in British Columbia.

Click on the images below to learn more!

I hope to return to this place once again this summer or fall, to walk for miles among the wild Lupine rivers of indigo blue and the flaming walls of Fireweed. I cannot think of anything more gratifying than conspiring with Mother Nature to benefit the world.

Love + flower petals,
Katie