Meet the Jade Vine
the floral muse of my therapy practice
Jade vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys) is a flowering vine that, like me, hails from the Philippines. The story and survival of this plant species bears an unnerving resemblance to my own story, which is one story among many in the waves of Filipino migrants and overseas workers who have left their homeland over the past two centuries. The more I reflected, though, I saw the jade vine in the stories of the many clients I have served over the years too.
Today, jade vine is well-loved by plant enthusiasts and conservatory keepers. It requires a tropical climate to cultivate it properly, and when well nurtured, gifts its cultivators with many strands of its beautiful, striking blossoms. However, it’s native to the mountainous jungles of my ancestral lands, some of which now have been deforested. How did it come to this?
Jade vine knows what it means to move.
Jade vine knows what it’s like for strangers and even close figures to unexpectedly cut you down, burn you, eject you. Jade vine knows what it’s like to evacuate from home because home somehow became inhospitable. Jade vine knows what it’s like to live in spaces you really didn’t want to be permanent, but you did out of survival. And jade vine also knows what it’s like for strangers to decide you were so beautiful and precious that you were worth preserving and protecting.
Jade vine perhaps knows what it’s like to long for what was once home before. Jade vine knows ultimately that it’s rooted where it is now, accepts that it’s nourished here now, and blossoms in full health here, and now. Jade vine thrives despite being far from its mother land — knowing that the future is mysterious, but not something to distrust.
Survival is strange, and healing is, too.
While the timing and origins of our entrance into this violent world are completely out of our control, that’s just the beginning of our stories. Not the end.
While we begin conceptualizing, feeling, and moving about in the world in certain ways as infants, children, and young adults, we can get stuck or frozen in these ways, especially after a life changing event. Patterns that mean to protect us gradually close us up. But we are responsible to continue adapting to reality and to grow beyond our wounds, and we can.
We all must choose a radical leaving once or twice in our lifetime. We are all called to follow our personal inner disturbances that move us towards our destiny. And at some point, we inevitably confront our freedom to either run from ourselves or to risk everything to truly become ourselves.*
The jade vine blossoms’ message to me that I pass on to you is this:
We are agents in our lives.
We move how we have to.
We tell our stories for ourselves —
and we don’t let anyone tell our stories for us.
We move how we want.
And with the right care, we will bloom.
