How to Take a Petal Bath
I recently fell in love.
It was a busy Friday afternoon and I was with both of my young daughters. We had a few hours to kill so I took them to my favorite local nursery to walk around in the warm heat of the green house and look at the fish pond. We were walking towards the front of the green house when I saw her.
She was a tall, thin black tulip magnolia tree bursting with fresh blooms of deep rich purple. I took a short video of her with my phone and then became distracted by my children. I left the nursery with two small fairy figures for my girls and a bag of light pink dahlia tubers.
But later that night as I was flipping through my phone I saw her again- was this the most beautiful tree I’d ever seen? She was so striking that I daydreamed about having her in my yard and what it would feel like to wait joyfully for her Spring blooms to come every year.
On an impulse I called the nursery to ask if the black tulip magnolia tree in the front was still available and it was! I told them I would call them back and I went out into my yard searching for a spot for her.
The day before Easter my mother and I voyaged out to the nursery to bring my new tree home. It’s too early in the season to put her in the ground, so she’s standing outside my garage patiently waiting to be planted. At night, I cover her with a sheet to keep her safe from the frost and in the morning I uncover her and give her a drink of warm water. When her thick, soft petals fall off her branches I have been collecting them.
For a while I thought I was going to make a spray- like rose water, or some kind of potion. But this afternoon, after feeling the exhaustion from the weekend I decided to draw myself a bath. The idea of adding the petals popped into my mind and I committed to my first “Petal Bath.”
Here are the official instructions:
Find the petals of any beautiful plant you love. This can be something growing in your garden, or a bouquet you find at a local grocer (make sure if you buy the flowers they are organic and don’t have any pesticides or chemicals on them).
Put them in a jar of water for 1 day. Let them sit overnight with a wish, intention, or just ask the plant to give you whatever you need in that moment. I also added a white quartz for intuitive clarity (a tip I learned from Rebecca Auman).
When the time feels right run a warm bath for yourself and add in the petals (and crystal if you wish).
Enjoy.
After the bath I felt recharged and rewired in a way I can’t explain. It was almost as if I had been given a deep tissue message or was allowed to turn my brain off for a half an hour. I felt nourished and calm, like I was able to feel and extricate the positive energy from the petals.
It is a reminder that as the solar eclipse approaches, we must find ways to ground and take care of ourselves. For me, that means to find intentional ways to step away from technology and step back into nature.
As I patiently wait for the weather in Buffalo to thaw I’m grateful for my new black tulip magnolia, an early birthday present to myself that will inspire me to keep following my intuition into the garden and into the bath tub.