Flower Essences' Connection to Nature's Transformative Power

by Julia Brayshaw		print version
		print version (graphics)

When, in 1992, an illness prompted my discovery of flower essences, it was as though a beloved friend from childhood had at last resurfaced. As a child I had recognized flowers to be medicine for the soul, and it is this recognition that lies at the heart of flower essence therapy.

The culture of my childhood was not able to nourish the special kinship that I felt with the plant world, the delight I found with the flowers and the awakenings I experienced in their presence. Today our world is still dominated by a mechanistic view that does not our intrinsic our intrinsic connection to all of nature. This 300 year old epistemology understands intelligence as residing only in humans. In this framework nature functions as a vast machine. Through objective study of the natural world, humans can gain dominion over all of creation.

Golden Yarrow

This view is being challenged today as archaic and erroneous. However, it is so embedded in our linguistic and social structures that it exerts a powerful, often unconscious influence on what we value, consider normal, what we manifest, and how we understand ourselves. Within its parameters, a medical system focused on eradicating disease and human suffering at the expense of living systems appears to be common sense, indeed, to be our only option. Like most of our institutions, our medical system reflects and perpetuates the old epistemology.

The Ecologically Sustainable Medicine (ESM) movement is bringing to light the dangers of our present health care system, and calling attention to healing modalities that are life-sustaining. Promoting awareness of the crisis we are in and the solutions that exist is an important part of restoring our collective health and well being. Also needed is a transformation of consciousness. Without a consciousness shift we can take in information and learn new ways, but we operate like addicts attempting to change through Herculean acts of will while dysfunctional patterns still hold us in their grip.

Because of the methods of production and application of the flower remedies, on a concrete level, flower essence therapy is a sustainable practice.As well, the contribution of this modality to ESM is more extensive. At its core, flower essence therapy is a relationship between humans and plants, a relationship that reflects our innate knowledge of the unity of all of creation. It arises from a field of far greater possibility than the dominant epistemology; in turn, it brings to life and sustains this transcendent field.

When I began incorporating flower essences into my psychotherapy practice, I realized that here was a bridge connecting inner nature with outer nature, mind with body, human healing with right relationship to the world around us. I will discuss what I have learned through a decade of personal and professional use of flower essences in terms of their multifaceted contribution to wellness, from concrete benefits to their essentialevolutionary quality. This discussion will illuminate the ways that flower essences area tool for transforming consciousness.

The production of flower essences

Echinacea

English physician, Edward Bach, in the 1930s, developed the most common method of flower essence preparation. Fresh blossoms are floated in a glass bowl filled with spring water and exposed to direct sunlight for a few hours. Once the water is infused, the blossoms are removed and the infusion is added to an equal volume of brandy. Only two drops of this mother tincture are required to make a brandy-filled stock bottle. For the dosage bottle, two drops from the stock bottles of each desired essence are added to a one ounce bottle filled with water and a small amount of brandy. A conventional dose of four drops four times per day means this bottle will last approximately one month (Barnard and Barnard, 1988). As can be seen, flower essences are not physical substances; what has been "harvested" is a vibrational imprint, and a small amount of flowers yields hundreds of dosage bottles.

Flower essence production is inexpensive, nontoxic, and sustainable. As well as the traditional method, alternative methods of preparation have also been recently introduced. For example, Drs. Atul and Rupa Shah, who produce essences from wildflowers of the Himalayan Mountains for use in their medical practice in India, avoid cutting the flowers through use of a glass bulb that encloses the blossom while water is spiraled through it (1998). Organic brandy or organic vinegar can be substituted for conventionally produced brandy in the essence production process. In some cases, producers rely on distilled water alone as an imprinting medium that will not degrade very readily over time.

Flower essences as a harmless option

Scarlet Monkeyflower

Considering the choices for preserving agents as well as the nonphysical nature of the essences, it is understandable that Patricia Kaminskiand Richard Katz (1994), who have for over two decades compiled many hundreds of case studies from their own work and that of others, could write: "In general, flower essences are among the safest, most self-regulating health remedies available" (p.95). They explain that since a remedy'shealing potential is unlocked only when there is a resonant response,an inappropriate remedy will have no effect. Also, the action of an essence is neitherto mask nor suppress symptoms, as is the case with a biochemical substance, which triggers changes in brain chemistry. Rather, essences, with their capacity to entrain our energetic patterns, serve as awakeners, promoting awareness and unlocking possibility, allowing the user to determine appropriate response.

Compare the action of flower essences to the extensive list of possible problems and health risks associated with antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications found in the Physicians Desk Reference. Nevertheless, these medications are prescribed and purchased in increasingly enormous quantities. The health risks are not limited to the users. Antidepressant and tranquilizer use causes pollution through both manufacture and excretion. Stephen Harrod Buhner (2002) brings to light the way in which massive amounts of these substances and other pharmaceuticals enter our waterways and soils. In one example he highlights "selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, and Paxil", stating that they "have exceptionally strong impacts on aquatic organisms...even in tiny amounts of parts per billion" (p.98). Add to this that pharmaceuticals are resistant to breakdown, are unknown and alien substances in all ecosystems, and return to humans through our water supplies, and it becomes evident that this choice of intervention carries grave and dangerous consequences (ch.5).

Arnica

In my practice, some clients have been able to discontinue antidepressant use through the help of flower essences combined with depth psychotherapy. One example is the case of a middle aged man who had tried several times to discontinue the use of Prozac, which he had been taking for six years. Each of his attempts were unsuccessful because without the drug, his mind would race in obsessive thought loops. While taking a combination that included the essences of Arnica and Scarlet Monkeyflower, for addressing his difficult relationship with his body and with anger, this "squirrel cage" process totally resolved, and he was able to completely discontinue the Prozac, from which he remains free five years later.

In this case, a harmless substance was substituted for a toxic one. Yet a level beyond relief from pain is hinted at in this example. The deeper implications of choosing flower remedies over pharmaceuticals are clearly brought to light through a situation involving my daughter.