You may have heard of Bach Flower Remedies, but what are flower essences exactly? In this post I take you through how flower essences are made and what they are. I also share how they can be used for holistic healing in any situation. This post is written from my experience as a trained naturopath and herbalist based in New Zealand.
All About Flower Essences
Flower essences are well known today as a healing tool. Homeopathic physician, Dr Bach developed flower essences in the 1930’s into Bach Flower Remedies of today.
Other natural medicine visionary’s such as Hildegard of Bingen have used flower essences, as far back as the 12th century. As we can see, flower essences were first made available by the wisdom of ancient healers.
However, I believe that everyone has access to intuition and knowledge about the natural world. We only need to take the time to connect with nature.
How Are Flower Essences Made?
Flower essences are completely natural and are made using simply sunlight, water and flowers. When making flower essences, I feel that each individual will have a unique connection with each plant. Use your intuition to guide which flowers to work with for your healing journey.
How Do Flower Essences Work?
First it is important that I explain how flower essences work.
Everything in life has a frequency, or a vibration, including humans! Flowers in bloom have a pure crystalline vibration. They can help uplift and correct a range of negative emotions, energetically speaking.
I believe, like Dr Bach that each unique flower corresponds with a particular emotion. As a result, flowers have powerful healing properties. They help gently tune us back into our positive emotional expression.
For example, Dr Bach’s Centaury is for for those who have the inability to say ‘no’. Centaury is said to support courage and self-determination.
Resonance Transfer
I’ve described how flower essences work, now I will explain how flower essences are made.
The energetic vibration of flowers is imprinted or transferred into water through the sun, which is known as resonance transfer.
The process for this is simple and easy. In the early morning (around 8AM-10AM), take a quiet walk around the garden.
- Collect your flowers that still have the morning dew on them.
- Place them into a crystal or glass bowl.
- Choose flower species you know to be safe and non-poisonous.
- Use a different bowl for each flower species to keep the imprints separate.
- The variety of flowers you choose will depend on your location; in my garden I have New Zealand native flowers.
Now that you have collected your flowers, all that is left to do is steep them in water.
- Fill your crystal bowl containing your picked flowers with pure spring water.
- Place it in a spot of direct sunlight.
- Allow the sun to work its magic for several hours.
- Bring the bowl and remove the flowers and any debris.
The remaining water left behind is your flower essence!
Preservation and Storage
The flower essence you have made is considered to be a potent concentrate. Although no harm will come to take the medicine as is, you can certainly dilute the dose to store. I will explain this process further.
First you will need the following equipment:
- Glass amber bottles with droppers – 50ml size
- Labels
- Brandy
- Your flower essence solution
Fill your clean bottles up halfway. Top off with brandy to the shoulder of the bottle. Tighten the cap and label with the name and date. Brandy helps to ground the vibration in the solution and preserve the remedy.
Now all that is required is to succuss (shake) the solution around 40 times and your remedy is complete. This final solution is known as the ‘mother essence’. I will detail further how to use this as a healing tool.
What Are Flower Essences?
So far I have explained what flower essences are and how they are made. I will now discuss how to use them along with safety considerations.
Applications and Use
As previously mentioned, the mother essence is what was initially created using fresh blooms and resonance transfer.
From here we can begin to make ‘stock’ bottles from the mother essence.
- A 10ml dropper bottle is filled to the shoulder with brandy.
- Two drops of the mother essence are added.
- Seal, label and date the stock bottle.
This stock bottle can now be used to formulate a treatment bottle for carrying with you or for specific remedies. To make a treatment bottle from a stock bottle complete the following steps:
- Use a 25ml dropper bottle and add 5ml of brandy or apple cider vinegar.
- Add 20ml of pure spring water.
- Choose your selection of stock bottles – up to 6 different stock bottle flower essences.
- Add 2 drops of each stock bottle into your treatment bottle.
- Seal, label and date the treatment bottle.
For this treatment bottle, the instructions for use are to take 4 drops, four times per day under the tongue or mixed with a glass of water.
Safety of Flower Essences
As flower essences are an energy medicine, they do not contain any physical components of the flowers. Therefore, they are incredibly safe and non-toxic to use with a range of many different ailments and allopathic medicines.
However, if you are considering to prepare your own flower essences then it is important to always ensure a clean workstation. Also remember to choose only flowers that you know to be safe and non-toxic.
Summary
Flower essences are a remarkable healing tool. They are natural, safe and gentle to use for all ages and life stages.
They are easily sourced online, or through your local healthcare store. If you are feeling called to, you can easily make your own remedies using the method I detailed above.
My favourite sources for New Zealand natives are First Light Flower Essences of New Zealand and Dr Bach’s Remedies.
There are also companies that are local to Canada, Australia and the U.S. so check out what is available in your area. They will most likely use plants native/local to the area which is an added benefit of environmental sustainability.
In my natural healthcare practice, I use flower essences to balance a range of emotional states with great results. If you are seeking assistance on your health and healing journey, get in touch today. I offer a free 15 minute discovery call to see how my services as a naturopath, herbalist and intuitive can assist you.