Amazing Flower Remedies

Have you had the experience of suddenly discovering something amazing and new, and  wondering why everyone wasn’t shouting it from the rooftops? I felt like that on the summer day in England when I first saw a crop circle. I couldn’t believe that all the world’s newspapers weren’t running front page headlines on this incredible phenomenon. I also felt this way when I took my first class on flower essences. These exquisite creations of nature, flowers, are all around us. And not only do they grace our lives with beauty and play a crucial role in attracting insects to propagate their species. They are also potent remedies for emotional and spiritual well-being! What a concept! The flower essence workshop that I took in the 1980’s opened my eyes to a new kind of plant medicine. Since then I have used flower remedies myself and often helped friends decide what ones will benefit them most.

Over the ages, flowers have been used for healing in a variety of ways. But it was Edward Bach, an English physician in the 1930’s, who began to do research on the effect of flower essences on some of his patients with emotional and tough-to-treat physical and attitudinal difficulties. He eventually developed 38 flower essences, addressing many human patterns that get in the way of emotional, spiritual and physical health. For example, Agrimony helps with self-worth, Chicory with inter-personal love, Hornbeam with strength to carry out personal intention, Scleranthus with balance and stability, and the list goes on. Bach Flower Remedies are used worldwide today by millions of people.

In the past twenty or thirty years, other folks have developed their own lines of flower remedies, treating a broader range of human challenges than the Bach remedies addressed.  There are fascinating books on the uses of flower essences in medicine, psychotherapy, social work, crisis care, aging, developmental transitions, child care, and pet care, just to name a few. But what I like is that you can experiment with these gentle helpers, with no fear of an ill effect. This is what is known as vibrational medicine, and there is very little, if any, of the actual flower in the final mix. You make a flower essence with the clean petals from a particular flower, clear pure water, and the sun.

Making Flower Essences is one of the new workshops that we’ll be offering at Wapsinonoc Gardens this summer, once there are a variety of flowers blooming here. Stay tuned for the date.