The neanderthal man laid flowers on the grave of those dearly departed and conducted funerary rights with flowers.
In Victorian England, Floriography was the language of communication with flowers. Each bouquet of gifted flowers was carefully chosen to represent and communicate the giver’s feelings.
We have understood the essences of flowers for many moons past. But today, much of this language of flowers is lost in a culture that no longer uses graceful symbology to communicate feelings and emotions.
What we have, though, are flower essences.
But what the heck are flower essences?
Some of you might have heard of Bach flower remedies or Rescue Remedy. These are, in modern terms, the first flower essences made and manufactured for general use.
They were developed in the 1930s by English practitioner Edward Bach who was considered a Sensitive. He could sense the emotional healing properties of flowers and developed his range of Bach flower essences to use with his patients.
Since the development of the Bach flower remedies, many other Sensitives throughout the world have researched and developed flower essences with flora from their local area.
You might have heard of the Australian Bush flower essences, developed by Ian White, using flowers mainly from the Blue Mountains in New South Wales.
Being a Sandgroper and completing my Naturopathic training in Perth, my favourite range of flower essences come from Western Australia. The range is called Living Essences; Vasudeva and Kadambi Barnao developed them; it contains 88 flower essences from native flowers found throughout southwest WA.
Vibrational remedies
Flower essences contain only the vibration or energy of the flower from which they are derived. They are vibrational remedies similar to homeopathics, isopathics and gem elixirs.
When carefully chosen, flower essences can help with emotional wellbeing. Unlike pharmaceutical drugs or herbal remedies, flower essences have no contraindications. They are safe to use with any other medications, herbs or supplements. They are safe for infants, the elderly or even pets and animals.
Their subtle power is capable of accessing hidden knowledge within the individual. Each flower essence carries its own unique emotional healing qualities. They can help to work through emotional blockages or patterned behaviour.
Healing the scratches
To understand how flower essences work, I like to use the simile of an old-style record, with the record representing the journey of your life.
The needle from the record player travels along the record’s grooves, playing the songs of your life. However, sometimes there can be scratches in the record. You can get stuck repeating the same emotional patterns and find it difficult to step out of the scratch.
Flower essences can help you find a way to heal the scratch or move beyond it and continue with your life journey.
They can provide you with the wherewithal to approach situations with a renewed perspective and fresh insights, to discover new ways of working through life challenges.
Flower essences work well alongside any talking therapy: CBT, counselling or psychotherapy and can work well as an adjunctive therapy alongside herbal medicine, nutritional medicine and other healing modalities.
Experiential understanding
As with most other vibrational remedies, the understanding of flower essences is within the experience. Using the remedies can help garner a greater understanding of the subtle power of these healing remedies.
