ABOUT CATHY’S
FLOWER ESSENCES
I am very excited about this range of high desert flower essences that I feel is a perfect complement to our range of attars and essential oils. I arrived in the desert of Northern New Mexico at the end of 2015. A couple of days after arriving here, I received an urgent message from my gynecologist in France stating that I had cancer.
I found myself in a new life, on a new continent with a deep healing journey in front of me. Florian kept telling me that the desert strips away everything that has become unnecessary. I spent the next three years on a deep, intense, inward journey, I was called to review my life, my relationships, my desires, my motivations, my traumas and my ancestral relations.
This spring, I began to surface from this journey, I felt like I had finally come home after a lifetime’s searching. And yes, home was the desert, but it was also a place within, an anchorage for my soul within this physical body – I was at last embodied. As I realized and celebrated this, an exceptionally wet spring meant that more flowers than I had yet seen started to bloom here in the high desert land of New Mexico from early spring onwards.
I felt called to celebrate my healing, to honor the place in which my soul had called me to heal by making flower essences from these desert blooms. This flower essence range is a celebration of the healing that comes from the high desert and of life.
Click here to explore our current range of flower essences.
What Are Flower Essences?
Flower essences are liquid preparations made from flowers. They only have minute traces of the flower in the finished preparation. They carry the vibrational signature of the plant that is transmitted to the water through a process known as solarization. The water holds and memorizes the flower’s unique vibrational resonance. The essences are stabilized in a solution of brandy and water and they are usually taken in oral form although they are sometimes used on acupuncture points.
How To Choose Flower Essences
There are different ways of finding the right flower essence for yourself. You can read the descriptions and go for those that speak to you, that resonate with you when you read them.
Some people use a pendulum to divine the right essence or selection of essences. I personally usually tune into the essences and listen to my inner “yes or no” for each until I have gone through them all.
I have found that flower essences work best when integrated into a holistic approach to healing, which may include inner work, personal development, diet, etc. Flower essences work well with all other modalities as they are non-invasive and work at a very deep, fundamental level.
Flower essences can work on the psycho-spiritual aspects of a person’s healing journey. Because of this, we feel they are a perfect complement to our essential oils and attars. The flower essences can anchor the changes that are brought to the surface in our journeying with the essential oils. The flower essences and essential oils also complement each other in that they communicate is different ways, at different vibrations so to speak.
How To Use Flower Essences
Flower essences are generally taken orally. I advise you to take 3-4 drops directly from the stock bottle and add them to a bottle of water that you can sip on all day. You can also add 3-4 drops to your herbal tea or juice (this is a good way to get kids to take them). When I am beginning a new flower essence or blend, I tend to make sure I have access to it all day, as in the water bottle above or by keeping it in my pocket and adding it to whatever I am drinking during the day. If you have chosen several essences, you can take a couple of drops from each and add them to a dropper bottle with half and half water and brandy, this then becomes the dosage bottle.
For people who prefer not to ingest alcohol, we offer our flower essences stock bottles either with alcohol (brandy) or with apple cider vinegar.
How Do Flower Essences Work?
Flower essences are energetic remedies. They work more like homeopathy than traditional herbal medicine, where the plant constituents cause chemical reactions in the body. Flower essences trigger the body’s own ability to heal. They work on the subtle bodies rather than the physical body. By the time illness or symptoms have reached the physical body, the subtler imbalances that have come through the subtler bodies from our essence have been ignored until eventually the imbalance is felt physically. Flower essences can intervene when we feel emotional imbalances or the limitations of outdated belief systems. Both the emotional and mental bodies are subtler than the physical body and are more in resonance with the vibrational medicine of the different flower essences. They respond to the flower essences, which if correctly chosen can start to re-align and help these subtle bodies get back into balance. It is a very gentle, subtle procedure and there are no side effects. The flower essence introduces a resonance and this then ripples through the subtle bodies reminding us of this healthy resonance.
Each person will respond to the right flower essence in their own way. Some people will be very aware of the effects whilst others may not feel anything. It is usually clear when the remedy has done its work as the person who was taking it vigilantly will then slowly wind down or just stop remembering to take it.
Click here to explore our current range of flower essences.
What Is The History Of Flower Essences?
Flowers have been used for healing mind and emotions for thousands of years throughout the world. Dew collected from plants was considered extremely healing by ancient alchemists and herbalists. It was Edward Bach in Europe who created the system that is at the root of most modern flower essence making today. There are references in Bach’s work to Paracelsus, who was a Swiss alchemist, physician and astrologer born in 1493. Paracelsus believed physicians needed to know about ‘the signature of nature, that is, the physical characteristics of plants, animals and minerals that linked them to corresponding parts of the body and indicated their medicinal usefulness.’ (1) Paracelsus also spoke about the healing power of flowers in the early morning dew.
Dr. Bach completed his training in conventional medicine in 1912. He worked on the development of vaccines, but always felt frustrated by the way the medical profession concentrated uniquely on the symptoms and did not see the patient as a whole person. He got interested in homeopathy and from his work on vaccines, he developed a series of homeopathic nosodes and gained a reputation as the second Hahnemann. He went from bacteria to flowers for healing. In 1930, he gave up his practice and concentrated on developing the Bach Flower remedies.
How Are Flower Essences Made?
Making essences is an extremely simple procedure. However, to obtain a quality remedy, a certain frame of mind and attention to detail is needed. I love the way that with flower essences, toxicity is not an issue, since barely any trace of the plant will be found in the finished essence.
Flower essences are made on sunny days as the sun’s rays shining through the flowers help transmit the message to the water. This is known as solarization.
A bowl of spring water is put in the sun, preferably among the flowers that the essence is being made out of. It is the vibrational imprint of the flowers that is memorized by the water. The flowers are gently placed onto the surface of the water. This is not an infusion, so they do not need to be immersed. The preparation is left in the sun for at least 2 hours, in a location where there is no risk of shadows falling on the bowl.
The filtered liquid is diluted with an equal volume of brandy. This is the “mother essence” or “mother tincture’’ and it is from this bottle that the drops will be taken to make the “stock bottle.”
Are Flower Essences Safe?
As flower essences contain barely, if any, trace of the flower’s constituents and work uniquely on a vibrational level, they are extremely safe and non-toxic. They do not affect the body’s biochemical makeup at all. It is impossible to overdose with flower essences. It is on the emotional level that you may notice feelings coming up, melancholy and mood changes. Flower essences can help your unconscious to work with emotions that have been repressed or unaddressed so be ready for this. It is part of the healing process.
Click here to explore our current range of flower essences.
If you have any questions about Cathy’s flower essences that have not been answered here please send us an email at info@aromagnosis.com. To find out more about the consultations we offer please click on this link.