What are Flower Essences?

flower.jpg

Flower essences (or ‘remedies’ – the terms are used interchangeably) are the vibrational imprint, or etheric pattern of particular flowers or plants prepared in liquid form. You can imagine, as science tells us, that everything – plants, animals, the Earth, stars – is made up at it’s very basic level of vibrations of energy. Then you can also imagine that every flower species has a particular vibration different in some way than any other. The energy of a dark red rose is different than that of a bright white lily in color, form, scent, texture, and so on. These tangible factors are associated with the flower’s individual vibrational pattern or ‘etheric essence’.

The vibrational pattern of each flower can be ‘imprinted’ in pure water through certain preparation methods – one used most often is the infusing (like making tea) of fresh flowers just picked in glass bowls of spring water sitting in bright sunlight. The water then takes on the etheric vibration of the flower, resulting in what has been termed a ‘flower essence’.
Vibrations and Emotional Energies

Now lets imagine that we as human beings are also made up of, at some level, vibrational energy. If we take this a step further, one can imagine that our ‘soul’ or ‘personality’ or whatever term you’d like to use here, has a vibration or etheric pattern of its own. Your ‘soul pattern’ includes your emotional makeup, and it directly influences your actions, choices, and perceptions of the world, both on a material and a spiritual level.

It turns out, as Dr. Edward Bach discovered in the 1930’s, that flower essences can alter our own etheric patterns. The vibrational imprint of a flower, prepared in water, can directly effect our own energetic makeup in a positive way. If you imagine that every emotion has a particular vibration, you can also imagine that vibration being affected or ‘tuned’ by the introduction of another vibration – that of a flower essence.

Flower Essence Application

We’ll take the clear example of the use of one of Dr. Bach’s original flower essences, Impatiens. You can think of being ‘impatient’ as being a bit ‘high strung’, where nothing is happening fast enough, with an overall sense of anxiety. This can be thought of as a particular vibration common to many individuals of the human species, and it may also be thought of as not particularly pleasant or useful – a ‘stress’ one might want to alter or release. By taking the Impatiens flower essence, the vibration of the flower synergistically alters a particular vibration of the individual, resulting in a noticeable calming action for many people.

Specificity of Effects

The use of the word ‘synergistically’ here is important: it has been found that each flower essence affects certain ‘soul patterns’ and not others. For example, if one is by nature, a patient person, one would not likely be affected by Impatiens flower essence. This is one of the many beauties of flower essence therapy – they are completely safe for anyone to take. An incorrectly chosen flower essence will likely result in no effect at all; there are no ‘side effects’ to be spoken of.

Broad Range of Uses for Emotional Healing

And this is a relatively simple case; one’s vibrational makeup may be affected by a particularly stressful early childhood relationship with one’s mother, and one could choose a flower essence to assist in the change or healing of that emotional vibration (Evening Primrose, as an example). There is clearly a great breadth of human emotion and experience, and as such there are a great many flower essences available. We carry both the original 38 flower essences developed by Dr. Bach, as well as the 103 North American flower essences from Flower Essence Services. For more on flower essences and flower essence therapy, see Choosing Flower Essences and Using Flower Essences, as well as the particular section on the Bach Flower Essences and Remedies.