A Brief History of Flower Essences
(Reprinted with the author’s permission from Healing
Animals Naturally With Flower Essences and Intuitive Listening, by
Sharon Callahan, Sacred Spirit Publishing, Mt. Shasta, CA, 2001, p. 33-34.)
From man’s early beginnings, people have known that the
means to heal forms of illness and suffering are within nature.
As human culture evolved, however, the quest for objective knowledge
and technological mastery separated human consciousness from
nature, to the point that our inner relationship to nature as
a source of healing was all but lost. Thankfully there is now
a growing movement toward re-alignment with nature. Flower essences
are among those evolutionary steps in health care that combine
the clarity of modern science with a new spiritual awareness
of nature.
Although flower essence remedies have been known for centuries
in India, China, and by the Australian Aboriginals and other
native peoples of the world, one of the most respected names
associated with their use in modern times is Dr. Edward Bach
of England.
Born in 1886, Dr Bach practiced orthodox medicine until the
end of 1918, specializing in bacteriology and immunology. His
specialized understanding of health and disease led him to the
study of homeopathy, which he practiced for ten years. Later
he expanded his search for a simple natural way to balance the
physical and emotional systems with the healing properties of
the essences of flowers. He found that he could place the flowers
of a particular species on the surface of a bowl of spring water
for several hours in sunlight to obtain powerful vibrational
tinctures. The subtle effects of the sunlight charged the water
with an energetic imprint of the flower’s vibrational signature,
and he soon realized that there was great healing power in flowers.
He perceived with remarkable insight that various emotional
and personality factors (fear and negative attitudes being the
most significant) contribute toward a predisposition to illness.
Medical science is now only beginning to address the relationship
between illness and emotions. Dr. Bach also understood that the
illness/personality link was an outgrowth of dysfunctional energetic
patterns within the subtle bodies (emotional or spiritual, mental
and physical bodies), and that illness was a reflection of disharmony
or resistance between the physical personality and the Higher
Self or Soul, or Source Energy.
Since the Bach Flower Remedies were introduced, research and
interest in the healing properties of flowers has continued to
grow and expand. The Alaskan Flower Essence Project researches
essences collected in the unspoiled Alaskan wilderness. In other
projects, flowers from the outback of Australia’s ancient
plant species are being researched and used as essences with
wonderful results. Because of that continent’s isolation,
their plant species come from an evolutionary line very different
from our own. Their flowers are exotically beautiful with wonderful
names such as Purple Kangaroo Paw, Happy Wanderer, and Billy
Goat Plum.
In California, we have the Flower Essence Society, which
has been researching North American flower essences for many
years. Today essences are being collected from the flowers of
the American Southwest, the moors of Scotland and even Russia.
I would venture to say that in almost every country, someone
is now making flower essences. |
