Flower essences
The gifts that Dr. Bach brought to the world: essentially he brought a restatement of the perennial philosophy which has at its heart the simple idea “know thyself”. The Plato introduced this idea to us and Bach turned the “know thyself” into “heal thyself” (the title of his book written in 1931), but it is essentially the same idea. The link is philosophy and the well being of human life and society.
Dr. Bach created a simple roadmap of human emotion and life experience. It is this which underlies universal human experience, this is the perennial philosophy. The Bach remedies unite the thought of the commonality between human life and the flowers and trees which Dr. Bach chose to make his flower remedies.
The most excellent thing about Bach is that he steps away from mystery and points us in the direction of a simple science of observation. Looking at a plant and seeing how it behaves and grows, we discover what it is. And by looking at myself and observing what I am and how I behave I also make the discovery “who am I”.
He also says that if we find that happiness we will not be unwell and that when we reconcile the difficult emotions this brings us back to ourselves. I believe that the flower remedies are essentially an ongoing journey of self-recognition and self discovery.
By Julian Barnard (2011) in a speech for the 125th birthday of Dr Bach
https://www.bachflowerlearning.com/dr-edward-bach/the-125th-birthday-of-dr-bach/
Flower Essences : What they are and their use
Flower remedies are not medicines. Specifically, it is the energy/vibration of wildflowers preserved in bottles of spring water and a small amount of alcohol (as a preservative. In case we need to give the remedy to children or animals we can leave out the alcohol but preserve it in a cold environment or in the refrigerator). The flowers are cut at full bloom and placed in a glass bowl with spring water and then are left quietly under the sun for a few hours. The water combined with the sunlight holds the vibration of the flowers. After the 3 hours the water is stored in a bottle with alcohol (1:1). This is called “mother” bottle. From this we create “stock bottles” with a few drops from the mother bottle into 100% alcohol and from the stock bottle of each flower essence we add 4-7 drops to the personalized therapeutic bottle, which is what the person in need takes. Each of the flowers has a different property and its action focuses on releasing emotional, mental and spiritual blockages. As Dr. Bach, who first created flower essences, claims, physical illnesses stem from the emotions, so their effect is also on the physical level.
Flower essences are used in drops: 3-4 times a day, 7 drops under the tongue for a few seconds and then swallowed, or in a glass of water. They are completely harmless for babies, children, adults, pregnant women and elderly people, as well as animals, without any side effects and can be taken with other medicines or homeopathic or herbal remedies safely.
Flower remedies bring out the positive qualities within us, and allow us to replace fear with courage, hate with love, insecurity with confidence, etc., releasing and dissolving our negative beliefs and allowing our positive qualities to flow into the conscious mind. Flower essences act to the extent that one is ready to experience change.
I use and mix flower essences from the Bach, Αustralian Bush Flower Essences, FES collections as well as Flower Essences of the Greek land.
You can hear about the process of making flower essences from Julian Barnard here: https://www.bachflowerlearning.com/dr-edward-bach/making-essences/
