As gentle and subtle as they are, it is not surprising to me that flower essences arrived in my life in the way they did:  Slowly, quietly, over time, from different directions, and so lovingly:  I heard about Rescue Remedy in the 1980s, then, years later, the beautiful, young Henry V. brought me the dew he’d collected off flowers at the school where I worked; a post on Instagram asked, “Is the Green Path calling you?”  I began to listen to plants at the United Plant Savers (UpS) Sanctuary in SE Ohio, a teacher there had us connect with a plant or flower (goldenrod, in my case)), and then gave each apprentice a single essence; a psychic I worked with suggested I make “medicine” with Sword Fern; a friend who uses the Perelandra system of communicating with land offered me a “land clearning”... 

I have always been attuned to plants, even growing up in an apartment in New York City, and soon after moving to the West Coast, I was introduced to Dr. Edward Bach’s most famous essence, Rescue Remedy.  But I didn’t know what it was, that this “remedy” was a flower essence, a combination of the “messages” and medicines of different plants, offered through their flowers, a combination of plant vibrations, which can help us “deal with emergencies, grief, trauma, crisis, and stressful situations.”  I bought some at the Coop and used it on and off, gave it to my pets and later my children, without understanding at all what it was or how it worked.  I didn’t know the story of how Dr. Bach came to make them, that in the 1930s, through his unusually sensitive observation of Nature, he came to understand that Nature herself (Itself/Themselves), when captured (or offered) in this way, brings profound and positive changes to the human soul and body.  Dr. Bach listened and then collected the dew from flowers in the morning and bottled these.  He must also have understood how water holds vibration, that each plant has its own vibration, and that these vibrations hold messages and medicine which can help humans, pets, and even the land.

Since soon after I first learned of/remembered about them, while in an apprenticeship in “Medicinal Plant Conservation” at UpS’s Plant Sanctuary in the fall of 2017, I have been working with and then making flower essences.  I had applied to the UpS program with the specific intention of developing my ability to communicate with plants, as I believed (and still believe) that plants (and fungi) are deeply wise and could be (and WANT to be) helpful to humans and our soul evolution.  If we would just listen and let them, I think they will help “save” the world.  This remarkable place and program allowed me to develop my interest in plant communication, which, really, meant listening.

When I returned home to the Pacific Northwest after the internship, the plants on my property and in my neighborhood started to “talk” to me, though I couldn’t really hear or understand them clearly at first, at least not in “real” time. But eventually, I did and what they asked of me was to make flower essences, so that’s what I have done and continue to do since then, whenever they ask.  

The first “voice” I heard was the Red-Flowering Currant on the front path to my house.  It’s a native NW shrub and one of the first things to bloom in spring where I live.  It kept saying, “Hello!” to me as I passed it.  And, “Yoo Hoo, Sylvia!”  I started to greet it in return and to listen and then to watch the hummingbird that seemed to have a particular relationship with this particular plant, a specific vibrational relationship, as the currant was budding out and flowering and the blossoms were beginning to really open up.  And then I heard the currant ask me to make a flower essence from its blooms.  And so I did.  

It’s easy, on a practical level, to make a flower essence.  You just need the blooms of the flowers, a small glass bowl, good, pure water, and sunlight.  Alchemy.  I had learned about this at UpS and also the important piece of connecting with the plant, asking permission, asking for the healing and medicine of the plant to enter the water and be available for the greatest good and the highest healing for all beings.  A teacher there (thank you Katherine Ziff!) talked about it and described the process.  So, knowing this, I asked permission and explained that I was making an essence to share with others.  When I got a yes, I asked the currant to bless the water with its healing and message, then I carefully cut the flowers, dropping them into a glass bowl of filtered water, doing my best not to touch the blooms (which would put MY vibration and energy into them), and covering the surface of the water with these blooms.  I laid the bowl in the sun at the foot of the shrub and left it there for 4 hours.  When I returned, I strained the flowers off the water (saving them and returning them to the ground with gratitude and thanks on my outdoor altar), mixed this flower water one-to-one with brandy and bottled it up.  There was some extra so I gave it back to the plant and had some myself.  The faintly resinous, magic flavor of Red-Flowering Currant lit me up.  I didn’t know the “properties” of this plant being, but I knew that it wanted me to take it into my body, so I did.

Flower essences are, as I’ve begun to explain, the vibrational imprint of plants (made in water, a great holder of vibration), the ultimate expression of each plant (the flowers), preserved in alcohol.  Flower essences are different from tinctures, essential oils, and other herbal medicines, which are made using methods of extraction and which work more on the physical plane.  Flowers essences are the gift and medicine of plants on a vibrational level, and are meant to be taken in reciprocity (as is everything, really).  The plants give you their gifts and then you also allow them to be embodied as you, literally, to be in your body, so they can learn what it’s like to be human and evolve and be able to help us evolve:  a lovely and hopeful dance.  We are asked to engage in a reciprocal relationship with them, to show up as siblings, not children, willing to do our part.

Each plant I’ve worked with has amazing and profound gifts, which address issues in the emotional, spiritual and psychological/emotional realms.  Flower essences are also one of the ways humans can communicate with plants, hear them, learn from them, evolve and be more like them.  Because, in my humble opinion, they have it figured out a lot better than we humans do:  they have been here for millions of years, getting along with each other and their habitats, feeding and nourishing the planet, sharing resources, healing, creating, and making life possible for all beings.  They are some of our greatest teachers and friends and we need to start listening to them.  It’s a whole different language, but if we listen, we can begin to understand.  Flower essences are a beautiful (and incredibly easy) way to do this.

After I’d made my first essence, I looked up Red-Flowering Currant Flower Essence up.  I read the various descriptions of its medicine from other flower essence makers (there are many amazing makers out there) and discovered, to my joy and amazement, that Red-Flowering Currant: “Ignites loving power and compassion in yourself to joyfully transform what you most fear into feeling safe, protected and full of Light. It encourages forgiveness and understanding that this transformational process is in alignment with your soul’s purpose, while also being heart- and blood-reviving.  It says, I AM loving power to transform in you that which you most fear.  I AM the current of wholeness.  I am the balance of pulse and impulse, the outward and inward journey.  I AM the core of your experience of cellular health.” (Tree Frog Farm) To which I could only say, “WOW! Holy mackerel! Guess I will start taking THAT!”

And it just went on from there with me making essences from all the plants that asked me to, many of which are native to Washington State, where I live, and many of which grow in my yard or on my land, but also from plants in my great-grandmother’s flower garden, from plants in the woods and wilderness, and even from house plants!  This work, this making of flower essences, is what the universe is asking me to do.  This and getting the essences out to people (to YOU, Dear Reader) so you can be supported in your own evolution, in ways compatible with your soul.  Each plant (some of which don’t flower, but from which you can still make an essence), has a story and a gift.  Every place, too!  

Most of my work now is providing on-on-one sessions/consultations for individuals, in which I make custom blends of essences from plants that volunteer to support you in your specific intention.  I also teach essence-making and I have one blend that is also available for sale:  WakeUp!. Six plants asked me specifically to put them together in a blend and they named themselves. Wake Up! Is a combination that offers us support in “waking up” our souls and raising our vibrations.  In order of their blooming they are: Red-Flowering Currant, Indian Plum, Red Elderberry, Serviceberry, Hawthorn, and Yarrow 

For more information on what this combination offers, follow the link on the main page of this website for WakeUp!.  It’s mind blowing!  And that’s just those six essences from those six plants.  EACH AND EVERY plant offers equally amazing gifts.  So now, I’m working to connect the essences with people and to continue to develop my dousing and muscle testing skills.  

I hope this is of interest to you.  Please let me know what you think.  And thanks for the opportunity to articulate this all in one place.  I need to tell my story and this has helped me on that path.

Love and Blessings,

Sylvia

P.S.  Instructions for taking flower essences:  Do you already work with flower essences, know how to take them?  In case not, here are some instructions:  Take 1-3 drops, sublingually/under your tongue (or in your tea or drinking water or bath), 3-5 times a day, until the bottle is empty. You can also listen to your intuition and take the drops whenever you feel moved, whenever you hear them talking to you and they tell you to.  Know that it is important to be in reciprocity with the plant energies, so remember to invite them into your body so they can be embodied…As you!  They are curious and wish to understand and expand their consciousness, as well.  They offer their gifts to you and you offer them the opportunity to be embodied, which helps them understand human beings and evolve themselves.  

We are not here to heal Mother Earth… 
We are here to heal our relationship with Mother Earth.

(Camilla Blossom Bishop)

My essences are made with filtered tap water and good brandy, lots of love and deep gratitude!