Flower Essences

Author: Thomas O Donovan
What is the essence of a flower? It has been called by many names in many cultures: chi, life force, Spirit, the inner nature of the plant. The neutral term “energy” can be used to describe what it feels like when working with essences. When you buy a bottle of flower remedy, there is no material trace of the plant in the bottle (unlike an herbal tincture). Much like a homeopathic remedy, all that is in the brandy and spring water that makes it an essence is a kind of “energetic signature”, a memory of the personality or aura of a medicinal flower. Thus, Flower Essences are vibrational remedies made by capturing the energy or auric impressions of medicinal flowers in water. (Gem Elixirs are similar, except that minerals or crystals are used instead of flowers.)
Flower Essences work by imparting their healing vibrations to the person’s aura, causing a vibrational shift in the person’s energy patterns. Since “stuck” energy patterns are usually experienced as emotional or psychological “blocks”, the shifts produced by an essence can assist the person in removing these emotional blockages. Essences also make excellent spiritual growth tools when used over an extended length of time, as they have an uncanny ability to teach us what it means to be fully human.
How It Works?
Let’s trace the life energy from the flower to the bottle to the person. The life force in a plant is intelligent: it equips the plant with all the wisdom it needs to grow, reproduce, and respond to its environment. Each species has its own type of genius that gives it a characteristic shape, color, life cycle, ability to thrive in certain environments (and not others), even its medical qualities. An easter lily looks the way it does because its energy pattern causes living matter to assume this shape; a different plant is responding to some other pattern. The flower, in particular, is the most vibrant expression of this energy, since the plant is putting all its energy here to complete the reproductive act and continue the cycle of life. When the flowers are placed in the water under the sun, this energy is baked into the liquid, preserving a memory of the flower’s personality, and becomes an essence.
When this bottled essence is taken into the human body, the energy is released into your own energy field (the aura) and causes it to change. Something new is added to your aura; old patterns in the aura are rearranged and released. Each essence is experienced, in human terms, as a psychological or emotional force, a new psychic “theme” to integrate.








