A Primer on the Healing Powers of Flower Essences for the Natural Health Enthusiast

The term 'vibrational medicine' is being heard more frequently these days, with many folks wondering what this new fancy healing technique might be. Vibrational medicine refers to the entire realm of healing concentrating on modalities that attune to, or transform, one's energetic vibration - this includes flower and gem essences, and many other remedies. Yes, it sounds a little outrageous to some, but the more one investigates both the realities of both modern physics and ancient mystical religions, the more these healing techniques make sense. One can imagine that all form, be it the earth, plants, animals, the stars - everything - is made of energy. Einstein proclaimed this in his famous equation: energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light. And all this energy is vibrating in particular patterns - that's why rose looks like a rose, and not a caterpillar - the rose, like every other thing we can sense, has a unique vibration. Vibrational medicine works on the idea that you, personally, have a unique vibration. Your body, your thoughts and your feelings have unique vibrations. And the most healthy expression of this vibration might be somewhat different than your current state. AND, your vibration can be influenced by other vibrations.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 spirit 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.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.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.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. Often, individuals will work with several essences at once, either taking them each separately throughout the day, or mixing them into one clean dropper bottle from which to dispense this personalized formula.While a few 'formal' guidelines are given, there are no hard-and-fast rules for the use of flower essences. You can simply begin with one of the 'commonly' prescribed methods, and explore creative ways to incorporate the flowers into your life as you see fit. Most flower essences can be used directly from the 'stock' bottle (the dilution level at which most flower essences are sold); a typical usage schedule is 4 drops in the mouth (or taken in a glass of water), 4 times daily. Because of the particularly dynamic nature of daily awakening and retiring, the most important times may be immediately upon waking, and just before going to sleep. The other 2 times may be before lunch and upon arriving home at the end of a workday - really, whatever times might best suit your daily rhythms. Frequency is really most important, so if you find opening the essence bottles many times a day a little challenging, sixteen drops can also be added to a water bottle and the water sipped throughout the day for a similar effect. Flower Essences can be further diluted from the stock bottle to a 'dosage bottle' for regular use. One can add 1 or more droppers-full from the stock bottle to a clean 1 ounce dropper bottle and fill the rest, optimally, with spring water. Blends can also be made this way, adding 1 or more droppers-full from each flower essence to the 1 ounce dropper bottle, filling the rest with spring water. The receiving bottle should either be new, or boiled in water to remove old residue - because of the nature of flower essences, they can pick up etheric vibration left over. Also, whenever using flower essences from the stock bottle, be conscious of not touching the dropper tip to anything - your tongue, hands, another bottle, etc. - to help maintain the vibrational purity of the flower essence. Dilution of the essences will have different effects for different people - some folks consider the dosage bottle essences just as potent as the stock bottle, whereas others find different results. The different results may be due to the dilution methods, and the purity of the water into which the essences have been added. Use your intuition here, and be as careful and kind to the essences as possible when creating your own dosage formula.Because flower essences work on an emotional level, sometimes described as the 'soul level', it is important to remember that changes may best be made gradually. Flower essence therapy has been most successful when the essences are taken regularly, most often for the period of about 1 month, for changes in 'core' emotional issues to be seen. Some essences, like Rescue Remedy, are blended to have an effect regarding a recent (minutes, hours, days) traumatic event. Yarrow Environmental Solution was created to offer protection from our modern environment on a daily basis, while not necessarily addressing personal emotional situations. Still other essences, like 'Impatiens' - used to calm an impatient aspect of personality - works fairly quickly in some cases. One user regularly felt the effect within 10 minutes while the impatience was still a significant part of his personality, with the entire personality aspect being slowly washed away after long-term use. So, in most instances, if trying to clear or change some significant part of your soul makeup, try at least a few weeks of regular use.