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How are Flower Essences Made?

A Guide to Making a Flower or Vibrational Essence

Making your own Flower Essence or Vibrational Essence can be a wonderful way of empowering your own healing process. You can experiment with making all sorts of essences from your garden or crystal collection so that you can use the flowers and crystals that you love as essences. Flower & Vibrational Essences are effective, supportive and versatile gifts of nature. They provide support for all types of emotional and psychological wellbeing, as well as helping you to deepen your conscious soul connection and balancing your mind, body & spirit.

Who Discovered How to Make a Flower Essence?

Flower Essences as we know them today were discovered by Dr. Edward Bach in the 1930's and who for this reason is often known as the father of modern flower essences. Dr Bach was driven throughout his life by his strong desire to find a deeper understanding about the truth of human illness & disease and to provide a simple and natural set of remedies to help from amoung the flowers he found in nature.

Discovering the Sun Method of Potentisation

Dr. Bach discovered that the beautiful subtle energies of the wild flowers that he found in nature had a profoundly transformative effect on the way that he felt. He particularly felt this when he experienced the healing effect of dew drops that he found on flowers that had sat in the power of the early morning sun. This was a key moment for Dr. Bach and he found that he could replicate this effect by placing pure water in a thin glass bowl and floating the flowers on the surface of the water and leaving it outside in full morning sunshine for three hours. This he called the sun potentiation method and is still used by flower essence makers all around the world.

What is a Flower Essence Made From?

A flower or vibrational essence contains the vibrational frequency or energy imprint of the flower, gem or crystal from which it's been made. So as you can see from Dr. Bach's sun method, essentially when you make a an Essence you are imprinting the energy or vibrational frequency of a flower, gem or crystal into water and this gives you what's called the mother tincture or mother essence.

The Subtle Energies of Nature

Each flower in nature and each crystal, mineral or geometric shape has it's own unique energy imprint or vibrational frequency. This is as much a part of it's signature as it's look, feel, shape or scent. When you make a Flower Essence or other vibrational essence you are potentising the essence using this unique vibrational frequency. This is done by transferring the energy or vibrational frequency of the flower, gem or crystal into water. It is this energy that is the 'active ingredient' in an essence and it is this energy that can help you to re-balance your thoughts, feelings and subtle energy systems.

Dr. Bach very carefully choose 38 flowers ( well he included one - Rock Water - that was not a flower! ) to make his set of Bach Flower Remedies. However, there are so many different flowers in nature, not to mention all of the crystals and minerals etc, that really there is so much that your heart could be guided to make an essence from.

How to Make a Flower Essence

So when you make an essence you are working with the energy of the flower, gem or crystal that you are making the essence from. This is a process that needs to be undertaken from a heart centred space of love, a centred and connected space where you are in communication with the nature spirits and devas and your own higher self.

Choosing the Flowers, Crystals or Minerals

The first step is to choose the flowers, crystals or minerals that you want to make an essence from. This is a very important part of the making process as the quality of your essence will depend in part on the energy or vibrational frequency of the flower, gem or crystal that you use. Choosing with heart, integrity and discernment and connecting with the nature spirits of the plant, crystal or mineral that you choose and asking for permission are a really important part of the process.

An important thing to consider when you choose what to make your essence from is know what the flower, crystal or mineral itelf is and that it is safe for you to use. Although you won't be directly ingesting the flower, crystal or mineral that you use to make the essence, you don't want to choose a poisonous flower or a toxic mineral.

Once you have chosen your flower, crystal or mineral, the first stage of essence making is preparing the mother tincture

Preparing the Mother Tincture

The Mother Tincture, or Mother Essence as it is also known, is the first stage of the essence making process and the preparation of a Mother Tincture will often be done in locations out in the depths of nature, away from the busy pace of everyday life and its related pollution.

Generally Essences are made using the Sun Method of potentisation, which uses the power of the sun to transfer the energy of the flower, crystal or mineral into the water. However, Dr. Bach used the boiling method for 18 of his 38 Bach Flower Remedies and some people also potentise their essences using moonlight.

Making an Essence by the Sun Method of Potentisation

Making an essence using the sun method is a simple and sacred process. Begin by connecting with the devas, elementals, other nature spirits and spirit guides with the intention of making an essence in accordance with highest divine good. Intention is very important with essences – the more spiritually attuned to the process you are, the more powerful the process will be.

The Sun Method is the way that we make all of our mother tinctures, with the exception of 18 of the Bach Flower Remedies - mother tinctures for these are made by the boiling method as instructed by Dr. Bach ( see below ).

Sun Method - Flower Essences

When you make a sun method flower essence, always do this in the morning. We always ensure that the flowers are in the bowl by 9am, so that you get the flowers at their freshest and can make the most of the morning sun. Pick the flowers carefully, asking for permission from the plant itself and giving your thanks. Our guidance is to ensure that the surface of the bowl we use for essence-making is covered with flowers.  This means that for a large flower like a sunflower, just one sunflower head will fill the bowl whereas for tiny flowers like forget-me-nots we will pick many blooms until the surface of the bowl is covered.

Place pure water in a thin glass bowl, float the flowers on the surface of the water and leave it outside in full morning sunshine for three hours. The Sun Method is always done on a bright sunny morning so that the energy of the sun at its peak infuses the essence with its power.

Sun Method - Gem, Crystal & Mineral Essences

The Sun Method for flowers is essentially the same technique that you use for making essences from gems, crystals, minerals and sacred geometry shapes. Firstly tune in to connect with the energy of what you are making the essence from before placing an uncut, unpolished natural stone or platonic solid shape in a thin glass bowl containing pure water. Again, you leave it in full morning sunshine for three hours.

How the Sun Method Works

Research shows that water can be programmed with the vibration of what it’s exposed to, so during this three hour process the life force energy, or spiritual essence of the flower, gem, crystal, mineral or platonic solid shape, becomes imprinted in the water.

The power of the four elements ( Earth, Air, Fire & Water ) within the flower, gem or crystal that you’re making the essence from is amplified by the elemental energies in the wider environment: the Earth that the bowl rests on, the air that surrounds it, the fire of the sun, and the water in the bowl itself.  The elements contribute to the alchemical process whereby the life force or vibrational energy of the flower or mineral used is transferred into the water.

The Boiling Method

Most essence makers use the Sun Method and all of our Mother Tinctures are made using the Sun Method, with the exception of 18 of the Bach Flower Remedies which we make by the Boiling Method according to the original instructions from Dr Bach.

It is thought that Dr Bach used the Boiling Method as an alternative to the Sun Method for trees that blossomed early in the year when the full power of the sun was not available, and for some of the essences that required the intensity of the boiling method.

Blossoms are gathered together with small pieces of twig, stem, stalk and fresh young leaves from the same plant and simmered for 30 minutes in a saucepan. The saucepan is left on the earth to cool before the plant material is filtered out and the remaining liquid is made into the final essence.

Other Making Processes...

Environmental Essences - an environmental essence is usually made by the sun method, but instead of using a flower or crystal, you are capturing the energies of the environment in which the essence is made. For example you might make an environmental essence in a sacred site.

No Cut Method - this is a variation on the sun method where instead of cutting the flowers into the bowl, you lower the flower head until it rests in the bowl while still attached to the the plant. This is suitable for some flowers and not for others.

Moonlight Method - again this is a variation on the sun method, but instead of using the power of the sun to infuse your essence, you are using the power of the moon. This certainly gives a very different feel to an essence.

Preserving Your Mother Tincture

The unique positive vibrational energy that has been captured during the Sun Method or Boiling Method technique is then filtered and preserved in 50% organic brandy, creating a Mother Tincture. You can make a mother tincture without using alcohol as a preservative; other options include cider vinegar, which has a shorter best before date but a long actual shelf life, or vegetable glycerine which has a much shorter best before date.

The Mother Tincture can be further amplified using crystals, pyramids and the natural elements using spiritual guidance. Unlike herbal remedies and essential oils, no physical part of the flower or mineral is used in the Mother Tincture - it is purely the vibrational frequency or energy that has been imprinted in the water.

Stored in a cool, dark place away from direct sunlight your mother tincture should last for many years.

Why Make Your Own Flower & Vibrational Essences

Making your own essences can be a wonderful way of empowering your own healing process. You can experiment with making all sorts of essences from your garden or crystal collection so that you can use the flowers and crystals that you love as essences. Of course some plants, flowers and crystals can be poisonous so please be very careful as to what you use to make an essence!

How to Use Your Mother Tincture

Making a Stock bottle

Drops from the Mother Tincture can then be used to make a stock level dilution, which is the first dilution down from a Mother Tincture. We then use 2 drops of Mother Tincture to make a stock level Bach Flower Remedy ( i.e. a bottle of Agrimony ) or 7 drops of Mother Tincture to make a stock bottle for our other essences. These drops are added to a clean dropper bottle with some preservative in ( normally organic brandy or vodka ) and pure water and these combined make your stock bottle. Stock bottles can be made up from either a single Essence ( i.e. Bluebell Flower Essence ) or you can make up a combination of a number of different Essences ( i.e. the Throat Chakra Essence ).

You can then take your essence directly from the stock bottle ( usually 4 drops 3 - 4 x a day ) or dilute it down to make a treatment level combination in the case of the Bach Flower Remedies.

How Do I Make a Bach Flower Remedy Treatment or Dosage Bottle?

From a Bach Flower Remedy stock bottle, put 2 drops (4 drops of Revival Remedy combination) from each of the stock bottles that you have selected, into a clean glass dropper bottle containing no more than 30ml of spring or spa water, together with a teaspoon of brandy or cider vinegar as a preservative. Dr Bach called a combination made in this way, a treatment bottle.

What Does Your Essence Do? - How We Discover What A Flower Essence Does

What if you've made a new essence and are not sure what it does? Testing new essences requires a combination of observation, intuition and inner sensing, and it works well in a group because each person brings different insights, understandings and perspectives to the process.

Some information about how an essence works is conveyed when you first make the Mother Tincture essence, some is experienced through your inner senses after taking a few drops in a meditative space, some becomes apparent as you work with the essence over a longer period of weeks or months, and some comes through asking for guidance on what the essence is for. It's a beautiful process and you can find out more about it here: How We Discover What A Flower Essence Does – Puya Essence.