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How are Flower Essences Made?

A Guide to Making a Flower or Vibrational Essence

Flower & Vibrational Essences are simple and natural tools and when you take an essence you are using the unique and beautiful energies of a particular flower, gem, crystal, mineral or geometric shape.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

You can experiment with making all sorts of essences from your garden or crystal collection in this way, and it is a wonderful way of empowering your own healing process to 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!

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.

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.

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.