MISSIVES FROM THE APOTHECARY:
A Personal Anecdote on Flower Essences
January 20th, 2025
by Kamden Cornell, our head herbalist and owner of Heart & Vine Apothecary
When I first heard of flower essences at the start of my journey into holistic practice, which was at NMSNT in 2014, I thought they were the biggest load of hooey I had ever heard of. Our teacher, Sunny, and the program director, Robert Stevens, both talked about them as if they were the most dire medicine, each profound and dangerous in its own way, and one had to be careful with formulation because the results could be devastating if the wrong essence was taken at the wrong time. Then I learned that the essences themselves are made by floating flower blossoms on water for an hour, which seemed, in my scientifically oriented mind, like absolutely bat shi* bananas!
A lot of people in our cadre did, though, so we immediately went to the Remedy Store attached to our school clinic, which is where the school sold not only the famous Bach flower remedies, but also Robert’s own collection. My friends and I mixed a few bottles of it and I, being the contrarian that I am, decided to use the ONE flower essence Robert and Sunny both very strongly suggested we not try at the beginning of our journey: Spider Lily. I started taking the remedy, truly eager to watch it fail miserably. Later that day, after feeling a bit displaced from reality for a few hours, we had a class on Qi Gong. Our teacher, Joe, called me up to be the demo body for the technique. He started doing his thing and I asked what he was up to, because it looked like he was combing the air and pulling great clumps of something off of me. He said, “You’re covered in spider webs.” That was enough for me, honestly! That and a few other mind-bending experiences with these remedies that really opened my mind to their possibilities.
I won’t go into how to make a flower essence, as the instructions are readily available and as you make them for yourself you will develop a method all your own. I WILL tell you, though, that they are just as profound and potentially life-altering as my teachers’ original dire warnings indicated. For the most part, though, they simply open your heart, mind, and body to experience a little nuance to the perceptions you’re used to having. There are also emergency breaks for flower remedies, things that will stop the effects of whatever remedy you’re on: Peppermint (tea or a whiff of the essential oil), coffee, and white rose flower essence.
It is an important thing to note that, with any flower essence, you MUST (in my experience) succuss the bottle, which means to…spank it (or shake it vigorously, which is less titillating but equally valid). Smack the bottom of the bottle flat against your hand a number of times that has meaning to you before adding it to your water or taking your dose. This awakens the essence. Also remember that the more attenuated the essence, the stronger it becomes, much like homeopathic remedies.
That said, we now carry a few from Good Dirt Farm, made by our own lovely Olivia, and I plan to bring in a small collection of my own. From Good Dirt, we currently carry Purple Echinacea for openness on multiple levels and for increasing faith in one’s ability to heal and be authentically oneself, and Sunflower for aiding one in embodying balance and accepting nourishment, groundedness, and community even in times of great change (we could ALL use this one!). Because I am SUCH a goth witch, I’ll be bringing in essences of Blue Aconite, Datura, Black Hollyhock, Twisted Stalk, and a few other rare essences that I think will help get us through the next chunk of these interesting times.