Bathing in Flowers

Let us imagine there was something like winter. Just for fun. Let us imagine boots, three pairs of trousers and pullovers, woolly caps and all that stuff we used to wear when it was really cold. Remember? You do not even feel your feet anymore, your fingers are so trembling that it is hard to put the key in the hole and open your front door. Perhaps you make it and get rid of the overdose clothes your wear and then what? Right. The usual. Sit down where it is supposed to be warm and then be unable to do anything at all.

Or the other day in November, when fog rested all over the country for days maybe weeks. When even chronic optimistic jesters could not stop their teeth grinding. Half of the staff in the office was ill, the other half depressed, the boss was pissed, whereever you went coughing and sneezing followed you so you pray to God to make an end to this day. But when he finally did you found your car not starting and had to walk home through a wall of old leaves, slush and mud and ice rain whipping your face. If you did not die on your way home, you were dead then. Or something similar.

Or simply imagine the usual darkness. You leave the home before sunrise and return right after sunset and live with neon light the whole day through. Can last weeks, something like that. Well, what shall I say? Shit happens. Sometimes we have no alternative but to go through...

Have fun in the bath with flower essences

Our western societies‘ medical culture uses to use things that are swallowed or injectied - not things that make us laugh or dance or whatever tu cure us. This has not changed very much since Edward Bach‘s time. He of course knew about the healing power of flowers and trees and how to utilise it. However he chose the traditional method of using alcoholic tasting drops in order to make it easy for his patients to accept and adopt to this new medicine. In fact there are alternatives some of which I had to make use of when Bach flowers fell under the prescription rule meaning only physicians were allowed to use essences in Germany for quite a while. So I sent the people into nature, let them meditate with the plant, touch and smell it, feel its energy, draw or paint it, take a photograph of it, find a song that matches the plant‘s energy and so on. Some of the tasks I gave may sound like koans, when I asked e.g. to listen to the plant and get me at least one sentence back. If such task was taken seriously people experienced something very similar to the effects of taking the essence internally.  It is not so much the sentence, that may not matter at all, it is the intense experience with the plant. Flowers are there to enjoy our senses, all of them. So why reduce the experience to the obvious ones? Another task for clients was to simply buy themselves flowers and put them where they can see them. Make yourself a present.

Since last century‘s 30s we have developed so many uses of flower essences that I can hardly imagine new ones, but who knows. Every single method has its own characteristics and effects. Groups who want to create an inspiring constructive and cooperative atmosphere use essences for group harmony in an aromatherapy lamp. Chiropractitioners appreciate the relaxing effect of flower essences on back and ankles. Florists and gardeners use essences in sprays, animal owners put drops in their pets‘ water and so on.

What I love best is flower essence baths. Especially in winter. So let us assume there weresome signs of winter and we take the opportunity of a very pleasant kind of energy boost.

So here are some recipes for flower essences baths:

Sun-Bath

Not a real one of course but a very fine replacement. The followong essences are contained in the combination

• Touch-Me-Not-Balsam
• Forsythia
• Saint John‘s Wort
• Sunflower
• Sunflower Pollen

This is a combination of solely yellow flowers resp. yellow pollen. It is designed to re-energize when there is a lack of light like we have now in winter. However you may use it when your soul or your emotions feel like winter, too. But light is not everything, it also needs to be let in, so it is up to us what happens to the light. That is why Touch-Me-Not-Balsam and Saint John's Wort are in it. The first because it helps with trust (in yourself and in life) while the latter relaxes and brings confidence and a positive view on the future. Forsythia is THE light-bringer among the essences, and Sunflower Pollen opens for and directs the Sunflower‘s energy into and through our energetic system.
By the way to have some yellow flowers swimming on the surface of your bath is certainly not the worst idea one can have... so you kind of swim in a giant bowl in the sun, remember Dr. Bach‘s sun method?
I can recommend this combination in all cases of exhaustion, be they physical or motional, caused by grief, hopelessness, sadness, pity, emptiness, being stuck and lacking the power to go on.
If this is a lasting stage you may consider to do it on a daily basis for a while. Or if your ecological bad conscience hurts, you could take a light shower as well. You only need one of these tiny glasses in which homeopaths store their remedies, size 1,5g. Put some drops of the essences into it, close it and put in into your shower head. It is simple. The energy lasts at least 3 weeks.

Heart-Bath

This is the one for our most important but all too often ignored muscle. Any other muscle we use to train, especially tongue and stomach, some of us run or do some other sports - since we all know: what we do not use starts to rust. However when our heart is meant we use to wait until it begins to complain and its way to express itself is pain and attacks.
Why wait with a little kind of heart massage until it has stopped beating? Perhaps we can prevent damage by beginning right now.
This is the champagne among the bath combinations, just a little less sticky:

• Wild Rose
• Poppy
• Quince
• Rosemary
• Walnut

Walnut is the key to our hearts. A green flower and like all green flowers it reaches out to the heart in everything. Beyond that it is the one that helps us commit to ourselves, our decisions, our goals. Using Walnut is what it needs to let the energies of the other essences in. Wild Rose renews our interest in life, Poppy warms the heart, Quince and Rosemary represent the yin- resp. yang-aspect of a powerful, passionate and loving heart.
This is an activating bath, one that helps you to become fully awake. You may use it when it is cold outside and you desire a fire within, or when you are sad and need some comfort. The angry and the desperate can return to their centers, broken hearts can feel relief, abannoned ones can feel guided, this is the bath for everyone in need of some heart support.

Dream-Bath

The earlier mentioned baths are developed to help to find new strength and energy, this one here helps to relax.
You certainly remember the story of Archimedes finding his principle in the bath and crying out Heureka. This give us an example of how baths can work.
Sometimes stress can block clear vision and thinking, we try too hard to remember a name and we feel it cruising though our mind orbit but cannot catch it. Only to remember it some time later out of a sudden, out of nowhere. That means our memory database did receive the request, it was our inner tension that suppressed the answer for some time.
Inside and outside reflect themselves, emotional tension leads to muscular tension which in return sends the feedback „not feeling comfortable“. Does not matter where you try to stop this circle if only it is stopped. Flower essence baths work on both levels when they come to help. This one is about relaxing, letting go, dreaming...

• Mugwort
• Saint John‘s Wort
• Dandelion
• White Chestnut
• Sagebrush

In the center of this combination we have Dandelion and Saint John‘s Wort. The first soothes emotional tension that leads to muscular tension, so we can relax from what lies behind us. In contrast to that Saint John's Wort relaxes our concerns about the future, it frees from fear and fosters confidence. White Chestnut cures from obsessive thoughts. Sagebrush is for honesty and authenticity, while her sisterplant Mugwort  opens us to the magic of the night and the moon, our dremas, our feelings and our intuition, brings a light into the dark.

Now that we got some recipes, how do we use them? Ok, you can simply put two drops of every single essence resp. the combination into the bathwater and that‘s it. Oh no! That is the basis but how about something more? 

Here are two basic uses:

Salt Bath

You need 250g of sea salt, put it in a shaker, add up to 5 drops of any aroma oil of your own choice (unless you are allergic to them). Recommendations are

• Grapefruitoil is wonderful e.g. in the Sun Bath.
• Lavender oil - even better: Lavender flowers - goes well with the Heart Bath
• Dream Bath - which choice do you have... Mugwort, oil of course.

At last two drops of each chosen essence resp. combination, shake it and give two hands full of it into the bathwater.
Since salt dries out the skin the use of any good body or lotion is recommended. Works best with another essence in it: Apfel (Apple). The real closure for energetic baths.

Cream Bath

50ml cream, 1 spoon Saint john‘s Wort oil, up to 5 drops of any aroma oil of your own choice (beware of allergies), plus 2 drops of all chosen essences, shake and add all to your bath water.

Feel invited to an essential energetic bath.