Self-Care: E is for …

  is for essences.

Knowing that I’m trained as a flower essence practitioner you’d be right in guessing that flower essences play a huge role in my self-care.    In fact I use essences every single day.

People are often confused about the difference between flower essences and essential oils.  I’ve written more about that here.

I really like what Rudolf Ballentine writes in his book Radical Healing:

“If you think about the flower and how it relates to the plant, it is analogous to our nervous system on the physical level and to our consciousness on a more subtle level. The flower is the blossoming of the plant – the emergence of its true nature. The complexity, beauty, and uniqueness of the plant is made manifest in the flower.  Similarly, with us it is our consciousness, our awareness, that is our flowering. A disorder from your consciousness can often be helped with a remedy from the flower that corresponds to it.”

There are so many ways to use essences.

Internally:

This is the method most commonly used, and certainly the essential place to begin.  Essence drops are taken straight from the bottle and placed under the tongue.  (You have to be careful not to contaminate the dropper by touching it to your mouth or with your hands or anything else – you don’t want to return a contaminated dropper back into your essence bottle!) 

Essence drops are also commonly added to a glass of water which you then sip.

Externally:

There are lots of ways to use essences externally and this can be a wonderful way to supplement your practice of taking drops internally.

Essences are perfect for adding to baths.

They can be poured on the body.  I particularly like pouring essence-infused water down my spine.

They can be added to lotions.   For efficacy sake I suggest adding a drop or two to the lotion as you put it on, as opposed to adding it directly to the lotion bottle.  And that way you can switch up what essences you use each time if you’d like.

Used in compresses.

They can be added to water and used to mist yourself and/or your space.

I use them to anoint myself.

One of my very favorite uses:  using essences to write messages on my body.  Because I work as a channel and read the Akashic Records I am happy to lay claim to the title Messenger.   But in an even more literal sense I am a messenger as I carry the messages I’ve written on my body around with me all day.

Essences can also be applied very specifically to your body.  I highly recommend working with the acupuncture points in the method taught by Deborah Craydon and Warren Bellows in their book Floral Acupuncture.

If this interests you you may also want to check out the book New Bach Flower Body Maps.

And Bach Flower Massage by Daniele Rito discusses massage with the Bach essences.

Additional Ways to Use Essences:

I’ve used essences with my animals.

With plants.

Used as offerings.   I seriously believe it’s important to honor the flow of reciprocity in life.  When I receive medicine or a gift from an ally it’s important, and not just polite, to say thank you.  In the way that for some people traditional offerings are sacred tobacco or cornmeal, I find a drop or two of essence can be a lovely way to say thank you.

I use essences in my art all the time.  I use them in my paintings; in watercolors; when making paste paper; I add them when making handmade paper; when making herbal beads.  I use them in ceremony when dedicating new journals. 

I use essences in my home.   I never paint walls without adding essences.   I use them in clearing and blessing ceremonies around the house. 

And here’s one final way to indulge in essences:   essence-infused chocolate.   I love Wei-chocolate!

I always think it’s fun to peek into people’s spaces, and in this earlier blog post you can see a portion of the apothecary chest I keep my extensive inventory of essences.

Now what about you?  Are you an essence user?  Have other ways of using them that you’d like to share?  If essences aren’t your thing, what self-care practice is your favorite?   Do tell – you know I love to hear.