The ritual and practice of using flowers for healing and transformation can be traced back through ancient cultures around the world. Creating arnica flower poultices for bruising, placing dried resin of copal with sage leaf on the hot rocks of a fire to cleanse the heart, body and soul, giving someone a bouquet of roses as an expression of love, placing fresh lavender flowers in water to then wash over the body to sooth sunburn … all of these are part of the practice and ritual of using flowers to heal.

Dr. Edward Bach, an English physician in the 1930’s, is considered to be the founder of flower essence therapy as we know it. He created 38 individual flower essences which are still used by practitioners and lay people around the world today. The most well known Bach flower remedy is Rescue Remedy. A blend of five flowers which work with shock, trauma and acute change.

Dr. Bach believed that dis-ease was the result of the soul and the self being out of harmony and that by treating one’s imbalanced personality traits, physical symptoms would often lesson or disappear completely. He saw that distress at the level of spirit becomes physical dis-ease. Bach became aware that if we treat people individually and restore their emotional mental harmony they would be healthy. He found in his research that since no two individuals are exactly alike each responds differently to disease; and treatment depends on their state of mind, mood and emotions.