FEP58 Essence Making as a Spiritual Practice
Show Notes:
Have you ever thought about the co-creative act of making a flower essence as a spiritual or self-development practice in and of itself?
It requires surrendering to the moment, really listening to Nature, and going with the flow to accept all parts of the experience. The lessons the plants impart in the process may continue long after the essence is bottled, so an awareness must also be cultivated to notice, interpret, and work with what comes up.
Kathleen and Rochana reflect on how years of essence making have enhanced their individual personal growth — in all its messy glory.
Do you make flower essences? We’d love to hear your experiences and thoughts on this topic! Write hello@floweressencestudies.com
If you haven’t made them yourself, is this something that you’d like to try?
There is so much more to learn! We have courses for everyone, from the beginner to advanced practitioner. Visit us at floweressencestudies.com to see all the free content, join us for a live event, and become a member of our community.
Audio:
Video:
Flower Essences discussed during the show:
- Purple Sage – Flora of Asia
- Redwood – FES
- Night Blooming Cereus – Jane Bell Essences
- Rainbow Leaf Seaweed – Wiseflower
Show Transcript
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:00:17] Hi, flower lovers. Rochana and I are here today to talk about the topic of the flower essence-making process as a process of spiritual development, as a path. Both of us have independently been making essences for a very long time now, and we have some interesting experiences to tell you about and just kind of wanted to share our thoughts on this process. It’s not one that I find gets a lot of attention. Especially when you’re starting to learn about flower essences, you sort of see them as something that’s accomplished and there’s a book about it or there’s printed information available. But the process that goes on behind the scenes can be fascinating. And it’s much messier, I’d have to say, than any sort of description that might show up in a booklet or a website later on. And we wanted to talk about that process and the things that we’ve learned directly from the plants and how it might impact you in your process of working with and maybe making flower essences. So, welcome. Hey, Ro.
Rochana Felde: [00:01:49] Hey, Kathleen. I love this topic because I’ve always felt that way with making flower essences that I get so much out of the process. I get so much information from the plant that’s not just how to use this in a practice, but information and experiences I feel like are helping me grow. They’re spurring my own self-development in a way that is, it’s almost like supercharged, right? And there’s some aspects to it that I think are sort of unique. They are working with a plant and having a relationship and learning to sit with the plant and communicate it. There are practices that do that. You don’t have to be making a flower essence to do that. in fact, I recommend everyone to try that and to sit with the plant and see what comes with that practice. So right there, that in and of itself is a spiritual practice. Yet when we sit and make the essence, there’s something else that happens. There’s a connection with that higher spirit of the plant that in this co-creative process and in a way it’s almost sort of like a channeling that’s happening, there’s a non-ordinary state of reality that’s happening and it’s like the plant is taking you on a journey in some way or another, whether you’re conscious of it or not. And so all of the things that happen that day leading up to making the plant make the essence, while making the essence, and then after. And that could last for several days. I don’t know about you, Kathleen, but there’s some times where I feel the effects of it for a week after that’s happening. And sometimes I’ll continue to work with the essence and take the essence and really explore it. And sometimes, for whatever reason, I don’t have time to be that conscious about it. But if I’m at least aware of just circumstances, then synchronicities that are happening, I feel like that message keeps coming through.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:04:31] There’s so much in there. I guess I’d go back to the very beginning in that when a plant calls you to make an essence, there’s a reason that that plant has something to share with you. There’s something in you that needs the connection of that plant. I think that the process of making essences starts to teach you about the next piece you’re ready for. And so you don’t just make essences because you decide to make essences. You make essences when the plant asks you to or signals some sort of openness to do so. And for me, that’s been such an interesting thing because I started out very excited about making essences, and I’d be like wanting to connect with a particular plant. And they just would be like, “Not yet. Nope, not today. Not yet.” And when you’re choosing to interact with nature on this conscious level, you have to be able to take a no. You have to be able to have your desires thwarted. It has to be a consensual relationship from both parts. And then when you do get the yes, it can be really astonishing what will come forward. Do you have thoughts on the Yes-No process?
Rochana Felde: [00:06:02] Yeah, it’s not just about the plant, too. It’s about everything. It’s about the weather. It’s about the other outside forces that may come up that day. And so it’s really it has to kind of be this perfect storm of the weather, the plant calling, and your ability to actually go out there outside and do it and have everything ready to go for that opportune time, all your supplies and everything. And if you’re working– many of the things that we make flower essences from bloom around the same time. So you may go out to the garden or into nature and there may be several things calling your attention at once. And so that’s another aspect. It’s like, well, which one? And you really have to get that sense of feeling into it. I may have in my mind been really wanting to make this certain flower essence for a long time but then I get out there and there’s something else growing around it that’s actually calling even louder. And so I have to release that attachment to what I wanted to do and go with what nature is showing me and telling me.
And a really good way to determine that is to see what the insects are doing, what the birds are doing. If I see bees really pollinating or putting a lot of attention on this one particular plant, or maybe I notice, I get out there, I’m looking around, I’m trying to get a feel and I see a hummingbird just swoop in and it goes into the plant, or a butterfly, to me, it’s nature helping me to decide, it’s helping to point me in the right direction. And so it’s developing that practice too of mindfulness to just feel into it with your senses and then watch what’s happening and take your cues from nature and the plants. Part of that process, I mean the plants releasing pheromones and telling the insects to come, it’s just all connected and it’s all part of that communication process.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:08:39] Well, then there’s that perfect moment, and where that plant is just in that state. And I love that you’re talking about that other aspects of animal nature connecting and recognizing that this is a peak moment right now. And so yeah, I too have had hummingbird visitations where they’ll just stand and stare at me like, “Hey, hey.” It’s really intriguing when you start listening to the other voices of nature helping to guide you along which direction. And yeah, so many times I think I’m going for one thing and it’s like, “Oh, wait a minute, this is the thing I’m actually here for.” And then you have to reverse-engineer your day or even the night before or even days before where you start to look for a pattern of things that are happening internally with you. Certainly, when you’re on your way to making an essence or that morning of, you’re already in that state. You’re outside of the time of when the bowl gets laid out. These things are happening in this numinous state. It’s very different than normal waking reality.
Rochana Felde: [00:09:52] Yeah, and that’s where I liken it to shamanic practices because it’s a non-ordinary reality or an altered state of consciousness that is made up of this non-ordinary perception. And a non-duality state of knowing which is where you might call it claircognizance, where you start to connect into just knowing, knowing what the right flower is, the right time is, and knowing what the plant is telling you. And the experiences run the gamut. I mean, I’ve had some plants I’ve had weak experiences and not a lot came through, and then some were likened, they were so strong it was almost psychedelic, and with the visions or being pulled into a real journey with that plant, and then sort of everything in between. And I think part of the practice for me, we call it like a spiritual practice, it’s also setting the container.
So when I sit down with the plant, in a conscious way, I like to call the directions and really not just the four directions, but above and below and within. So there’s a seven points of a container that is around me and the plant. And I like to do that consciously as part of the ritual of working with that plant. And I find that really helps to get me onto the right level. Like, the plant doesn’t need it, but I need it, and I need it to settle into that space and to allow that information to come and to allow that conversation to happen to get into the right frequency. And in order to get out of my head, sometimes I’ll sit there and sing or hum or just do whatever comes up to get out of the head, just anything that comes up. And I find that singing, it’s a really nice way to get into that space. And I always have a journal, so I’m always writing whatever happens and how I’m feeling. I may have residual emotions that are just from something that just happened right before I sat down with the plant. And I think that’s part of it. And I make note of it because I think that’s what’s coming in for healing. So even though we have these really personal experiences making essences where sometimes I wonder, okay, was this message and this healing just for me, or is this for everybody? Would I use it the same way for other people? And that’s a question that comes up a lot. And people ask that about making essences. And I feel like it’s not an either/or. It’s like an and/yes, it’s both. And that when you’re thinking about synchronicities and how everything is connected, then healing and working with my issue or emotions or experience is helping others. And that plant is doing both. And that experience that I’m having is the message that helps others as well. And I’m not sure if I’m articulating that. What do you think?
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:13:54] I think that’s absolutely right. I think anytime that you are working through things on an internal level in your own process, it ripples outwards, right? So we know that people that we have intimate friendships and relationships with are impacted by the changes that we experience. And we can certainly see just even people that randomly interact with us will shift based on what shifts we’re having. And I know that certainly in the essence-making experience, I’ve certainly seen other people react in very odd or distinctive ways that are not typical for them. They’re just people who just happen to be randomly interacting with me as I’m going to make essences or have just made essences. You’ll start to see these kind of funny little artifacts. And so you know they’re in the field, too. They’ve interacted in the field, too. So I agree with you that there is a broader than just me kind of experience even when you make essences intending them for your own healing. And I think that’s a really legitimate reason to connect with plants is because you have a specific need that nature wants to help with. I don’t think everyone needs to make an essence with the intention that it’s to heal the world or to do a bigger intention. I think the plants are really happy to meet with you one-on-one to help work for you, to help work with you. So I don’t think there’s anything less than when you’re making essences for yourself or for your family. I think that that’s a beautiful way of working with plant medicine.
In the years I’ve been making essences, I’ve had so many notable or remarkable experiences and I thought I’d kind of share a couple of them because it’s interesting to just sort of explain a few examples of what happens when you make essences. One of the really dramatic experiences that I remember of making essences was working with the Purple Sage. And this plant is really, it’s well known in Chinese medicine and has been used for millennia as an herb. And when I was interested in working with this as an essence, this was early on in making essences. And I went up to the plant and I sat down with my little notebook and was trying to be really studious about making notes about what the plant looked like and the textures and the flower formation, and I’m not discarding that that’s a useful thing to do because it is, but when I finally looked up and actually gazed into the eyes of the plant, meeting the plant, the voice came through so strongly. It’s like, “Well, now that you’ve described me, would you like to hear what I have to say?” And I realized like, “Oh my God, what an ass I’ve been.” It’s as if I walked up to somebody at the airport and I started making notes about their clothing or something like, “What a interesting hairstyle they have,” and never actually greeted them as an individual. And so it sort of, like so often I’ve experienced, the plants set me back on my little human tush of like, “Hello, we’re here too. We’re conscious too. Don’t forget you’re not interacting with an it, you’re interacting with a them.” So that was a kind of a funny experience that took me aback like, “Oh, my bad, sorry.” And so I apologized and went, “Okay, well, I’m here for this purpose. And I’m hoping that you could help me.” And the plant just sort of launched right in because this is a plant who knows very well how to work with humans. It was just astonishing, the level of consciousness that I was interacting with. And that’s not every plant by any means, but this was a particularly dramatic experience. Have you had an experience with the plant sort of surprising you in a way?
Rochana Felde: [00:18:30] Absolutely. And I’m glad you said it doesn’t happen with all plants and every time because I don’t want people to try this and think, “Oh, I’m doing it wrong,” or, “I must not be good enough to do this.” I mean, I’ve made well over 100 essences and I still have times where it’s just, I don’t know, I’m not really getting that much, just for whatever reason. And then there’s other times where it’s shocking how strong it is. And I know that the first time I made a Redwood essence and worked with Redwood and I was setting that intention and the ritual and asking Gaia help connect me to the spirit of Redwood. And then I just felt the Redwood be like, “You don’t need that. I’m going to help you connect to Gaia.” And it took me into this journey down into the center of the earth and to meet Gaia and to have this whole experience. And so this Redwood acted as this portal and this catalyst. And it’s like I didn’t need to ask a deity to connect to the spirit. I was right there, the spirit was connecting with me. And it’s just funny that it was just taking charge like that. And I thought, wow, it sets your preconceived notions to the side and go with it.
And there’s other experiences where I’ve had them pull me into these spontaneous plant spirit journeys in a completely other reality. And there’s been times where, like I said, it’s just sort of, it’s nice, it’s a nice experience, I’m getting a few snippets of information, but it’s very mild. There’s no real, deep, strong connection like that, or loud communication. And so it’s really interesting to compare notes, which ones have you heard the loudest?
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:21:00] Every plant has a personality. Even across the family, they’ll tend to have similarities and personality, but I’ve certainly experienced, just like you say, plenty of times where I feel very drawn to making an essence. I feel like it’s very clear that that’s the right thing to do. And the minute you open up the bowl and you put it out and you start sitting with it, it’s like you get nothing, or you might get feeling or you might get something really minor and you’re just like, “Am I doing anything? Is anything happening here?” And so you just kind of roll with it and just, “Okay, this particular process on this day of this plant,” and the next time you go back and attune to the plant to get more information, you might get a lot, or you might get the same thing where it’s not much and it’s part of the process of learning the language of the plants. Some of them speak in very strong personalities and some of them don’t, and so they all have, it’s all kind of like voices in the choir. And some are very quiet and some are really loud. So if you’re interested in making essences yourself, don’t assume that you’re doing it wrong because you’re not getting this or that you’re not getting things our way. I tend to get pretty clear messages that I can kind of translate into written language. But some people are really, they feel it very much in their bodies. Some people just it’s really all over the map. And so don’t make assumptions about the way that you should get information or that you can’t do it because you don’t get it in a particular way. I would encourage anybody to start trying and learning how you get information, how you might connect to plants and they’ll start talking to you, if you take time. Now, I’ve never been the sort of person who can just blast on past a plant and have them grab me by the collar and start talking to me. That’s never been what worked for me. I always had to be pretty quiet and slow down and don’t check your phone and you kind of have to be with it and be with the boring in order to start getting messages to come through.
And one thing that I wanted to talk about a little bit is there are some plants that I’ve worked with that, particularly the really ancient ones like the Magnolias, that they’re coming from a time that’s very much before mine. They’ve been here for millions of years. And so, this whole word language thing is like a new language for them and they can help you, but sometimes it’s much deeper than words and language. And so they’ve really given me a perspective of time of eons, like they’ve seen things come and go. They’re not so wrapped up in this human time frame which, as humans, we can only see things through our own eyes. But having the plants, we have the opportunity to see things from different and longer cycle eyes. Does that make sense to you where you’ve worked with the Redwoods and they can talk to you about millennia passing?
Rochana Felde: [00:24:33] Yeah. So, that is one of the things I noticed with the Redwoods so much, because of their ancientness, they have this energy of having the long view. They have so much perspective and humanity is just a blip on the radar of their existence. And so they really have a different energy. And in general, I have felt it harder to connect to trees in general than plants. When I started making essences, it took me a while. It’s just a bit of a different vibration. I feel like there’s a different frequency that’s happening. And the bigger and the older the thing, the more difficult it was for me personally anyway to get on that wavelength. And so rocks and crystals and trees, especially the older trees, just took a little more time and effort, whereas working with herbs was almost immediate. And of course having that background in herbalism and already having worked with the herbal world for so long, that was a really natural way to begin for me. So I feel like starting out, it’s probably easier to start with plants that humans have been working with for a really long period of time, like medicinal herbs and/or plants that are ubiquitous roadside, weedy type plants that they’re just sort of here with humans and part of our landscape. If they’re like an invasive weed, I mean they have a strong personality. And so it might be easier to connect with them. That’s a really good way to start.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:26:37] It’s an interesting idea. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anybody talk about the difference between trees and herbs or smaller plants in that way. But I think you’re right. I think that there’s something to that, and certainly I agree that herbs are so twinned, so paired with us. They’re so aware of our needs and that they’ve shown up for us, that they definitely are pretty much they’re not a hard one to get in touch with, they’re not a hard one to work with, and they’re generally quite loquacious and willing to tell you what they’d like to share with you. So yeah, that would be a good starting place, is to work with the herbs that you have growing in your garden because they already know you and they already want to be part of your experience. I like that idea a lot. Yeah.
And I think one thing that might be fun to talk about a little bit would be to talk about some of the shadow stuff that can come up when you are making essences or when you’re working with essences and it is maybe a bit of a turn from what we were just talking about, where the herbs, generally they’re human helpers. If you’re talking about more of the tonic herbs, they tend to be more gentle, they tend to be more supportive and helping to– they’re not catalytic or heroic kinds of herbs for the most part that we’re talking about right now. But there are things that do have those sort of heroic qualities, and I’m speaking that in the term of herbalism where it’s a dramatic herb and it can be toxic. But not all plants that bring up shadow as essences are toxic plants. But it can be really wild to have your first shadow threshold experience when you’re working with essences and essence plants. Do you want to share one, or do you want me to jump into one that I could talk about?
Rochana Felde: [00:28:47] Yeah, well, I mean, I would just say that plants that have a cleansing action herbally or spiritually, like some of the Sages, for example, I feel like they can really work you with a going deep, cleansing experience. When we learn about flower essences as well, I know in David Dalton’s trainings and some other trainings looking at the plant signatures and we look at that in our school as well, we always look at the shape of the flower, and there’s clues about that in the ones that have these long, deep necks can take you deeper subconsciously. And sometimes those are ones that work with shadows. So there’s some clues, and I’ll let you speak more about that, but when we talk about working with shadows, what we mean is, I like to just say, “It’s facing things you don’t want to face,” just to put it simply, right,and not make it this esoteric like, “Oh, we’re doing shadow work.” It’s something that you’ve been ignoring, that you don’t want to look at. And sometimes the plants that you work with will force the issue. They’ll bring it up for you to look at, and you can’t keep ignoring it. And so I think that’s in general how I look at it.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:30:36] Yeah. Good description because it is very much– ugh, it’s a challenging process. I mean, making essences, it will just turn you inside out. If you’re really working intentionally and for a period of time with essences, you’re going to get some wild rides. I know that I’ve certainly experienced some myself. And my primary teacher, Jane Bell, talks about it a lot where when she and Steve Johnson were out making essences out in the wilds in Alaska, stuff comes up. Really gnarly stuff comes up and you just have to have, on one hand, be in the experience, let it move through, take notes, but also recognizing like, oh, we’re making an essence now. This is happening as part of this process and it’s informing ways in which this essence is helpful and useful. I know that when she and I did an essence-making trip to Hawaii, we made the Night-Blooming Cereus from her Hawaiian line. And oh, my God, that is hardcore. That essence, it’s a terrestrial–well, it’s a cactus. It’s a type of cactus. And it grows up in trees almost like a vine. And it really can be gigantic and it blooms right around the full moon. And the flowers are these huge, huge night blooming 10 inches across, huge white flowers. And making that essence was, like both of us had the heebie-jeebies the whole time and we were just freaking out randomly and going out to be with the plant and the flowers. We’re getting dive-bombed by giant bats and stuff. And then there’s things crawling in the underbrush. And we were both trying not to shriek the whole time because it was crazy. And you know you’re going through a process, but it’s also still happening, you’re experiencing it. And that essence is such a powerful shadow illuminator. It shows you all of your fears. It shows you all of the things that you’re– in order to grow and become who we are supposed to be, we have to look down the barrel of that and go, “Okay, this is terrifying and upsetting and scary, but here I am and I’m going to choose to open up to be bigger than that and to embrace this process that I’m going through and to embrace the gold that comes through walking through that wild, terrifying, exhilarating process.”
Rochana Felde: [00:33:34] What a great story. I mean, yeah, facing your fears, right? I mean, how intense is that? And it’s funny, I tell people that it’s not all sunshine and light and love making flower essences. Things can happen where you have to face either fears or emotions come up or all of a sudden some situation happens that you have to deal with, and it is so part of that process. It’s like the plants are showing you in this really literal way where its healing lies.
I made a seaweed essence last summer, and the funny story about that is I had this amazing, really lovely meditative experience at low tide with this rainbow leaf seaweed. And it was the first time I had tried to make a seaweed essence. And so it was all a new experience and very cool. But then as I was leaving the beach and I was getting the essence was about cleansing, right? But as I was walking away leaving the beach, I stepped in dog poop. And interestingly, it was hidden because someone had kicked some sand over it. And it was smelly and it was messy, and it got into the crevices of my grippy KEEN sandals. And I tried to scrape it off with a stick before I walked further. And then when I had to figure out how to wash them off or put them in a bag before I put them in my car, it was this whole thing. It was this whole process that I won’t say it ruined the experience of making the essence, it was part of the experience of making the essence because it was telling me so literally about how cleansing that essence is and how detoxifying it is. And it’s funny, too. It’s just like one of those things, it happens.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:36:12] Yeah, there’s a lot of, it happens, when you’re making essences. You just track it all and everything is worthy of making a note about. And when you are making essences, and Ro, you and I, we’ve been talking about this whole– in preparation for the podcast and that we’d really like to create a community, we’re thinking about coming up with an offering through the Flower Essence Studies of a cohort of essence-making as a spiritual journey probably this coming spring of people who want to start working with essences together and talking about their experiences and making essences together and having this whole experience because it’s really the growth that happens is amazing. And it’s also really nice to be able to do it in group, to be able to have these conversations with one another, like this crazy thing happened and then somebody will tell you, “Oh, yeah, that happened to me too.” Rather than just being so isolated, like a lot of us are, of not really realizing that this is an experience that we can share, that we can talk about in a safe place. So that’s something that we’re contemplating. So if you’re listening and you’re like, “Oh, that’s me, I want to be part of that,” let us know. We would love to bring together a group of people of kind hearts and open to nature who want to work very intentionally with this as an inner growthful process.
And there’s also this thing about when you make essences, you really want to have that affirmation that, “Oh yes, this is right, this is really happening. Something’s really happening,” because like you say, if you’re doing it alone, you’re like, “I’m not even sure anything’s in this bottle.” I can’t tell you how many conversations that I’ve had with Jane when we make essences is like, “Is this anything?” And then you hand it to someone and they’re just like, “Whoa, that is so powerful.” This doubt, this like, is something happening here, it is pretty much, as far as I can tell, it’s universal to the essence-making process. So, you are not alone, and we want you to not feel alone if you make essences and you doubt yourself because been there, done that. Everybody I know has been there and done that, so.
Rochana Felde: [00:38:41] Yeah, I think it would be so fun to get a group of people together sharing our experiences about making essences and going through that process together. It’d be a fun journey and a fun experience. So, yeah, if you’re listening and you’re interested in something like that, we’re just trying to gauge interest and see who might be up for that for next spring. And you could email us, Hello, at floweressencestudies.com with your thoughts. That would be cool.
[/ppp_patron_only]Kathleen Aspenns: [00:39:16] Well, thank you for being with us. Thank you for sharing this time with us talking about experiences of making flower essences, of working directly with nature and her gifts for us. We really appreciate your listening to us and sharing your time on a regular basis. It’s so fun to hear from you podcast listeners. You’re hearing us because Ro and we just do this thing and we put it out and sometimes we really don’t realize who is connecting. So we do love to hear from you. It makes us so happy when we get the mails or the comments. And should you feel inspired to offer a few stars and a review on your podcast catcher, we’d be so grateful. So thank you so much for playing along and we look forward to our next interaction with you.
Rochana Felde: [00:40:15] Bye, everyone.
Kathleen Aspenns: [00:40:21] This podcast is meant for educational and entertainment purposes only. We are not physicians and do not diagnose, prescribe, or treat medical conditions. Please consult with your own physician or healthcare practitioner regarding the suggestions and recommendations made by the hosts and guests of The Flower Essence Podcast.
