FLOWER POWER
Essences and Essential Oils
Safe and Palatable Treatments
Dr. Christina Chambreau
www.christinachambreau.com
443-895-9555
Imagine for a minute – no angry dogs, no hissing or spraying cats, great appetites, no fear of thunderstorms and lovely interactions for all in the family. Although nothing is 100 percent, the energetic power inherent in Flower Essences and Essential Oils can help you and your companion be happier and healthier.
FLOWER ESSENCES
Flower Essences are one of my most favored treatments. They really are completely safe, often effective and are a natural way to help animals be healthier. The philosophy behind Flower Essences was developed by Dr. Edward Bach, an English physician who gave up his busy homeopathic medical practice to study and prepare the 38 Flower Essences now known as the Bach Flowers or English Flower Essences. Flower Essences are part of the broader category of “energy medicines,” because they heal the physical body by working on the energy field. Dr. Bach asserted that the 38 Bach Flowers he tested were sufficient for all illness of people (and then people used them on their animals). www.Nelsonbach.com
Since then many other practitioners have felt the need for more essences and have developed their own lines made from plants and other substances.
If correctly chosen, the person or animal is better in every way. Flower essences are usually made by putting the flowers in water and exposing to sunlight, boiling them for a few hours or letting the energetic intention imprint on the water/alcohol. These gentle preparations cannot cause harm and are easy to prescribe as you can use more than one at a time.
Administration of Flower Essences
Whichever essences you choose, there are multiple ways to administer them to your companions. They are very easy to use! They can be given by mouth, added to food or water, applied topically, or used in a spray bottle to infuse a problem area (the car they are nervous about riding in, a room that scares them, a veterinary exam room, etc).
Most important is to immerse your pet in the essences, dosing in different ways all day long for at least a month.
Different practitioners and companies have different ideas of administration and dilutions. Because flower essences are so safe, innovative ways of giving the essences are fine. The standard recommendation from the original Bach Company is to put 2 drops of each chosen flower remedy in a 1 oz bottle of good water. Narrowing down to 2 or 3 is best, but up to 5 can be mixed. If Rescue Remedy is used, it is considered to be 1 of your choices even though it contains a mixture of 5 flower remedies. Four drops of Rescue is put into a mixture. Then 4 drops of the mixture are given at least 4 times a day.
A few drops can be put into a separate water bowl (you do not want to deprive an animal of water if they do not want to drink the essence water) and it is fine if the other animals also drink it. It can be rubbed into the ear or any other area with less fur. It can be put in the food. It can be sprayed on the animal or misted in the air, on beds, toys, carriers, car seats, etc. Other companies have their own recommendations
Molly of Green Hope Essences says: “In keeping with the Green Hope angel’s favorite expression of Dogs but no Dogma, use these Essences [animal wellness collection] in any combination [even though they are combinations themselves], for any situation you are prompted to use them for and with any creature you want, yourself included!”
Jackson of Spirit Essences has a full page of instructions. A few hints (useful for any company’s remedies) include “[when using] more than one remedy … for example…a senior pet …is recovering from…lengthy illness…begun to isolate…other animals…getting swiped at [by the elderly pet] …sore…grouchy…despondent.” Answer: “Healthy Helper and Graceful Aging…together will ensure we’re hitting his condition on all cylinders…” Because each combination has 15-20 essences it would be confusing to give both at the same time, and each may negate the other. Decide which is the base remedy that will stay on board for the long haul and which is the complimentary remedy for the short term. Put the base remedy (here it would be Graceful Aging) in a bowl of water and in wet food every day. The complimentary remedy (Healthy Helper in this example) is applied topically or orally up to four times a day and misted into significant areas. “You can even add a third combination into the mix. Just remember, separate out the applications…”
Sharon of Anaflora recommends using the essences on people and animals at the same time for the best effect. “The essence bottles should be potentized before each use by tapping the bottom of the bottle briskly on the palm of your hand…. If the essences are put in the animal’s drinking water virtually no alcohol taste remains. [Remember to have a non medicated drinking water bowl as well.] Essences may be given by adding to the animal’s water, or rubbing on its ears, lips, gums or foot pads. Atomizers are available that attach to the one oz. bottles and allow you to spray the essences on and around the animal. This is a wonderful way to administer flower essences…. Water is always the best vehicle for the delivery of flower essences. Essences are prepared in a water medium and water does not add an interfering energy. So, even if you choose to put essences in your animal’s food, I would recommend putting it in water too.”
Fred of Pegasus adds “…or the drops can be placed in your palms, and you can then move your hands along their auric fields or massage it into them. …”
Storage of Essences and Preservatives
Molly of Green Hope Essences – “We work hard to maintain the vibrational integrity of the Flower Essences as they travel into the world to you. We bottle … in lead free, cobalt blue bottles. …We also ask the Green Hope Farm Angels to protect your Essences until they reach you. … make sure the dropper does not touch anything outside the bottle [mouth of animal, for instance]. If you do…Just run the dropper under cold, clear water for 10 seconds before putting back into the bottle. If you feel they are not fully cleared, ask the Angels and Elementals to clear the Essence of everything that is not the pure love and light of the FE.” When forced by authorities to stop using Brandy as a stabilizer, Molly began using Red Shiso, so even most cats do not mind it being given directly. It is a Japanese herb that “contains perilla aldehyde, a preservative documented to have a thousand times the strength of synthetic food preservatives. …Red Shiso, when taken into our system in any form, helps us to become superconductors, able to more easily and comfortably hold greater light energy.” Molly raises her own organic Red Shiso.
Sharonof Anaflora – “. Store essences in a cool place out of direct sunlight, or in the refrigerator. Essences are preserved in the highest quality brandy. Over the years I have found brandy to be the purest preservative for flower essences. It has a capacity to stabilize the integrity of the essences over time, insuring their potency and does not add an additional interfering frequency.
Choosing your Essences
There are two main types of flower essence treatment.
- Select single essences that you combine yourself or give singly or one in the AM and one later, or one orally and several topically.
- Select combination essences that are labeled for specific animal problems. Again, since they are totally safe, you can try one, then another until you find what works for each of your companions. You can even give more than one combination.
Deciding on which essence company and which essences to administer each day can be done in several ways.
- Research several of the companies to decide which seems best to you. Then read the catalog’s description of different essences or combinations to decide which fit most accurately. Follow dosage guidelines that were given above. Keep a journal to know what changes are happening and understand about how cures happen (general sense of well being and more emotional stability in addition to resolution or partial resolution of the concerning problem) so you can know to continue or change approaches.
- Learn to tap into your natural knowing, the universal knowing, to trust your prayer answers, or other means to get yes or no answers. Pendulums, Applied Kinesiology (AK), dowsing, finger testing, meditation, prayer and more are ways to do this that you can learn. Once you are confident of this, you can use this to help you choose the company, the essences and the frequency. You still need to keep a journal to be sure healing is happening.
- Work with a trained practitioner. Most companies are founded by people who can intuitively help you choose the best essences for your animals. Jackson Galaxy of Spirit Essences has years of working with and studying cats. Sharon Callahan of Anaflora essences brings years of animal communication to her essence suggestions. Many holistic veterinarians, if asked, use these methods to select the best treatments.
- Desert Alchemy gives similar guidance on their site – “Usually, a flower essence practitioner uses one or a combination of the following methods to select flower essences: detailed interview with the client, intuitive impression of the client’s concerns, muscle testing, dowsing with a pendulum, a cross-reference of the flower essences, or other methods. Our book The Art & Technique of Using Flower Essences contains a detailed explanation on how to use different methods to select flower essences in an effective way. Since flower essences do not have negative side effects, it is completely safe to select the essences yourself. If you use an essence that you don’t need, nothing will happen. When reading about the flower essences we often recognize our attitudes in the descriptions of many of the flowers.
The Bach Essences are readily available at most health food stores. For single remedies they are the easiest to prescribe since there are only 38 to learn. Other wonderful companies are producing hundreds of different essences that make it more difficult to select individual remedies. There are many great books about the Bach Remedies. Bach Flower Remedies for Animals by Helen Graham is a good animal healthy guide and I like The Dictionary of Bach Flower Remedies by T. W. Hyne Jones as it is so concise.
The other companies have produced essences combined for specific animal problems, so while these often need to be ordered, they are even easier to select. My current favorites are Spirit Essences, Green Hope Farms, Pet Essences and a few from Perelandra.
Spirit Essences– Dr. Jean Hofve, a holistic veterinarian created these combinations from many other companies individual ones, in addition to making her own, especially the Rocky Mountain Essences. They use special, sacred water and Reiki the essences.
Green Hope Farm Essences – Molly’s catalogs are full of spirits, love and commitment to the planet, animals and plants. Her Animal Wellness Collection have essences for specific conditions. She has hundreds of single essences for people and animals. When you call or email about a specific problem, she may suggest one or more of her single essences as well.
Pet Essences has wonderful combinations for animals, especially for medical conditions.
Anaflora flower essences have been discontinued. Sharon Callahan, an animal communicator, is, in 2021, creating a retreat center.
Perelandra I love Michael Small Wright’s (Behaving as if the God in All things matters) perspective on our planet and how to live and run our businesses in partnership with Nature. The Viral, Fungal and Bacterial essences are the ones I most commonly use. I had a stray cat living in my garage for a few weeks who became ill with vomiting and not eating. I had too few symptoms to use homeopathy, so I called an intuitive, Terri Diener, who said it was a virus. After getting a “no” from the universe on every modality we could think of, including Flower Essences, she thought of the Perelandra essences. Because the viral, fungal and bacterial essences are not “flowers” we had gotten a no to flower essences. There was a yes to V1 and one drop between the shoulder blades and the cat began to eat, had no more vomiting and was adopted shortly thereafter.
Mollie and Me is made by veterinarian Dr. Josie Beug who was walking in the woods and the flowers and stones spoke to her. She has a lovely line, related to Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine (TCVM)
Sananda Ascension Essences are produced by a Sananjaleen, an animal communicator who also has great books – one channeling what dolphins want to tell us. She has lived with many wonderful Dachshunds over the years and shares their special stories.
Delta Garden Essences – Dr. Jensen (an excellent veterinarian using essences) really likes these. They describe the use of single essences for specific animal problems. Classes in NY and publications make this a good site and company.
Pegasus Products have over 1200 essences. Fred was one of the first companies in the 80s and has expanded to included many etheric essences. You can choose elixirs or essences – they are the same thing. He has a section on animals – one that looks very interesting is for switching to a new diet.
Australian Bush Flower Essences developed by Ian White. While they do not have specific animal selections, the combinations for people will work as well.
Alaskan Flower Essences developed by Steve Johnson has one animal combination remedy mainly for use in rescue work, or for animals who do not come into contact with nature much (apartment cats and dogs). The one for traveling is to help deal with invasion of your space and boundaries, so it may be useful for animals who are traveling as well as in a crowded home.
Desert Alchemy has a new essence to deal with the heat, so this could be useful to many animals. They have a page listing the specific essences to treat animal problems. I would explore these especially for training issues. I love the plant names that are so unfamiliar to me.
Living Tree Orchid Essences (distributed in theU.S.by Southern Herb Company. These powerful essences have helped me personally, though I am not sure how to prescribe for animals.
Hawaiian Rain Forest Essences do not have specific combinations for animals, but the descriptions fit many animal concerns, like repeating mistakes. If you are drawn toHawaii, like I am, you may want these tropical essences fromMaui.
Kaua`i Healing Energies company has a huge number of essences from around the world and is a bit overwhelming to me though I loveKauai. There are no animal combinations.
The Flower Essence Services Wide range of essences for people, books, classes and writing on flower essences.
Flower Vision Research (does not have their own line, but provides educational workshops, books and sells other companies essences.
Now you know what flower essences are and where to get them. What can you use them for?
Specific Uses of Flower Essences
Relief from any stress – Rescue Remedy (Animal Emergency Care, other brands of rescue solutions). This is available in small bottles in all health food stores and many grocers, pharmacies and box stores. Each company’s variation may work better for some animals than others. If ever a person or animal is ill or upset in any way give a “rescue” essence. This combination of flower essences is used any time and animal of person needs “rescuing”. If the animal is nervous or angry while being transported, put some straight rescue remedy on a small cloth and put in the crate or carrier or on the seat beside the animal. Rescue Remedy can do no harm and may miraculously help an animal recover from any problem. It can be used along with conventional medication. I have seen great results with injuries, shock, seizures, wounds, poisoning, bladder problems, severe diarrhea, bleeding,
Fleas and Ticks Green Hope Farms Flee Free is my personal favorite combination flower essence because I have had such good luck on my own cats. Spirit Essence’s Para-Outta-Site is also excellent and can shift the vibration so the tapeworms that come from eating fleas will be expelled. Dose as directed above and put a few drops on your hands and rub them over the energy field of the animal saying “no more fleas here” &/or dilute and spray on daily or before going out &/or mist around house and yard. Clients in my practice have about a 70 percent success rate with Flee Free or Para-Outta-Site. While I have not used as much of Anaflora’s Be Gone, I would try that as well.
Angry or jealous animals benefit from Holly or Crab Apple. Liver problems, cats urinating in front of you or in your shoes, barking and growling and more can also benefit from Crab Apple. Since there are only 38 Bach Remedies it is easy to read about them all before testing. That is why I likeThe Bach Flower Dictionary as there is one remedy per small page. Equally easy would be Spirit Essence – you may choose among Bully, Grouch, Obsession, Safe Space or others. As you read the description of each, you can choose the ones that best fit, or tune into the universe as mentioned above. Outburst or Jealousy may be the best of the animal combinations of Green Hope Farm, or you may open intuitively at random to one her other 100s of essences – maybeOrange – “…full of volcanic emotions” or Fever Few to “Break up deep seated anger, confusion…” You may realize that what you see as anger is a fiery emotional outburst andOrange will help. Anaflora has Aggression formula or you can go to Aggression in the Repertory to explore 25 to 30 different individual essences.
Fear will be helped by Bach’sAspen and/or Mimulus (or others). Aspen is for fear when you do not know what you are afraid of and Mimulus is for when you know what scares you. Since we cannot always make this distinction with animals, use both. The Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) point of view relates kidney problems to the emotion of fear, so they can be used in cats with early kidney disease (drinking more, even when not eating dry food which no cat should eat), as well as more advanced kidney disease where other modalities are being used as well. Even if you would not describe your cat or dog in early kidney problems as being fearful, maybe they are showing a little more timidity, so you could try the fear essences. Spirit Essence combos for timidity and fear include Easy Traveler, Nervous Nelly, Safe Space, Scaredy Cat, Separation Anxiety Remedy, and Storm Soother. Green Hope Essences include Neediness and Anxiety. Looking at her individual remedies, you may open to one that says “your companion needs me!”, like Golden Armor for protection, or Red Clover “Extremely calming in situations of fear, panic, terror.” Anaflora has Calm Kitty, Tranquility, Free & Easy along with dozens of individual ones listed in the repertory under fear. Living Tree Orchid Essence spray – Angelic Canopy Aura is for “…someone feeling anxious or upset…”
Homesickness, or wanting things the way they used to be, is helped by Honeysuckle. Pet sitters, foster parents and kennel owners may find this very useful. This could also be useful for a cat who can no longer go outdoors, or vice versa; when a family or couple splits up; when a child goes to college; when puppies leave their mom. Spirit Essences has Changing Times, Feral Cat Rehabilitation, Foster Care Remedy and Shelter Adoption. Green Hope Farms has Separation and Neediness. Anaflora has Relocation, Missing You and Loneliness.
Teething problems. Puppies may be chewing anything and everything to ease their discomfort as teeth erupt. Other puppies have no problems with teething at all. You may find it hard to decide if the chewing is a behavior problem or a sore gum problem. The following will help either way, though more for the teething problem. Put 4 drops Rescue Remedy (Bach flower Essence) in 1 C of water, pour into small ice cube trays and freeze. Give the ice cubes to your dog and see if they help. If she will not eat ice cubes, try gently rubbing some of the diluted Rescue Remedy on the gums. This will directly ease the pain (cold often helps and Rescue remedy is known for pain relief) and the Rescue Remedy will also generally relieve the emotional stress. The ice cubes can be given as often as the puppy needs them and they will not cause any harm.
Car ride problems ( See the Animal Reiki Alliance article on Travel Sickness at the web site) can often be helped with Rescue Remedy or Animal Emergency Care. Give 2 dropperfuls of the dilute solution 30 minutes before the trip and repeat as you get in the car. On longer trips you may need to repeat every 15 minutes or every 3 to 6 hours. If you feel that fear is strong, add 2 drops each of Mimulus andAspen to the bottle and dose the same way. You can also put a drop of the straight essence on a towel in their crate or on a kerchief tied around their neck. The other companies have specific combos for traveling, some for the fears and some for the digestive upsets (Spirit Essences Happy Traveler and Happy Tummy).
Hot spots and other skin problems can benefit from rescue remedy solution in your rinse water and topical application. Bach Crab Apple is known for its detoxifying effects. Green Hope Farms has Healthy Coat, Spirit Essences has Skin Soother and Anaflora has Allergy formula and singles.
Orchid Essence Healing
While I have not used these yet, they are very intriguing for those who are looking at the deep, spiritual healings we can help our animals to achieve. The stories about healing in their Guide are amazing and some translate well to animals. Being Present Aura Spray helped after a long journey “…part of my psyche had until then [when she sprayed this] been stretched out over the last 100 km of the autobahn, and the moment I sprayed myself, I felt my dispersed energy come back to the here and now…almost like reeling in a fish.” Maybe this is part of why some animals have trouble traveling – their psyche is stretched from one place to another. She does mention animal uses in some of the descriptions. Angelic Canopy Aura Spray is “…for clearing the aura as well as office and living spaces of negative energies. Balm for the troubled soul…Good for rescue dogs….”
Books on Essences
Reading the flower essence catalogs can be healing just in the process of reading. The different descriptions bring a smile to my face and a deep inspiration (of soul and breath).
Green Hope Essence Guide (also at www.GreenHopeEssences.com)
Orchid Essence Healing
Healing animals Naturally with Flower Essences and Intuitive Listening – Sharon Callahan ISBN 0-9653796-1-2
Dictionary of the Bach Flower Remedies – TW Hyne Jones
Bach Flower Remedies for Animals – Helen Graham & Gregory Vlamis
Heal Your Cat the Natural Way (you can use the suggestions for dogs, too) – Richard
Allport. Organized by condition, this book suggests many natural approaches,
including Bach flower essences and aromatherapy. Constipation – “Crabapple is
well-known as the cleansing remedy, and often helps to relieve constipation.”
The Complete Guide to Holistic Cat Care – Celeste Yarnall and Jean Hofve, DVM – has
an entire section on using the Bach Flower Essences for specific cat issues (again
you can easily translate to dog issues.
Many books and booklets by Machelle Small Wright – www.Perelandra-ltd.com on ways to
use the essences, how to ask nature for the best treatments and creating an
energetic (spirits) healing team for you and your animals.
Remember to trust your intuition, learn methods of tuning into the best choices and do not ever hesitate to try these wonderful gifts from God. Try different ones to see which you are most attracted to or ask an intuitive help you find the best for you. Have fun with the gentle essences.