magazine of the british flower and vibrational …...summer 2018 essence 3 contents 4 notes from the...

Magazine of the British Flower and Vibrational Essences AssociationMagazine of the British Flower and Vibrational Essences Association

Summer 2018Summer 2018

The British Flower and Vibrational Essence Association - Start of a New Paradigm - Part 1 Vivien WilliamsonPlant Medicine – the Key to Human Survival and Evolution Davyd FarrellTree Spirit Essences Susan McCrone The Light Within Bonny Casel Meet the Member Caroline Thomas David Beale Janet Rose and Mary Wallwork

2 Essence Summer 2018

Summer 2018Magazine of the British Flower and Vibrational Essences Association

Chair Sara Turner

International Chair Erik Pelham

Secretary Debbie Sellwood

Treasurer Kelly Sellwood

Membership Secretary Helen Ward

Practitioner Officer Dawn White

Friends Officer Nina Ritchie

Webmaster/E-news Editor Dawn White

ESSENCE Magazine Editor Helen Ward

Education Officer Lesley Oates

Gathering Officer Dawn White

Data Control Officer Chris Phillips

Publicity and Promotion Erik Pelham, Sara Turner, Ronnie Williams

Officer without Portfolio Heather K Veitch

Research Committee Sheila Hicks Balgobin, Ally Pica, Jan Stewart

COREP Chair Jan Stewart

COREP Secretary Debbie Sellwood

Contact information available at http://bfvea.com/committee.php

Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the Editor or the BFVEA

Copy date for our next issue is 03/09/18

BFVEA Membership Subscriptions (includes ESSENCE magazine) UK Membership £60.00 International £65.00Annual subscriptions are due on 1st May. For new practitioners joining after 1st October the above subscriptions are halved in the first year. Any renewals made on or after 1st June incur a surcharge of £5.00. Contact Helen on [email protected] for more information.

BFVEA Friend Subscriptions(Magazine only subscription) Special offer for 2018/9Friend UK £25.00Friend International £32.00Student UK £23.00Student International £30.00Contact Nina on [email protected] for more information.

Payment MethodsBy cheque, BACS or Paypal. (There is a small additional charge when using Paypal to cover the fees.)N.B. You can unsubscribe at any time, please get in touch using one of the above emails.

Articles/AdvertisingTo submit an article or an advert, contact [email protected]'s guidelines can be found at http://www.bfvea.com/resources/authorsguidelines.pdf

ISSN 1465-8704

Summer 2018 Essence 3

Contents

4 Notes from the Chair Sara Turner

5 Message from your Editor Helen Ward

6 The British Flower and Vibrational Essence Association - Start of a New Paradigm - Part 1 Vivien Williamson

10 Plant Medicine – the Key to Human Survival and Evolution Davyd Farrell

13 Tree Spirit Essences Part 2 of Meet the Producer Susan McCrone

19 International Essence Awareness Week 2018 Sara Turner

22 The Light Within Bonny Casel

28 Meet the Member Caroline Thomas

32 David Beale Janet Rose and Mary Wallwork

Key BFVEA activities| operate with the Bach Centre, as

the Confederation of Registered Essence Practitioners (COREP) the lead body for essence therapy;

| raise interest in and awareness of flower and other vibrational essences in the UK and overseas;

| provide guidelines, set standards and accredit your courses for training essence practitioners;

| monitor and advise on current legal requirements for essence therapy and production;

| provide the public with a list of registered essence practitioner members;

| offer an affordable block insurance scheme for our essence practitioners and producers;

| present an informative website offering information about essences and the BFVEA;

| publish a professional, illustrated magazine ESSENCE, and a quarterly e-newsletter – both containing current articles, thoughts and research on essences;

| act as a forum for research into all aspects of essence use in which members can be involved.

BFVEA BM BFVEA, London WC1N 3XX UK ( +44 (0) 7946 442 002 with answering serviceList of BFVEA practitioners at [email protected]/BFVEA www.twitter.com/BFVEA www.floweressencestudents.simplesite.com/


Notes from the Chair Sara Turner

A big welcome to you all to this our summer edition of Essence Magazine. I’m hearing from many that the ‘light’ seems different this year, and also seeing that, despite a hard winter, nature is

blossoming wonderfully and it is another reminder of how when we surrender to ‘What Is’, beauty will always follow.

As I write this, we close our month of BFVEA renewals. Our Membership Officer, Helen Ward, has told me what wonderful work you – our members – have been doing as part of your CPD: developing your own ranges of essences, conforming to all regulations, working in local towns to spread the word about how essences can help young and old, whether here in the UK or, via our International members, as far away as China and Australia! I took part myself in an online CPD meet up and was inspired by the way our essence work touches us all in such deep ways – both personally and professionally. Who knew that CPD could actually be fun …

It seems that as nature unfurls around us, many more are hearing her call. New people are approaching the BFVEA who want to train as fully-accredited Tutors, and our existing BFVEA tutors are doing a great job of spreading the word about our organisation. The Chalice Well held a joint Well/BFVEA CPD and essence appreciation day, which I am told was a huge success! Whether you work on your own or with other practitioners, whether you do your CPD on your own or in a peer review session, we are so pleased to see your passion for essences in action. It bodes well for the future!

Other inspiring news is that we have two members who have progressed to Advanced Practitioner status – Kate Quartermaine and Amy Murphy-Watts. Congratulations to both of you for stepping up and sharing more and more of who you are with the world. We also recorded some special videos at the Gathering this year to help us raise awareness of essences and our organisation and have started to share them via the BFVEA Facebook page. Perhaps some of you could help us share them further!

It is also heartening to know that our Secretary, Debbie Sellwood, took care of the late Charlotte Barrow’s donation to the BFVEA of her essences. Many of them were given to Dr Andrew Tressider’s dispensary and the remainder of her essence possessions were offered to Gathering attendees and £181 was collected and donated to the Penny Brohn cancer charity. We still miss Charlotte immensely and it feels really good that our community now has many of her beloved essences and tools.


Organisation for our next Gathering is well under way and we already have much of our programme in place. It feels like a very exciting one this time, with a particular focus on New Producers. We also continue to venture out and use new retreat centres, with Woodside Hotel and Conference Centre, Kenilworth, Warwickshire our venue for The Gathering 2019 (March 22nd – 24th).

Wishing you all a wonderful summer of sunshine, warmth and the solace and nourishment of nature.

With love and gratitude to you all

Sara [email protected]

Message from your Editor Helen WardHello everyone! There is no COREP Corner this time as Jan is taking a little break. But in the meantime we have plenty of articles for you to immerse yourselves in as you enjoy your

summer! We have a great look back at the early years, with the first part of Viv Williamson’s account of the history of the BFVEA starting off this issue of ESSENCE. We also have a tribute to the late David Beale, written by two of his long-time friends. David was one of the first Presidents of the BFVEA and was commemorated so well by Jan at the recent Gathering.

Susan McCrone introduces us to her lovely Tree Spirit Essences and the deep, co-creative process of their origin, and we also welcome new member Caroline Thomas, who – as you will see – is very passionate about furthering the use of essences for animals. She is also closely involved with our friends Chris and Jenny at Yorkshire Essences.

We have two inspirational articles from Bonny Casel and Davyd Farrell, whom many of you will have met at our Gatherings. Bonny will delight you all with a deep look into the luminous nature of all living things in ‘The Light Within’, and you will sense Davyd’s passion for healing the Earth and ourselves in his article based on his recent talk in March. Finally we have a very colourful piece to inspire you about how you could help spread the word and work of essences, via International Essence Awareness Week 2018. Look out particularly for the beautiful photos taken by our members last autumn!

Helen [email protected]


The British Flower and Vibrational Essence Association - Start of a New Paradigm - Part 1

Vivien Williamson with contributions from Rose Titchiner and Sue Lilly

We were delighted to welcome Vivien Williamson, one of our BFVEA Founders, to our special anniversary Gathering, where she kindly offered to do a talk on the founding and development of the BFVEA. This was a wonderful start to this special weekend and reminded us all of the importance of what we do, and invoked some happy reminiscing. Articles based on her talk will be presented in three parts in successive issues of ESSENCE.

The Start of it AllThe very beginning of the BFVEA was the result of many ‘threads’ converging, and looking back it was a very powerful time, with incredible formative, creative energy. There were a lot of people in Norfolk and Suffolk in the early nineties making essences: myself, Rose Titchiner, of course, Jane Stevenson, Dawn Carol, Shimara, Sue Monk, Hannah Gifford Tutt, and Pat Staines that I know of. We also had many interested and supportive friends, who constellated around us and would join us on our trips. However, there was also some crazy stuff going on, with some rather odd people around, and many of us reported feeling psychically attacked!

Interestingly, this was also the time that Julian Barnard was fighting Nelsons over the trade-marking of the name ‘Bach’. However, despite all this, it was an exciting and creative time because it was just as possible to use this intense energy positively and productively and from 1990-1994 we – that is, myself and the people around me – made all thirty-eight of the Bach flowers, plus other essences as well. As essence practitioners we were inspired to be 'part of the whole experience' by the publishing of Julian Barnard's book 'The Healing Herbs of Edward Bach', which sets out in detail how to make the thirty-eight flowers. It was clearly a deep and personal calling as it changed my life, and that of many others involved as well. It felt like I was being hit by a bolt of energy that carried me through those four years to a sense of completion. Even the weather was perfect. You could say, 'we will go out on Thursday', and the weather would respond by being completely sunny. Along the way I felt drawn to set up my


company Sun Essences, and as if the universe responded, I was introduced to an American customer who wanted mother essences made in Kosher brandy. So from 1995-96, all thirty-eight were made again! It was a magical time, deepening my connection to nature in a way that has never left me.

I first met Rose Titchiner at a flower essence study group run from Sue Monk’s house in Norwich. Being much more in touch with what was going on globally, she felt keenly aware that international essences were getting a lot of interest and publicity and there was some unfriendly competitiveness going on, plus there was a sense that UK essences were looked down upon and considered to belong to the past. I saw this belief made loud and clear at Ian White's four-day intensive in Australia in 1994, as Bush Essences seemed very much to be placed in the future, Bramm Zaaberg's Flower Essences of the Netherlands in the present and yes, you guessed it, Bach was placed in the past!!! Rose was concerned that there was nothing going on to promote or explain what British essences were doing in relationship to the needs of modern times. As essence work and development in Britain was just as rich, creative and active as elsewhere, and this was also the birth place of essences, it seemed all wrong somehow.

A New Flower Essence Book So Rose decided to do something constructive about it. She had for some time felt drawn to compile a book – something she knew she would really enjoy doing – which would explain in a fair way what was going on the UK essence world, and how we all made our essences. She got in touch with various people and the more she found out the bigger it got! With Pat Staines, Rosie Potter and Sue Monk on board to help it took three years to pull the book together and it was published in 1997 under the title New Vibrational Flower Essences of Britain and Ireland.1 It offers many different and diverse ways of making essences.

This issue of competitiveness and jealousy was also the motivating force in giving all the contributors in Rose’s book an equal say, plus exposure of their work. It might have been a tad idealistic, but the hope was to create a level playing field and room for everyone. Despite all her best efforts, she still got a lot of stick afterwards. Can you please everyone? Well, clearly not!

The Ideas Begin to Take RootIn that year we had the International Flower Essence conference in Findhorn2

and I had a friend from Australia come to stay after attending it. Although many people had really enjoyed the week-long event, she was not that complimentary


about how things had gone and talked about the ‘bumping’ egos of the big guys, squabbling over workshop time and space. Those were her words.

I had hoped to get to the conference myself, but circumstances were against it. However, with all the contacts from Rose’s book at our fingertips she and

Ruin of Leiston Abbey, adjacent to Conference Centre

I went to visit Leiston Abbey in Suffolk and decided to book it for our own UK Flower Essence Conference. Rose, in particular, wanted to continue what she had begun with her book, and do things differently, and together start something more co-operative for the good of us all – to bring us together as a community yet also to celebrate our uniqueness, and to find ways of promoting and explaining what we do. But there was also the need to find ways of regulating ourselves in the face of the MCA/MHRA (Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency), which was particularly important if we were to bring ourselves more into the public eye.

How the BFVEA and BAFEP Came to BeRose was in touch with Sue Lilly and here is when another converging thread came together with ours, and now we can pick up the story from Sue's point of view. It's on the BFVEA website, but with some additions I will present it here.

“In 1997 there was a flower essence conference at Findhorn. It was probably the only time so many essence practitioners and producers of essences worldwide have got together. There was a meeting of essence producers after the conference and a suggestion that a global essence producer association be formed. It was made clear that a balance between freedom and bureaucracy had to be found. Steve Johnson of Alaskan Essences stressed that unless positive action was taken in setting standards and policies, our freedoms would be taken away. A sobering thought and to be proved so true!"

During the discussions it became apparent that we in the UK had no essence association and we agreed to send a questionnaire around to anyone that was known to have an interest in essences, to see if they thought an association would be a good idea and if so what they thought it should do and represent.


Around the same time Rose Titchiner and others began plans to hold the first essence gathering in Leiston, with the intention of setting up an association as part of the programme. Armed with the results of the survey and because I had some experience of chairing that sort of meeting, I was able to help a core group of people present to set up the BFVEA. (The BFVEA was born on May 4th 1998 at 2.52pm).

“It was agreed that the BFVEA would be a practitioner association, but so as to encompass people who were not practitioners, an associate membership was also offered. The former required a Code of Conduct, and the one held by the British Complimentary Medicine Association at that time was adopted. It was also agreed that the BFVEA would provide a quarterly journal called ‘ESSENCE’ that would be published on the equinoxes and solstices. The producers listing would have their own news-sheet called the ‘Bioneer’ and that would be published on the quarter days. Insurance was also arranged for practitioners who wanted it. The 1999 Gathering, held at Crossmead, Exeter, saw the BFVEA agreeing the core subjects for essences courses. Subsequent Gatherings were held at Buckland Hall near Brecon, Wales – a wonderful spot found by Elly Yule.”

“In 1999 the situation around the legality of essence creation and the future of essences shifted with the proposal for the EU Traditional Herbal Medicines Directive (THMD) and it became apparent that there would need to be a special effort to keep essences safe. It was agreed that the producers group would become autonomous, leaving it free to engage in the murky waters of government without tainting or stressing the practitioner side of the essence community. On September 28th 2000 the BAFEP was born.”

With Sue at the helm as the Chair of ‘Beaver’, as it became affectionately called, we enjoyed a few years of relative quiet as we moved forward and consolidated our structure. However, it was as if it was all in preparation for the EU Traditional Herbal Medicines Directive, which of course it was.

VivVivien Williamson is the producer of Sun Essences and can be contacted at [email protected] – Rose Titchener produced the Light Heart Essences and is the author of the Truly Divine handbook and card set – Sue Lilly is the Secretary of the BAFEP, and is an author, teacher and essence producer.

References[1] Titchener, R et al. (1997) New Vibrational Flower Essences of Britain and Ireland

Waterlily Books[2] See ‘My Findhorn Journey’ by Ronnie Williams in the Winter 2017/8 issue of ESSENCE.


Plant Medicine – the Key to Human Survival and Evolution

Davyd Farrell

The BFVEA has become very closely aligned with Davyd and Emma Farrell of Plant Consciousness, and we were very pleased that Davyd joined us at the recent Gathering and gave a presentation. Here is his impassioned article based around the theme of his talk.

The world is in a perilous stateWatching any news programme or reading a newspaper for just five minutes will give you some idea of the global chaos. Between Donald Trump, Brexit, an impending war in the Middle East and nuclear rumblings in the Far East, it would be easy to overlook the even more important and crucial catastrophe that is now upon us – the ecological and environmental disaster.

Whilst preparing for an interview with Polly Higgins that I did recently for Wisdom Hub TV channel I came across some truly shocking and disturbing figures that for the first time put me into a place of despair. The sixth great mass extinction is upon us and whilst Mother Earth has already successfully traversed the previous five, the inhabitants of the planet were less successful in doing so, most notably the dinosaurs, of course, and who knows what other intelligent and possibly alien life forms inhabited this planet in much earlier epochs. Very little of any of them remains, and this, too, might that be the fate of humans – possibly even in our lifetimes – unless we take drastic action, both personally and collectively.

The WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) reports that we have lost half of Earth’s wildlife in just the last forty years. The steep decline of animal, fish and bird numbers was calculated by analysing 10,000 different populations, covering 3,000 species in total. This data was then, for the first time, used to create a representative ‘Living Planet Index’ (LPI), reflecting the state of all 45,000 known vertebrates. The fastest declines among the animal populations were found in freshwater ecosystems, where numbers have plummeted by 75% since 1970. “Rivers are the bottom of the system” said Dave Tickner, WWF’s chief freshwater adviser. “Whatever happens on the land, it all ends up in the rivers.”


A report issued last year found that over one fifth of all plant species face extinction. Other reports indicate that we are losing 3% of all biodiversity year on year. At that rate we can expect eco-system collapse in many parts of the world in the very near future, as nature’s careful balance and harmony is being severely disrupted the world over by environmental pollution and destruction and the hunting and poaching of important animals.

Humans’ disconnection from nature began with the ‘Inclosure Acts’ 1

and accelerated through the industrial revolution, as the world became mechanised and populations were drawn in ever-increasing numbers into the rapidly expanding cities. Over the last 150 years that disconnection from the land, the plants and nature in general, has grown rapidly into a global epidemic as humans chase money, power, comfort and status at the expense of all other things. Forgetting in the process that it’s never a good idea to

dump on your own doorstep…Mother Earth is our home and an amazingly diverse and wonderful one at that. To live here on this planet is truly a gift but alas one that many have forgotten – not just the corrupt governments and corporations that see the Earth as a resource that can be stripped and degraded for profit, but much of the general public too.The recent Blue Planet II series showed though how the voice of one influential person can change the opinions of many, and in the blink of an eye too. Sir David Attenborough’s highlighting of the ocean plastic issue rightly caused outcry and has prompted people to be moved to act up and down the UK. But this is not new News! Many of us have known about this for years. The

point is, though, that the world can change – and quickly – and we all have a role to play in that. Self sovereignty is an often overlooked part of being human; we ‘outsource’ much of our lives to others – mistakenly believing that they can somehow look after us better than we can ourselves.

The biggest outsourcing we do is for our own nourishment and health. Somehow there has developed a nationwide belief that the NHS can fix everything, but as many of us know the only person who can really heal us is us. Sure – sometimes we need a skilled surgeon to fix broken bones but the truth is most illness is caused by emotional trauma and stress. The rise of fibromyalgia and ME and chronic fatigue type illnesses are symptomatic of this, illnesses the NHS can’t even diagnose the cause of.


We have forgotten how to look after ourselves. We have forgotten how to go out into the fields and woods to find healing plants that can work on both the emotional and physical side of the healings that we need. Flower essences are the medicine of the future. If humans don’t understand quickly that by healing ourselves and our connection to our home we are actually ensuring not only our survival but actually also our own evolution, then we will perish.

Plant consciousness is the global intelligence that is always there and ready to guide us through the dark moments. We just need to remember that – as individuals and as a race.

DavydDavyd Farrell is the co-founder and organiser of Plant Consciousness - the event and essence range and also Wisdom Hub TV. He and his wife Emma organise many plant-based and shamanic retreats.www.plantconsciousness.com www.wisdomhub.tv

References [1] Enclosure (also known as inclosure) was the legal process in England of

consolidating (enclosing) small landholdings into larger farms. Once enclosed, use of the land became restricted to the owner, and it ceased to be common land for communal use. (Inclosure Acts, 18th and 19th centuries.)

Canna Indica Our front cover picture for this issue is the beautiful Canna Indica, which is a perennial plant that is native to the Americas, and a minor food crop cultivated by indigenous people for thousands of years.

As an essence Canna Indica is available from Green Hope Farm in New Hampshire, USA. “This is a beacon for restoring vitality after physical or emotional violence, war, and terror. This is a lifeline, steadily tugging us to shore. Working with this flower essence is like undergoing a deep thaw; like coming in from the cold winter, feeling ‘tingly’ as one begins to feel the warmth again.

“Canna Indica lifts our badly bruised and broken body (may it be physical, emotional, or etheric) up and out of the darkness, allowing our life’s blood to course into every part of our extremities, even after the most unthinkable violations and injury. The Angels have noted that victims of incest may find this essence especially supportive.”

Available from www.greenhopessences.com


Tree Spirit EssencesSusan McCrone, An-Grianan Essences

• Meet the Producer Part 2

The previous article by Susan McCrone can be found in the Spring 2018 edition of ESSENCE.

The Trees Send out Their CallI’ve been making flower essences for the best part of twenty years now, and I love it. Being with the flowers brings me so much joy, and it’s a great honour to work with the plants and trees around me. For most of this time I’ve been making essences in the traditional way, yet I could hear an internal call to work in a different way with the trees. I was open to the idea but it was some time before it became clear just how to do so. In the summer of 2016 I was on a Plant Spirit Medicine training course. We were journeying, and very definite instructions came through about how to make these new essences. I was very clearly asked to call them Tree Spirit Essences. “Okay,” I said, “let’s do it”.

So how do I make the Tree Spirit Essences?A call is felt intuitively from a particular type of tree. Let’s take for example the Juniper.1 Juniper starts calling to me and we begin to connect energetically. I become very aware of the presence of Juniper trees when out walking; I get messages from them; I feel Juniper in my energy field and I start to sense the qualities that Juniper brings and I know that we will make an essence together soon.

Then the Day Arrives So when it’s time to make the Juniper Tree Spirit Essence, as usually happens with essence making, I wake in the morning and immediately know that ‘today is the day’. On this occasion it is a Sunday and my husband and I are planning to go hill walking. We haven’t yet decided where to go so I tell him that the Junipers want me to make an essence. (Howard is wonderfully supportive, and has a great love for trees). On a previous walk we’d visited some Juniper stands on the Dava Moor, an extensive expanse of open moorland which feels remote, despite the estate tracks and a couple of minor roads which cross it. To the north you can see the beautiful Moray coast, and to the south the dramatic Cairngorm Mountains.


Bleak yet stunning, the moor is clothed in a blanket of heather which covers it in a purple haze in late summer. Secretive grouse and hares can occasionally be spotted; juniper stands survive here and there; cowberry, golden saxifrage, and other delightful plants find niches where they can thrive. Interesting gullies, hummocks and peat hags invite closer inspection, and buzzards mew as they spiral overhead.

So that day we head for Dava Moor and decide to take the single track road

that runs alongside Lochindorb Loch. The loch is on our right and as we head past the ruins of Lochindorb Castle, situated on the loch’s only island, we see a large Juniper stand to our left which we hadn’t noticed previously. I know immediately that this is where the essence will be made!

Meeting the JunipersIt’s a dreich day,2 with drizzle and mist blowing across the moor. Lochindorb Castle stands looming over the water, as waves foam onto the pebbly shore driven by the persistent wind. It’s moody and bleak and not at all what I would normally think of as the right conditions for making essences, but I know with certainty that this is the day the essence wants to be made.

I pick my way around the Junipers, communing with their energy. The wind whistles through their branches and the rain falls gently on the misty moor. A brook babbles past, a deer barks, and birds flit by. Pieces of wool are caught on some of the branches from the passing sheep, and the drizzle hangs like gems from the needle-like leaves. The warm, orange-red bark glistens with moisture, and mosses and lichens cling to the branches.

I find a place to sit and be still and spend some time in meditation: present, peaceful and at ease. Then, settled in my heart centre, I call on the over-


lighting spirit of Juniper, inwardly requesting that we may make an essence together for the benefit of those who would partake of her energy. Our energy fields merge and I feel her presence even more deeply. I am touched by a profound gratitude, as I always am, for the sanctity of this meeting. We journey together, and she imparts her wisdom and understanding of the function(s) of the essence we are about to create. Then I hold the prepared bottle of water and alcohol at my heart, and we breathe the energy signature of Juniper into it to create the mother essence.

As I continue to sit there, I listen to the song of the tree. I started to hear the songs of the plants and trees quite some time ago, and was called to incorporate them into the essences to further enhance their potency. So as I hear Juniper’s song – simple and captivating – I join in and together we sing her song into the bottle. It’s a beautiful process, sacred and timeless, and I deeply honour all the trees and plants as they share their energy and songs with me.

I sit a while longer and write my field notes: “…We have all suffered, fled, lost our homes, been cast out and forgotten. Juniper has seen us as we have walked this ancient land, telling of ancient times and ancient peoples. She calls us to look inside ourselves – where do we feel banished, where do we feel forgotten, where do we feel lost? Yet Juniper’s essence calls us to remember that we have never truly been lost nor forgotten. All of humanity is within me, and I am within them. It is time to leave the old paradigm behind; time to forgive and be forgiven; time to claim our true inheritance; Juniper speaks of redemption and returning home to ourselves….”

So from this I understand the gift that Juniper’s Tree Spirit Essence offers. ‘It is for Redemptive Love: its essence brings us back to our true inheritance – to the reality of Love. We have never been lost. There are no stories to cling to. Allow the grace of Redemptive Love to reverberate through your life, and all life.’ 3

We arrive back home and I place the bottle on my little shrine of Buddha statues and various precious objects until I feel it is time to share the new essence with others. Fortunately I have some wonderfully intuitive friends who test them for me and add their insights to the information I receive directly.

As I prepare the essence for its stock and dosage bottles I call in a further blessing with Avalokiteshvara’s six-syllable mantra: ‘om mani padme hum’. Avalokiteshvara is honoured throughout Mahayana Buddhism in different forms, sometimes male, sometimes female, also known as Chenrezig and Guanyin among other names. S/he ‘is the archetypal expression of compassion … the quintessential expression of every Buddha’s love.’ 4


The Heartfulness of HawthornThe Tree Spirit Essence range currently stands at fourteen. Many of them grow here at An-Grianan including an abundance of Hawthorns.5 Some are established as small trees, and we have planted many more since moving here four years ago in order to create thickets where the myriad of birds and insects could find food and shelter.

It’s a warm, sunny day in late May and Hawthorn has been calling me to make an essence together. I spend some time happily wandering around the garden, drinking in the delicious scent of her flowers. Ben, our dog, accompanies me, and curls up at my feet when I come to rest at ‘just the right spot’ for making the essence. Sitting close to one of the trees our connection deepens. I write in my notes: ’A delicious warmth fills my heart centre, flowing across my ribcage and down my arms. Spirit of Hawthorn touches a finger to my heart which instantly fills with golden light as the deep note of her song resonates throughout my chest. I am loved, accepted, and deeply nourished by her energy.’

Tree Spirit Essence of Hawthorn facilitates a deepening connection to our inborn ‘heartfulness’. For my website essence description I write: ‘When we live in a heart-centred way we embrace love and the heart’s innate wisdom as the guiding force of our lives. We are enabled to move from a place of fear-based reactions and into a paradigm which is heart and love-based. Her essence nourishes us in her warm, open-hearted embrace.’ I thank the spirit of Hawthorn, and am truly grateful for her wisdom and our connection.

The Deep Stillness of WalnutTo date all the An-Grianan Tree Spirit Essences have been made in the north of Scotland, with one exception. Visiting family near the village of Kentchurch in Herefordshire, close to the Welsh border, I met an amazing three-hundred-year-old Walnut tree in the Autumn of 2016.6 Majestic and fruitful, she stands watch over the family in their nearby home. She invited me to spend some time with her, so I visited this wonderful old friend several times during that, and subsequent, visits.


Her massive canopy extends to around ninety feet at its widest, and the girth of the trunk is almost twenty feet. As I sit by the tree, all unnecessary thoughts dissolve into a deep, peaceful stillness. As my energy field merges with the tree and the over-lighting spirit of Walnut, I find that: ‘I can feel our roots, hers and mine together, plunging deep and wide into the land below us. They circle around the core of the Earth and back again, connecting with the roots of all other trees around the planet. Her branches, too, spread around the world, connected to all other branches of all other trees. Everything interconnected; everything One. I hear only the Universal Om; all is still.’

Through this essence the spirit of Walnut helps us to deepen our connection to the ‘natural state of stillness and peace intrinsic within our being. Walnut brings an expansion of perspective and calls us ‘home’, reminding us that we are One with all that is.’

The Trees are Helping us to Wake UpWhen the trees started calling me to work with them to create their Spirit Essences, I sensed their call going out to all of us equally. All around the world the trees are calling us to wake up. There is no time to delay. Many people are working in deeply positive ways with the trees – replanting our vanishing native forests; projects encouraging connection to the trees and to nature for health and happiness; raising awareness about the importance of trees to our planet’s well-being; and of course, through making essences.

The purpose of the An-Grianan Tree Spirit Essences is to help us return to our natural state of wholeness. Each of the trees resonates with a particular quality of our essential nature, such as the Redemptive Love in the case of Juniper, or the Stillness of Walnut. As they assist us in repairing our disconnection from our essential nature, we also deepen our connection to Mother Nature herself. The trees are calling us home to the truth of who we really are, to live every moment of our lives in presence and sacredness, and in the recognition of the interconnectedness of all life. There is no separation; All is One.

Susan Susan is a keen gardener and plantswoman, and lives in Moray, northern Scotland, with her husband and their dog. She is a member of the BAFEP and is the producer of An-Grianan Essences. She offers workshops and talks on such topics as Nature Communication, and Making and Working with Flower Essences. She is a member of the INEH (International Network for Energy Healing) and runs a healing practice from her home.

www.susanmccrone.com [email protected]


Facebook: Susan McCrone – Tree Spirit Essences and Nature Communication

References[1] Juniperus communis, our native Juniper. [2] Dreich – Scots. When applied to the weather it generally means dreary, drizzly,

and doesn’t look like it’ll clear anytime soon! [3] Description from my website https://susanmccrone.com/tree-spirit-essences/

tree-spirit-essence-of-juniper[4] http://www.samyeling.org/buddhism-and-meditation/teaching-archive-2/

dharmacharya-ken-holmes/chenrezik-bodhisattva-of-compassion/[5] Crataegus monogyna [6] Juglans regia

�ew ��bers & FriendsAdvanced Practitioners{ John Downing-Gaines, Somerset

{ Natalia Montes Viviani, Yorkshire

{ Anna Clapp, Cumbria

{ Caroline Mason , Somerset

{ Jayne Speyer, Hertfordshire

{ Amanda Willington, Shropshire

{ Carina Remnant, Surrey (returning member)

Practitioners{ Nina Ritchie , Oxfordshire

{ Kelly-Ann Finan, Argentina

Friends{ Jaine Dunning, Bristol

{ Pam Levack-Moir, Aberdeenshire

{ Lynne Allen, Wiltshire

{ Britt Sommerstad, Norway { Gaia Redgrave, West Midlands


International Essence Awareness Week 9-16th September 2018

This year sees our 5th International Essence Awareness Week take place. IEAW is our annual event where we join together to raise as much energy as we can to allow people everywhere to learn about, and be inspired by, the world of flower and vibrational essences. It is open to everyone, whether or not you are a BFVEA Member or Friend, and wherever you live – here in Europe or in another part of the world.

As for last year we have decided to hold the 2018 IEAW in autumn – a time of natural transformation when many of us are refocusing after the summer months and have the energy and time to share in the ways that inspire us. We begin at the New Moon on Sunday 9th September and finish Sunday 16th September, giving us a whole week to organise events both locally and online, share on social media and raise awareness and positive energy. I’ll be launching the week on 9th September with an online meditation and then at 9pm (your time) each evening through the week we invite you to join us for a few minutes in meditation or contemplation, linking in with the over-lighting energy of this week and those taking part all over the world.

Below are some ideas to inspire you to join us during IEAW. You can be as active or ‘silent’ as you wish; what is important is that we take part and activate a larger consciousness of Flower and Vibrational Medicine.

| Could you organise a talk, a presentation or workshop?

| How about writing an article for your local paper or if you are feeling really brave, contacting your local radio?

| If you have a healing practice/mailing list, could you offer discounted sessions or products?

| Could you organise a small display in your local library sharing your favourite essences?

| Autumn is a great time to enjoy nature (and even create essences), so why not take yourself, your family or even a group of interested friends to beautiful places in nature?

| Choose a place near you where there is a stream or well or river and offer essences to the land. Take photos, write a blog, create a short video and share, share and share.


With social media being such an easy place to show our love of essences and inspire others in small and large ways, we have decided to repeat the photo challenge that Heather K Veitch organised so expertly last year. We thought we’d display here some of the beautiful images that some of our members provided in 2017 to inspire you, and here is how the process works if you are new to this:

| Connect with the BFVEA page on Facebook and ensure you visit the page each day starting September 9th for a week. https://www.facebook.com/BFVEA/

| Watch out for a new post giving you a prompt to share a photo on Facebook (on your personal, business page or in a group that you love). This could be your favourite essence of 2018 or your favourite place in nature, for example.

| Create your own post using the prompt and share.

| When many of us do this together – and this was VERY successful last year – we literally cover Facebook with flower essences and nature. And in the process raise energy for all.

Member Natalia Montes Viviani’s sisters running through the flowering desert in northern Chile (this only flowers every 7 to 10 years).


We do hope you will join us for IEAW, whether by using the ideas suggested here or perhaps something else of your own choosing. Whatever you decide to do, please email Dawn White, our webmaster, with dates, times and details of your events. They will be listed in the IEAW Events calendar on the BFVEA website from June onwards. Remember, as well, that all activities give you CPD points.

We all know just how much our modality is needed in the world and that by sharing in ways that bring us joy, we can individually and collectively make a big difference. We look forward to joining with you in September!

You are welcome to contact me or any other BFVEA Committee member about IEAW. Thank you

Sara

[email protected] – Contact Dawn at [email protected]

Member Sally Arthurs’ photo of Holly with a rainbow Linda Perry’s foxglove, the best selling essence in her naturalmagick range

Mem

ber Heather K Veitch’s tribute to the Bach essence Cerato


The Light Within Bonny Casel

“Your body is woven from the light of Heaven.” Rumi

Imagine that you are given a blindfold and asked to run through a mile of densely wooded forest to reach a flag pole on the other end without hitting a tree. If you started running, what do you think your chances are of reaching the flagpole without hindance? But, what if you could manifest a trillion of you, and you all ran through the forest, using different paths, all at the same time … then, the moment that ‘one’ of you reached the flag pole, all of the ‘other you’s that didn’t make it would now simply be the one you that did? This is the magic of photosynthesis and, by extension, the magic of all life on Earth.

Every second that a leaf is exposed to sunlight, thousands of trillions of photons (quantum packages of light) land on it and almost each and every one in the red spectrum is absorbed and processed into stored energy. How this happens bends our concepts of space and time. Tiny little chlorophyll molecules in the leaf act as antennae and when the photon hits the chlorophyll molecule, an electron inside it becomes excited, and uses the extra energy to break through into a bridging area. The goal of the charged electron is the reaction centre of the leaf, where this energy can be stored; however this reaction centre is virtually impossible to reach as the bridging area is a near-impenetrable maze of bridges. The light-charged electron must reach the reaction centre within a nano second, or the energy will be lost. One would imagine that countless trillions of light-charged electrons would fail to reach their goal … but, in one million billionths of a second, nearly every single one does make it.

This happens because light is subject to neither time or space; the energy of light shifts into a state of quantum superposition, meaning that light takes every possible path through the bridging area at the same time, and only when it finds the fastest, most efficient path to the reaction centre does it chose that path, and all other potentials simply disappear. What this means is that light is where it wants to be, when it wants to be, and can just as easily be everywhere as it can be in one place … and it can do all of this simultaneously.


And there’s more …

The most accepted theory of the origin of light is that, 0.00000000001 seconds after the Big Bang, the universe was cool enough for electromagnetic quantum particles, birthed from pure energy, to combine into photons (a quantum of light); energy expressed as frequency emerging as light. The photons then created quarks; frequencies currently accepted as the smallest units of matter and, when the universe was 0.00001 seconds old, quarks combined to create protons and neutrons. By 0.01 seconds after the Big Bang, protons and neutrons were beginning to organise into atoms; the building blocks of the material world. Light creates matter. In 2015 scientists were able to prove this experimentally by ‘creating’ matter from light.1

It is this ‘material world’ that we most identify with. However, the material world is made of atoms that are only 0.0000000000004% actual matter and the remaining 99.9999999999996% is space – space that is filled with energy. It is this energy in space that contains the information that, through electromagnetic frequencies, organises light into the forms that we see. Each level of organisation has new emergent properties. For example, just as protons and electrons come together to make atoms, on an atomic level put two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom together and we have water…a new emergent property. So, if we ask the question ‘what are we made of?’ and then work backwards, we find that we are an emergent property of energy manifesting as organised frequency and light.

The Field of LightThe majority of light on Earth is generated from the Sun and every atom on Earth absorbs and emits this light. But when light lands on a leaf, energy contained in the photon is stored. It is this stored light energy (known as biophotons) that makes all biological life on this planet possible. Wherever you are on the food chain, the original source of energy was the light captured and stored in plants. Plants use the captured energy to convert water and carbon dioxide into molecules needed for growth and, fortunately for us, another vital by-product is oxygen. Remember … oxygen is made of light too!

Although most materials glow in the dark after they have been exposed to

A Kirlian image of a leaf; this m

easures electrical coronal discharges rather than biophoton em

issions.


light, the after-glow emitted by all living cells and organisms is different. German physicist Fritz-Albert Popp was the first scientist to build a photon detector sensitive enough to study biophotons and, after decades of research, Popp and others were able to show that all living cells and organisms emit these biophotons, with characteristics that are intimately

Biophoton image - Schem

atic illustration of experimental setup that found the hum

an body, especially the face, emits visible light in sm

all quantities that vary during the day. B is one of the test subjects. The other images show the

weak emissions of visible light during totally dark conditions. The chart corresponds to the im

ages and shows how the emissions varied during the day. The last im

age (I) is an infrared image of the subject showing heat em

issions.


dependent on their physiological state. Dr. Fritz-Albert Popp says: “We are still on the threshold of fully understanding the complex relationship between light and life, but we can now say, emphatically that the function of our entire metabolism is dependent on light.”

Biophotons taken in by the body dissipate and become distributed over a wide range of frequencies, rather than a single or a few frequencies, and thus are distributed throughout the system as a ‘whole.’ When we speak of ‘energy stored throughout the system,’ we are in the same territory as quantum superposition in photosynthesis; the coherence – the unified order – of light emitted from cells and organisms suggest a ‘light-field.’

Our bodies emit light from this light-field in patterns that fluctuate with the time of day and metabolic activity and studies show that, in healthy people, these fluctuation patterns are coherent and are connected to the biorhythms of the earth. However, when people are chronically ill, light emissions are low and/or incoherent, biorhythms are out of sync, and information is ‘scrambled,’ leading to poor communication between cells. It has also been shown that biophoton emissions and communication between cells are altered by carcinogenic chemicals.

It was once thought (and the thought still lingers in popular culture) that DNA orchestrates the nearly 100,000 biochemical reactions that occur in the cell every second. We now know that it is the biophotons that gather information about the body as a whole and then transfer this information to instruct DNA. The DNA then responds by contracting and extending several billions times per second, and every time it contracts, it releases a biophoton that carries the information needed for molecular reactions and cellular function … at the speed of light. Further, each biochemical reaction can only occur if the molecule that is reacting is excited by a photon. “Once the photon has excited a reaction it returns to the field and is available for more reactions … We are swimming in an ocean of light.” 2 Biophotons are likely in control of every function of the body, and initiate this control on a quantum level; from the microcosm to the macrocosm – a journey no less miraculous than quantum photosynthesis. More light equates to better communication throughout the system, and sufficient water plays a key role too.

So when we eat a salad we are consuming light energy that enters our light-field. When we munch on a cashew, we are consuming light energy that enters our light-field. Each of these foods is made of light, just as we are. So why isn’t eating a doughnut, also made of light, equally good for us?


The Food of LifeWith Dr. Popp’s biophoton detector, one is able to distinguish organic food from inorganic food … every time. We can also distinguish whether fruits and vegetables were picked when they are ripe, or before they are ripe, which seeds will grow when planted, which seeds will produce healthy plants, and which won’t. Free-range eggs can be distinguished from battery-farmed eggs, which have low level ‘incoherent’ light emissions. Homogenisation disrupts the organisation of the cell and emitted light disappears or is reduced to a very low level, and this is also the case when the water content of food is reduced through age, cooking, processing or dehydration. The large amounts of water associated with living organisms offer the flexibility that practically all proteins, DNA, RNA and other macromolecules need in order to work at all, or to work to the high efficiency required in living organisms. Further, when seed is ground, it no longer emits biophotons. Why? Because it is no longer alive.

Biophotons are emitted from living cells and organisms, not from inanimate matter. For example, meat loses its biophotons rapidly after the death of the animal, as do eggs when they are removed from their mother’s warmth. On the other hand, “transmitting the information of nutrients in the form of light into your biophoton field can affect your body in the same way as eating the nutrient!” 3 Dr. Popp maintains that: “the primary benefit of nutritious food is not for chemical supply of energy, but rather for food to transport oscillations in the form of biophotons which decrease the entropy of the organism.” The same principles apply to organised biological water: water that has been exposed to, or is part of, a living cell or organism.

A doughnut is made from highly processed ingredients that have been ground to a powder and contains little of the moisture from the original plant. It is then baked at high temperatures, thoroughly killing any ‘life’ that had remained in the ingredients. Eating a doughnut will provide very little of the light energy that was in the original plant, and the little light it does provide is incoherent. This is a far cry from the highly coherent, well hydrated, biophoton rich energy supplied when we eat an apple. Healthy foods really are living foods.

Coherence – the underlying order – is a concept that is key to understanding how light can be a source of health, vitality and longevity on the one hand, or a cause of illness and disease on the other. If what we take into our bodies is coherent and resonant with healthy functioning, more energy can be stored, intra and extracellular communication will be efficient, and the effect on our light-field will support ‘whole’ mind-body wellness. If what we take into our bodies is


incoherent and/or light-deficient, the effect will be the opposite. Whatever we take into our body affects our light-field, and thus the function of the whole.

So consider the three ‘ingredients’ of flower essences. Just as water is an emergent property of hydrogen and oxygen, a flower essence is an emergent property of the fundamentals of light energy (from the sun or from a flame) and water, with the information of the biophoton light-field of the flower. We make essences from the freshest flowers and the purest water, on the sunniest day, to ensure that the information of the flower is fully captured. The essence then carries this information into the light-field of the individual. If the information is resonant with the needs of the individual, then a mind-body shift is experienced.

Plants, like us, are beings of light, but it is plants that capture this light and turn it into a form that is accessible to us. Plant food, herbs, essential oils and flower essences are all sources of biophotons, each with their own, unique, mind-body emergent properties based on the information from the plant that is contained in their light-field. Flower essences have a stronger influence on the mind, with a cascading effect on physical health, due to resonance, whereas plant food has a stronger influence on the physical body, with a cascading effect on mental health, for the same reason. The effect of flower essences is, in itself, a new emergent property that is unique to the combination of the flower essence and the individual who takes it.

BonnyDirector of the School of Natural Medicine and a BFVEA-accredited course tutor. www.herenowhealing.com

I hope this has been a helpful and interesting introduction to the relationship between light and life. If you are interested in learning more, The International Institute of Biophysics (IIB), in Neuss, Germany, is at the forefront of biophoton research and the definitive book on the subject is Integrative Biophysics: Biophotonics by Fritz-Albert Popp and Lev Beloussov. This is a comprehensive and expensive book, but many excerpts and resources are available on the web about this fascinating field of study that is shedding ‘light’ on the processes that underpin vibrational medicine.

References[1] Nature volume 534 [2] The Real Bioinformatics Revolution [3] Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt [4] Popp, F. et al (2003) Integrative Biophysics: Biophotonics Springer


• Meet the MemberCaroline Thomas

I would like to introduce myself to this amazing group of like-minded people and tell you my story. I have been working with flower essences and animals for over fifteen years. My story begins just after my 32nd birthday, when I received a distressed call from my brother to say that our younger brother had taken his own life. I remember that call as vividly as if it were yesterday and will never forget the feelings of despair and deep loss that followed. I fell to my knees and just sobbed and sobbed. It was a very dark time - I felt like an empty container, void of any feelings or care.

As a wife and mother of two young boys, the reality of my situation meant that I had to find a way to keep going. Fortunately, I came across Rescue Remedy around this time, which gave me the courage to function as best I could. It allowed me to grieve on my own terms and yet it also helped me to heal a heart that was shattered and broken. Reflecting while writing this article, I find myself touching those dark feelings again and it makes me very sad to have lost someone so young who suffered with severe mental health issues. If I knew then what I know now I really feel that I could have helped him. I could possibly have changed the path of history and instead of writing a story with such a sad beginning I would be writing one with my brother at my side.

They say that where there is darkness there must be light and that is exactly what happened to me. My experience of taking Rescue Remedy set me on a path of learning. The first thing I wanted to learn was: ‘Just what is a flower essence?’ I was working as a Pharmacy Technician at Boots the Chemist, my husband was a Pharmacist and yet I wanted to learn about flower essences, something completely different to my conventional understanding of medicine. I telephoned Nelsons, eager to learn more about their product, and they gave me the number of the Bach Flower Centre and it is here that my journey truly begins. I was given the telephone number of Tessa Jordan, who is a Bach flower teacher and was told that there would be a course starting shortly in London. This was to be a real adventure for me, going to London on my own - something that I would never have done before due to a lack of confidence, independence and self-belief.


Arriving at Nelson’s headquarters I was in awe of the beautiful buildings and the vibrant energy of London and I immediately fell in love with the City. I had struggled with my own mental health issues after my brother died and had considered suicide briefly, yet now it was a case of ‘Bach flowers to the rescue’. I attended the three levels over the following two years and qualified as a Bach flower Practitioner. During those two years, however, my confidence really grew, and I realised that what I really wanted to do was to help animals, as I had loved animals all through my life. I embarked on another course at the Natural Animal Centre in Wales, where I trained to be a Bach flower Practitioner for Animals. The whole period was a time of many firsts: driving round the country on motorways, navigating around the underground system and going back to being a student.

Putting it into PracticeMy theory in life is that a certificate is just a piece of paper and that the real education happens by learning your trade inside out. The only way I could do this was to find a place that was willing to use Bach flower essences to help their animals. I telephoned the local cat/dog sanctuary and the RSPCA and was given the telephone number of Remus Horse Sanctuary, arguably the most forward-thinking sanctuary in the UK. They embrace holistic practices and use them alongside conventional vet medicine. They have won many awards for their ‘thinking outside the box’ strategies. I volunteered there for ten years and gradually I started to be recognised for the work that I did with flower essences. My inbox started to fill up with emails from people desperately seeking help as their animals were suffering from severe complex behavioural issues. I made a comparison at that time to human suffering as the animals seemed to be mirroring the human world. Mental health issues were growing year on year and so this gave me a deeper understanding as to how I could help these animals. I experimented with Alaskan, Australian Bush and Crystal essences and, just like an alchemist, I would create a synergy of combinations across all ranges, dependent on the problem of the animal. I called those 10 years my apprenticeship and it was the animals who were my teachers. I found that it was important to listen to them, let go of my ego and be lead by whatever they taught me.

A New VentureIt was at this time that I saw certain courses being advertised, such as: Learn to be a Flower Essence Practitioner, held over a weekend. As many of you know, this is impossible; it takes years to become truly competent at


understanding flower essences and how they work. You may not be surprised that I became incensed by these courses, so I decided to embark on writing my own Bach Flower for Animals Practitioner Course and Crystal Healing for Animals Practitioner Course. I spent over a year writing the manuals and the course content, which were then submitted to Balens Insurance Company, where I obtained full insurance cover for them. I set up the ‘Hoof and Paw Academy’ and my students learn on-line and face to face as part of the requirements for the certificate.

The course is written to a very high standard so that anyone who qualifies to Practitioner Level has a deep understanding of Bach flowers, animals and the vet laws. I am currently writing the Bailey, Scintilla and Verbeia Flower Essence Practitioner course for animals, and I hope that the face-to-face section can be held in Ilkely where the amazing Arthur Bailey created his beautiful essences.

My day job consists of being a Dispensary Manager at a very busy surgery, which I love, as I get to help so many people. I work with both GP’s and nurses and I especially work very closely with the District Nurses during periods of palliative care. However, my biggest desire is still to further the help we can give animals with mental health issues, as I understand better than most how debilitating this illness can be. I still get lots of clients contacting me but I now pass them on to my qualified students as my passion now is to educate. I really want essence therapy to be recognised by the veterinarian world and Writtle University College here in Essex kindly asked me to speak to their vet students last year about flower essences.

I also write articles for the Healthful Dog Magazine, alongside world famous holistic vets such as Nick Thomson, Ian Billinghurst and Peter Dobias. For me it is all about raising the credibility of flower essences and getting them recognised. Following the RCVS announcement last November to stop vets from using holistic therapies as a first line treatment I feel now more than ever that it is just so important to stand up to be heard and be the voice of the animals.


In future editions of this beautiful magazine I will share more of how I fell in love with Arthur Bailey’s work, how I wrote a book about his essences and how they helped animals. It took me five years to write and was a labour of love in every sense. I got to know Chris Bailey and Rebecca Hunter very well through the writing of my book, which was a beautiful outcome from the whole experience. I will also write about the Scintilla range of essences that I created specifically for animals (they are available through the Yorkshire Essences Company). I recently trialled the Scintilla range on 100 domesticated animals and published a paper on this in October 2017 in the Healthful Dog Magazine.

My scientific background has driven my passion to research in depth how essences work with

animals. It has taken fifteen years, from initially understanding flower essences to then seeing how animals interact with them and also choose them. The trial showed that this was very different to what we initially understood. There is still much work to be achieved and I look forward to speaking at Writtle College University this year, where I can influence the minds of the budding young vets.

CarolineCaroline Thomas is a member of the BFVEA and a Registered Pharmacy Technician GpHc 5001035. She lives in Essex and can be contacted at via phone mobile on 07904280264 or via email at [email protected]

Websiteswww.emotionalhealing4animals.co.uk www.yorkshirefloweressences.com


David Beale

Janet Rose and Mary Wallwork

When the BFVEA formed,the group wondered who to appoint as President. Two names were put forward – Arthur Bailey and David Beale. Since no-one wanted to choose between them both were selected and they were always a much-valued presence at our Gatherings. This year we celebrated their lives as part of our birthday event. For those who know little about David, here is a brief summary of his essence journey.

David was born in Hackney on 26th March 1923 and had one older sibling, Gladys. When he was young the family left London to live in Salisbury, later moving on to live with his grandfather on the family farm at Ropley, near Romsey. Here chickens were raised and their eggs and other produce taken weekly to Portsmouth market. Shire horses worked the land and David developed a life-long love of these beautiful, loyal, hard working creatures. The family moved back to Salisbury so that the children could attend secondary school. Learning was not easy for David. Well into adult life it was realised he was dyslexic – a known condition in the nineteenth century but only recognised in the 1980’s as a basic disability, rather than a result of inadequate education or low intelligence. However, he did find help and encouragement from a sympathetic woodwork teacher and had success in his spare time running the family allotment. Other plot holders gave him help and he was delighted. at only 11 years old, to win a prize for the best allotment on the site.

David left school at fourteen years of age. Like his mother, he was a Methodist and the family regularly attended their local church. When he


was fifteen he read a letter from a Bert Crawshaw in the local paper. It was about the Bible and David thought that some of what he said was incorrect and contacted him to say so. He was invited to tea and the two got on so well that he returned every week to discuss religion and other topics. David thought highly of Bert, who had once owned his own solicitors’ business. Unfortunately some items had gone missing from the safe and, though the culprit was jailed, Bert felt honour bound to repay all monies and gave up law. When David met him he was a postman with a wife called Conky. However, one day, when at Bert's home, the culprit actually turned up to apologise to his former employer.

David always referred to Bert as 'my guardian'. This man was pivotal in encouraging David to further his education and he began a series of correspondence courses in subjects that interested him. The two remained friends to the very end and David actually held Conky as she died - a typical demonstration of the deep loyalty he always showed to those he loved.

At sixteen, the Second World War began but, like Edward Bach, David was not allowed to join up because of health problems. Instead he served his country on the farm. It was hard and heavy work which included driving an unheated tractor. One winter it was so cold he got frostbite in his toes. After the war David began working as a seed merchant for a company in Salisbury. He did well because his customers found him honest and trustworthy and, whichever farm he turned up at, he was always made welcome. In his spare time he enjoyed amateur dramatics and, in his thirties, met his wife, Elizabeth, at the Poetry Society in Salisbury. Elizabeth was a talented botanist and gardener. They married and had two children – Juliet and Phillip.

Despite the responsibilities of family life, David continued his education. At various times he studied drama, English Literature, attained a Grade 8 in elocution and qualified as a teacher at St. Luke’s College Exeter. However, it was an incident in Birmingham New Street that led him to essences. Here, whilst attending a Social Services course on working with youth groups, he was pushed off a bus and banged his head very badly. The injury did not get better, even after three weeks in bed. and, very concerned, his sister Gladys suggested he go and see someone she knew in Sotwell. It was Nora Weeks. Meeting Nora was another of those pivotal moments in David's life. He had treatment for three months and the two became friends and began corresponding with each other on the qualities of the essences and their plant sources.


His First EssenceDiscovering where some of the latter grew locally became something of a hobby that he and his wife could share. Then, one day, Nora asked David if he would like to learn how to make essences. They arranged to meet outside the Black Smock Inn in Stathe, Somerset. David always smiled when he recalled her pedalling towards him, straight-backed on her old 'sit-up-and-beg' bicycle loaded with essence-making equipment, for she was in her mid-eighties at that time. Nora led him down into the ‘reens’, the drainage channels that enable the ‘Levels’ to be used for agriculture. Here water violet was growing in abundance and he made his first Mother Essence using the sun method. This was the start of a lifelong interest and the beginning of what he felt was his 'real work' on Earth.

Nora and David made other Mother Essences together and he recalled how they would sit with her little burner under a tree when the boiling method was required. As Nora became more frail she began asking David to make Mother Essences for her. The first was Scleranthus. After her passing in 1988, Nickie Murray continued the practice and, all in all, David prepared twenty-one different Mother Essences for the Bach Centre. He also began making his own collection and his Bach series can still be obtained from Milagra Essences.1

Essences were part of a wider interest in energetic therapies for David. A short time before meeting Nora Weeks, he had been invited up to Nairn, Scotland, to see how Alec McInnes worked. He spent three weeks with this remarkable character, dipping flower, fungi, seaweed and other botanical substances in a clear glass bowl of mountain water – helping the creation of ‘Exaltation of Flowers’ which Alec used when growing plants in greenhouses and on the farm. David held that his Jersey herd was unsurpassed in beauty, health and productivity because of the mixture and that the experience led him to understand what organic plant structure really meant and laid the foundations for making essences.

Other people were also influential. The vet who attended the animals at his Stour Row farm used dowsing to select treatments and taught David the technique. Like Arthur Bailey, he became an expert on the topic. His involvement with homeopathy began with Audrey Usher, an old school friend of his sister Gladys. She was an interesting and formidable woman. Having worked at nursing and midwifery in New Zealand, she returned to the UK to care for her parents and did a course in homoeopathy. She and


David supported and collaborated with each other in this work over many years. Another friend of Gladys, called Lilian Young, introduced David to radionics. Lilian was another extraordinary woman; at one point she had been a prison officer in Australia before becoming a radionics practitioner. Closer to home, at Combe St Nicholas, David found Margery Hervey who gave him lessons in radionics. When she died David inherited all her equipment.

In 1999 Elizabeth died leaving David totally bereft. However, in June 2000, he met Mary Wallwork at a Seichem course.2 They became great friends and he spent the rest of his life working with her using healing, radionics, homoeopathy and essences. When David died in 2013 it was Mary who was by his side. David being David, however, he had one last surprise for his friends. As the mourners filed into the village church for his funeral service, most expected the usual Church of England proceedings. It therefore came as quite a shock to find that they were attending an Antiochan Orthodox funeral service, complete with an open casket and 'The Last Kiss' ceremony, where mourners file around the deceased and, as the name suggests, deliver them a parting kiss. David had converted when he was eighty years old. The consternation of many of the mourners was palpable, but it was a fitting and beautiful service for a very talented and unusual man. David was buried with his wife on a piece of their own land not far from his final home in Fernham. His influence on, and contribution to, the essence world remains a key part of BFVEA history.

Janet and MaryWith assistance from Jan Stewart

Mary Wallwork was David's long-time friend and worked alongside him with essences, radionics, homeopathy and healing. They went out together making essences in exactly the way shown to him by Nora Weeks all those years ago, and Mary is continuing his work.

Janet Rose has been a practitioner and maker for over fifteen years. She met David through Mary when she was training in essences and he kindly helped her out by giving her one of his wonderful Bach sets. She will forever be grateful for his advice, help, generosity, encouragement and for helping her on her path.

References[1] www.milagra.org [2] A healing modality in which Reiki makes up one ‘ray’

29 & 30 Sept ‘18Regent’s University

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