Why flower essences

An essay for those who wish to go deeper

We humans love flowers. I think part of us recognizes that these ephemeral blossoms do more than offer seasonal delights — they transform our consciousness.

In Taoist alchemy — the lineage that shapes much of how I work — flowers are said to hold the gift of consciousness transformation at the most spiritual level of our being.

And flower essences are such a gentle, accessible, and effective way to receive these gifts.

I know it shouldn’t come as a surprise anymore, but somehow it still blows my mind that sacred water can pass on a gift from nature that shifts our entire way of being in the world…

How? Flower essences work at the level of frequency. There is no aroma in a flower essence (and I still love them, even though I’m just a wee bit obsessed with scent, hehe). What gets transferred is the vibrational signature of the flower. We’re not ingesting a plant so much as a liquid record of what the plant is.

This isn’t transformation that comes from excavating old traumas and poking at our deepest wounds.

Working with flower essences doesn’t require you to revisit anything painful.

Halle-f-ing-lujah.

Flower essences offer soul-level transformation inspired by beauty. They help us remember the beauty of who we are at a soul level.

Rather than endless processing, we engage in tuning —we attune our frequency to greater harmony with our soul’s true nature. And your true nature is beautiful.

The profound impact these gentle remedies have on us never ceases to amaze me. In the past few months, I've been flooded with reviews saying how much my flower essences have helped people. Here are just a few:

On Snakeskin Fritillary: I haven’t tried all the essences from this order yet but this one was incredible, it surpassed any expectations I ever had and managed to surprise me, an extremely experienced flower essence user, in it’s potency for activating transformative energy in my body.

On Many-Flowered Stickseed: This essence helped me declutter. It was easier to let go of things I no longer needed, including redefining some family relationships. Better boundaries.

On Salmonberry Blossom: A big yes to Salmonberry! Oh I love working with this essence. I was inspired to be more creative and felt uplifted. Even my loved ones noticed a positive effect after taking it.

On Nettle: This bottle of essence of nettle arrived just in time for. I was just going through a health condition that caused a strong histamine reaction and this beautiful plant has made the itching bearable. I had never heard of this before but the thought just popped into my mind and it was as if my body knew exactly what was needed and it arrived on the exact day it was needed. I could not be more grateful for this beautiful miraculous product.

I’ll be honest…I think the reason my flower essences are so damn effective is more than the form they take.

Yes, all flower essences are lovely. But the way a flower essence is made really, truly matters.

The most important element? Your relationship with the natural world.

If we approach our essence making with an extractive mindset, if we’re unable to truly discern permission and connection, if we haven’t developed a reciprocal relationship with the natural world…

Then our medicine just won’t have the potent, high frequency gifts that are possible.

But when we learn to deeply listen to the land, receive the authentic invitations of the flowers, and shift our own energetic field into attunement with the earth and our creations….

Then we become true botanical alchemists. ;)

My way of doing this work has come from not just learning about flower essences, but from spending decades in deep communion with the natural world. It’s very personal and authentic, and it’s what I’m sharing in this flower essence workshop.

A Wild Case in Point: Wallflower

This is a wallflower. It might look unassuming, but its fragrance is divine.

I love wallflowers. They seem to be one of the few wildflowers that thrives in our high desert climate, and this year they filled my garden with stunningly bright orange blooms.

I’ve been creating an enfleurage of their aroma — it already smells divine, though it will be a few seasons of blooms before it’s ready to use.

Enfleurage is the slow, methodical, luxurious process of placing aromatic blooms on neutral scented fat — the fat absorbs the fragrance molecules and becomes a decadent pomade.

experimenting with half wallflower & half lilac enfleurage

But I have a confession: For years, I didn’t realize that a wallflower is a real flower! I thought it was just an expression — a word for a shy person who hides and hangs out along the wall at parties.

Turns out this expression came from the actual flower — it’s not showy like a rose or iris and is easily passed by. But if you stop to enjoy it’s gifts, you are blown away by the sweetness and beauty within its fragrance.

The other day, as I was organizing my flower essence inventory in preparation for new releases, I pulled all my essences out and placed them randomly upon my desk.

My plan was to re-bottle a few as needed, re-alphabatize in a way that made more sense, and make sure all the essences still felt potent and high vibe.

At the end of my session, I began picking up now empty jars and bottles to clean and put away.

And when I picked up one of the bottles, guess what I found? My essence for wallflower.

Yup, wallflower remained hidden and assuming.

Wallflower went unnoticed the very end.

It blows my mind that this wallflower essence literally lived up to its name, demonstrating the exact gifts and wisdom it holds — the way it can help us navigate being a wallflower in this wild world ;)

If you’ve been feeling too tired of the spotlight, wish you could chill out and observe, or admire those who quietly watch the party rather than holding court…

Or, if you’ve been shying away from being seen, struggling to put yourself out there, and feeling like no matter how hard you try people just don’t see you...

Wallflower can help you find balance.

This is the magic of flower essences. They work with polarity.

Being the center of attention or avoiding being seen are two extremes of the same pole. Flower essences don’t address just one end, they bring us into alignment with inner harmony. However our true nature wants to express itself along that scale, the flower essences will help us get there.

In an upcoming flower essence course at the end of this month, we’ll be diving deep into the soul healing nature of these essences — how they work with duality and polarity, harmonize imbalance, and do so in the most gentle and accessible ways.

You’ll learn to select essences, partner with them for healing, assess how they’re working…AND you’ll learn how to make your own flower essences, so you can have more agency over your path forward.

We are here to plant seeds of new consciousness.

This work is bigger than personal healing.

Our world is insane right now. I like calling these metamorphic times because it’s hopeful sounding…but we all know a caterpillar turns to goo before growing wings. And that kind of feels like where we’re at right now.

There’s only so much we can do about all this on the surface. But underneath — we have infinite power to work with the foundational frequencies of what’s being created right now.

And flower essences are essential allies for this practice.

Flower essences help us shift into greater resonance with who we really are — and we are all meant to be expressions of love and peace on this earth. Cheesy, I know, but also true!

As each one of us shifts into a vibration that brings more beauty to Earth, there is a real ripple effect as our soul-level coherence radiates outward. A human being whose frequency is clear, whose heart is in real relationship with the living world, is a beacon of healing for our planet.

Partnering with the Frequency of Beauty is no small thing.

The world needs humans doing the wild work of remembering themselves back into resonance with the Earth.

And this is what we’re doing on June 28. ;)

For years, people have been asking me to teach a workshop on how to actually make flower essences.

It’s true: you can find a good amount of info on making essences online. But my process is a little different…and deeply animist….and really effective. And I’ve gotten a really strong message that this summer is the perfect time to share it with you.

The Living Medicine is a 4.5-hour live and online immersion into plant communication, frequency healing, and flower essences.

My practice is rooted in the Dr. Bach and Perelandra traditions, and it’s evolved over the past decades into something that reflects the deeply animist, spiritual, and land-based way I walk through the world.

Here’s a complete look at our day:

We’ll meet at 9am PT on Sunday. (You’ll get access to a course portal and zoom link when you register.) This is the day before the full moon, which is when our blooms will be most potent.

You’ll find a supply list and how to prepare in your course portal, too.

Throughout the day, we’ll move between computer time and nature time. I know it seems weird to learn flower essences online, but the intentional way I’ve designed this will actually offer a model for living in relationship with nature and technology, as we all must do these days.

There will be plenty of breaks, and we’ll close at 1:30pm.

Coming live is always best, but there will be a replay for those who just can’t get away for a Sunday.

Throughout the day, you will develop functional literacy in plant morphology. Morphology is the practice of reading plants — shape, structure, growth habit, how they move through light and season — as a language. It’s intuitive and archetypal rather than strictly scientific, and once it’s in you, you can sit with any plant and start receiving information.

​You’ll also learn how to attune to the land you’re on and enter into authentic dialogue with the plants around you. This is a lifetime practice, and we’ll start it in a way that gives you clear footing for continuing on your own — not as something “special” you go do, but as a way of walking through the world.

You’ll leave with a homemade flower essence made in real partnership with a plant in your own ecosystem — and the ability to keep making more essences as the plants call you.

You’ll also receive a comprehensive guidebook to support your ongoing practice: daily dosing protocols, creative and ritual uses, how to know if dosage needs to shift, how to combine essences intentionally, and more.

The entire value of this workshop is easily $500+. I’m offering it for only $197 — and only $144 with earlybird pricing before June 15. Because the world needs you to share your gifts, and these practices will help you do just that.