About Marie
Community Herbalist (10+ years of practice)
Wild Rose College Manager
Maker of flower essences
Herbal Medicine Maker
Advocate of folk herbalism ways
An exclusive offering for the Wild Rose Herbal Village
A community for herbal learning
Thanks to the whole Wild Rose College team for creating and nurturing this space, thanks to Becky for being our village leader
+ thanks to our student moderators Ramona, Lori, Ruth and Linda
Special announcement: join us soon off of FB for a unique herbal learning experience with Wild Rose College
About Wild Rose College
A trusted destination for herbal learning
We offer in-depth courses along with three full diploma programs: Practical Herbalist, Master Herbalist, and Clinical Herbalist, which together consist of over 2,500 hours of herbal learning
We run seasonal courses, too: our spring herb walk in May and our medicinal mushroom course in the fall.
Have you checked out our Urban Medicine Garden Tour yet? Available for free for a limited time only
Land AcknowledgementI acknowledge that I am a settler on these lands, an uninvited guest on the unceded territory of First Nations
From my place of birth in Montréal, Québec, I acknowledge the traditional territory of Tiohtià:ke and the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation
In the place where I live, work and play now, I acknowledge the traditional territory of the Quw’utsun’ and the Cowichan Tribes
Indigenous stewardship has made and continues to make my path as a herbalist possible, now and for generations to come
Now… Flower essences!What will we learn in this course?
Part 1: What are flower essences, my personal essence story, history of essences, how and why they work, and more
Part 2: Common garden flowers & their flower essence uses + cultivating the inner garden, how do we relate to certain emotions and why
Part 3: Wild flowers & their flower essence uses + ethics of foraging and wild tending + policies of ecology
Part 4: Step-by-step guide on crafting your own, from harvesting to extraction to dilution, storage, and use + special poisonous wild ones
Part 4: July 30, 2020● Quick recap of Part 1, 2 & 3
● Make your own: step by step instructions
● Harvest, extraction, storage, dilution, and use
● + bonus section on poisonous plant allies for energetic & psychoemotional practice
Part 1 RecapFlower essences are an ancient folk remedy that meets our modern needs, both for personal use and within the context of clinical practice
Used to help ground ourselves in periods of upheaval (divorce, bereavement, job loss, transitions, psycho-emotional stress)
Also beneficial to help connect with our plant allies in a new way, get to meet a different side of them
Flower essence remedies are an ecological, low-waste remedy that is sustainable and highly scalable (especially when working with rare plants)
Working with flower essences offers the opportunity to work with toxic plants in a spiritual way (like with datura and poison hemlock)
Advantages include: non-habit forming and non addictive, safe during pregnancy and with medications, bypass digestion
Part 2 RecapCommon garden flower monographs (calendula, borage, California poppy)
Decolonizing plant names & unpacking the history behind the naming of plants, using the example of California poppy… Here’s a challenge for you: dig into the name of 1 plant of your choice, and share what you find with us!
Tending the inner garden: emotional monoculture vs emotional polyculture, and the responsibility we have as flower essence practitioners to look at our own built in patterns and unconscious desires to “fix” or “suppress” difficult emotions in ourselves and others
Resources from the Flower Essence Society on clinical studies for flower essences & depression
Part 3 RecapWorking with wild plants: ecological notion of invasive vs native - what does it mean and what language do we use to describe ecosystems
Wild flowers monographs: blackberry, yarrow, St John’s wort
Wild plants, wild places, and habitat destruction
Connecting with the wild in order to help protect it
Wisdom of wild plants: the way plants show up where they are needed - like dandelions near a mental health facility (Megan Waddy, Clinical Herbalist) and ghost pipe in 2020
1. What tools do you need?
Glass amber bottles (at least 7 but preferably more!)
Glass bottles, cups & containers
Brandy for preservation (or other similar alcohol)
Distilled water
2. Harvesting your plant or flower
Glass bowl (smaller is better)
Use something to harvest with: pieces of quartz, seashells, rocks, parts of plant used (like leaves) or other flowers), wooden chopsticks, etc
Harvest a flower or two (or just enough to fill the surface of the bowl)
Leave your essence to extract slowly, in full sun, next to its mama. Cover with cloth to keep dust & insects out
3. Making a mother essence
Let plant extract in water for 2-3 hours
Extraction can be done in full sun (or under the full moon)
Strain out plant particles and store mother essence in a glass jar
Give back extracted plant particles to the mother plant (rather than taking them elsewhere to dispose of)
4. How to preserve the mother essence
Add ½ volume of brandy (or other alcohol) for preservation
Store jar and label it well: plant used, plant part, location, date, and preservative used
Label it as a mother essence (undiluted)
Store until ready for next step: dilution
5. Diluting a mother essence into Dilution 1
In an empty amber glass bottle, add 5 drops of mother essence
Fill ⅘ of the bottle with distilled water
Add ⅕ with brandy
Label: plant name, dilution 1
6. Dynamise & rest
Dilution 1 is almost complete:
Next step is to dynamise or let it rest
Hit in the palm of your hand 100 times
Or let rest under a pyramid (or other quiet, high vibe spot) for 24 hours
The resting period can also be shortened to 15 minutes per rest if needed
7. Dilution 1 to Dilution 2
Repeat the same process for dilution 2
5 drops of dilution 1 into a new glass bottle
Fill ⅘ with distilled water
Add ⅕ of brandy for preservation
Dynamise & rest
Label: plant name, dilution 2
8. Dilution 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7
Repeat the same process all the way onto dilution 7
Make sure you label your dilutions accordingly as you go along
Dilution 7 is the one my teachers recommend
All physical traces of plant matter have effectively disappeared from the essence by dilution 7
Dilution 7 is the one you would use as a practitioner
Working with Poisonous Plant AlliesWhy work with poisonous plants?
Toxic, dangerous, and deadly plants often have special medicine for us
We live in a time and place that is TERRIFIED of endings: breakups, job loss and termination, illness, big life transitions when a certain loss occurs, and finally, death
But everything in life exists in a continuum of birth and death, beginnings and endings, and a continuous flow
Poisonous plant allies can often help us tune into the cycle of life without fear
Working with Poison OakIndication: fear of closeness, contact, intimacy
The wild plant causes rashes when brushed against
In the same way, a person would “hit back” when you get too close - reject you before you have a chance to reject them
Working with Poison HemlockIndication: Newness, change, resisting change, fear of what’s coming
Phobias, terror, paralysis
“Convert the energy of fear into excitement”
I used this when I was learning to drive a car
Working with DaturaIndication: Heal deep trauma, release toxic patterns, rewire your thoughts patterns and emotional patterns
Ally for the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ life moments
Learn to allow some deaths to unfold (endings, changes, shifts)
Extracted under full moon