Below is a recent letter from one of our Formal Home Study Course students, Motoko, in Japan, which I’ve left unedited. My response follows. This is our second set of letters on the subject of Raspberry Essence, with a profile of Strawberry and a Grape testimonial. You’ll see they focus on a particular aspect of Raspberry as well as a particular approach to the essences in general.

Motoko’s Letter

Dear Lila,

I am doing very well since I last saw you.

I understand that Raspberry would bring forth a lot of positive aspects from within not only work as a catalyst to heal and overcome the very difficult lessons and give broader understanding.

Actually I had the particular case that Strawberry did the same way; not only solve the current situation, it worked to the root problem concerning the relationship with parents and also helped the healing process of the trauma in her childhood. In addition, she has learned to respect herself and to be developing healthy relationship with people. Strawberry did it all.

Once again, thank you for your kind advice.

Respectfully,
Motoko

P.S. By the way, I gave Grape to my cat. In a few days, she has changed to be more open and friendly to me, so that we could develop “trust”. I always appreciate her Grape energy as it gave me tremendous amount of healing.

My Response

Dear Motoko,

Again, I am happy to hear from you. It’s wonderful that you have continued working with Spirit-in-Nature Essences, and I’m sure you are able to help many people and pets—including your wonderful cat! Thank you for sharing this story. May I use it?

Yes, you are correct about Raspberry Essence. Also, please remember the essences work in a much broader way than simply dispelling our negative qualities—even broader than the more positive understanding of helping us to learn difficult lessons. We are the kindness of Raspberry. We are the compassion of this flower essence. This means we have much cause to celebrate, that we already have, and in fact are, the qualities we want to develop. It’s a question of realizing this, not of learning anything—just remembering who we truly are.

For example, the woman who took Strawberry (and what a good choice!) simply realized that her childhood—as awful as it must have been—was not really a part of her. It was a passing experience. We are not our experiences, yet what we become through them is very important.

This is a yogic explanation of the essences. In fact, yoga means union, and so the essences work to unite us with the truth of who we are. It is wonderful to hear from you. Please give my love to your sweet cat.

With kind regards,
Lila

Here’s a letter that recently arrived at our office concerning a new mother, who happens to be a dog, and a particular difficulty she encountered.

Sandra’s Letter

Hi- My dog just had puppies four days ago and she is not producing enough milk. The vet has tried everything they know to do. Can you recommend one or more essences that could help her with this?

Thank You-
Sandra C.

My Response

Dear Sandra,

I hope by now your dog is doing better and all the puppies are nursing contentedly. As far as flower essence recommendations, Pear for peacefulness and emergency support is good for this situation.

There could also be other essences, but we have found the single essence approach to be superior and, according to our research, it yields quicker results. Also, you probably know that flower essences do not directly treat physical symptoms; rather, they work more on energetic levels.

You have probably looked into herbal options that can help with milk production and are aware that a nursing dog’s nutritional requirements are quite high. It sounds like you have a good vet who has examined her and understands the situation.

You didn’t mention if this is your dog’s first litter; how the birth went; if she is settled into an undisturbed location; if you live in a quiet neighborhood; whether there are other dogs or children in the house, etc. All these elements may affect her situation and her current emotional state.

Pear Essence can help her to relax into her new role so that her instincts can take over and allow her to be a good mother, led by her natural wisdom. For dosage directions, you can see our website, free literature, or Flower
Essences for Animals (softcover).

The good news is that they will be getting the flower essence through her milk, so they too may tend to be more calm – though not in any way sedated, since these formulas are purely herbal.

I hope this helps. Please let me know how things go for your dog, her puppies, and you.

Kind regards to you all,
Lila Devi

The most commonly asked question about flower essences seems to be—how do I know which essences to take? The second question is, how many can I take at one time? In today’s post, we’ll be answering the second question.

This flower essence line suggests-and strongly, based on people’s responses to them-to take only one essence at a time, but that’s another subject altogether.

The most common comment is—gee, I’d like to take all 20 of them at once. And understandably so. With a little introspection, we can see how the two concepts fit together—taking a single essence at a time, or taking combinations, meaning up to all 20.

Essences are vibrational in nature. They do not work on us biochemically. In other words, they do not have to travel through the bloodstream or the digestive tract in order to start working. Being vibrational means they are so much bigger than what a few words can suggest in how they stimulate our pre-existing positive qualities. Pear for peacefulness, Raspberry for kindness, Fig for self-acceptance and flexibility: who wouldn’t want these qualities, and all at one time!

If we limit one essence to one quality, however, then of course the tendency to take combination formulas makes sense. But if we give each essence the chance to express itself as a complete catalyst for awakening the beautiful qualities we already have within us, their applications are far-reaching indeed. It all depends on how you choose to define the essences and, from there, how to work with them. You can take 20 essences in combination for developing 20 qualities, or one essence, singly, to activate a gadzillion qualities.

One of my favorite ways of explaining what flower essences are is to call them “bottled affirmations”—or better yet, the new phrase on the back of our Affirmation Deck—“verbal essences.” Isn’t it better to focus our complete concentration on one affirmation, and thus one essence, at a time? I know that’s about all I can do. And if I even attempted to take a different essence for every quality I’m trying to develop at one time, I couldn’t even count how many I’d have to take!

Nature is simple. Flower essences are simple. It’s so lovely to attune ourselves to that simplicity.

It took me years to quit being embarrassed that the Spirit-in-Nature Essence line contains only 20 essences. As the years passed, the number of remedies remained the same, but the embarrassment grew. Still only 20? Some companies have double that amount, others 10 times that number. And what a good lesson: it’s not really a good idea to compare.

Then, I noticed something interesting starting to happen. Much to my surprise, people began complimenting us on having such a finite line! They actually liked that there were fewer essences.

For them, it meant, among other things, less confusion with essence selection and a lower cost for the full kit.

Fewer essences, as it happens, is also reflective of the simplicity of this range of flower formulas. That is not to be confused with simplistic. Many practitioners have commented that they appreciate the straightforwardness of Spirit-in-Nature Essences. They have a what-you-see-is-what you-get quality—again, not to be confused with shallowness.

You might even say that their depth is endless, or at least, that’s how I have come to know them over the years, and now the decades. I’ve often said that, sometime, I’d like to have a full week to teach each of the essences. There is so much metaphysical substance to each of them.

Probably unbeknownst to her, my tenth grade geometry teacher taught me a valuable lesson that has remained with me to this day—one that has nothing to do with the mathematical relationships between points, lines, and angles. It was important, she said, to always start with a clear understanding of whatever it is you’re working on. I can still remember her enthusiasm for geometry, her round face that crinkled with age at the edges, and that crackly voice with a slight East Coast accent that had probably faded over the years.

And I have always remembered and applied her suggestion.

Which is why, when my webmaster suggested yesterday that I start a blog for the SiNE website, I went straightaway to an online dictionary to find out what in the world that was. Since we live in a world comprised more and more of abbreviations and initials (who has time to write out complete phrases or proper nouns!), it came as no surprise to find that blog is short for weblog.

I learned that a blog (a) consists of a chronology of thoughts, (b) reflects the writer’s personality, and (c) is basically an online journal.

Well, I’ve been journaling since I was thirteen.

Writing down thoughts and chronicling ideas has been a favorite hobby of mine for decades. And now to have the opportunity to share these thoughts and ideas on what has become a life work with flower essences is a great opportunity. That blogging can be interactive, with you, makes it even more alluring. Please send your questions, comments, and thoughts.

This spring is the 30-year anniversary of Master’s Flower Essences. We celebrated by taking on a new name—Spirit-in-Nature Essences. The response so far has been overwhelmingly positive—with one exception. One of our overseas distributors dug in her heels initially with comments like—“awkward, confusing, may lose customers”—but she has since grown very supportive of the idea. “You Americans like challenges!” was her follow-up comment.

Why, then, did we take a new name? New cycle, new energy. A “bigger net” for a bigger company. And what does the name mean? Hmm. . .flash back to my honorable geometry teacher, saying to get those definitions in place. Our new name is a simple, condensed definition of what the entire company’s all about: finding the highest, realized potential of life force—Spirit—in this manifested world—Nature.

And finding it within yourself.