Often in a flower essence consultation, I’ll suggest to my clients not to identify with their weaknesses or define themselves by their tests. Sometimes that’s easier than acknowledging our strengths. It takes only a subtle twist of misunderstanding to interpret that being tested in life mean that there’s something inherently wrong with us, that we’re somehow “bad.” This is simply not so.

Here’s a recent story from my own experience where I had a choice about self-definitions.

Last summer in late July, I spent a day hiking with friends in the Pumas National Forest. Located in the Sierra Nevadas, the terrain is rich in lakes, mountain streams, meadows and valleys. It was a day of enchantment for all of us.

To breathe the fresh air was exhilarating; to trek the trails filled us all with wonder. Nature had really outdone herself, with five-star vistas everywhere we looked. Many were the pauses to appreciate the brilliant ground cover of wildflowers, including Indian paintbrush, wild orchids, larkspur, and corn lilies.

We lathered up with sunblock and stopped often to dip into our water supplies. One friend drank from his bladder pack—an amazing contraption that allows you to “nurse” on ice water from your daypack through a straw that extends out from the pack and wraps around your shoulder like a rubber snake.

It soon became apparent that I was in the company of some serious hikers, whose stamina extended far beyond my own. Five miles round trip would have been just fine with me. However, on we forged, climbing to higher altitudes without skipping a beat. The longer we hiked, the more frequently I paused on the trail, limply disguising the need to catch my breath by snapping photos.

This picture, taken at 7,800 feet elevation on top of Mt. Elwell, represents a great personal victory. This is also me experiencing elevation sickness and dehydration for the first time. But when I look at this photo, I see only triumph. Much more than a mountain was conquered that day.

Had I chosen to identify with my physical condition— lightheadedness, dizziness, rapid pulse, and shortness of breath—the day would have been disastrously debilitating. The “inner client” in me refused to be defined by those temporary states. Instead, I chose to relate to the victory of climbing my own personal Mt. Everest, each step an affirmation of freedom from any self-limiting definitions of physical frailty.

As a great sage once said, “The things that happen to us do not matter. What we become through them does.” If we, as flower essence practitioners, can help to impart this wisdom to our clients, then we too have triumphed.

According to our research, including countless direct testimonials, animals are keenly responsive to Spirit-in-Nature Essences. This report was emailed to our office today from a woman in Savannah, GA, illustrating a key point about flower essences and why they are so effective for our pets:

“The essences arrived yesterday and I promptly used the Pear Essence on all of us. Our dog Winslow seems to like the light massages with the essence he’s been getting [for a ligament problem]. Something else that was interesting – I emptied his half-full water bowl and filled it again with water and drops from the essences. Winslow promptly came over and drank and drank and drank. I’ll let you know what progress he makes.”

This is not an unusual comment from pet owners, who often have a deep bond with their animals and are in tune with the subtleties of their behavioral changes. It sounds like drinking large quantities of water is not Winslow’s usual behavior. He may have sensed something different about this water—perhaps a vibrational recognition of something good for him, something helpful and supportive.

Animals have a deep attunement with natural energy flows. You could say that flower essences in their pure form are “bottled nature” and, not only that, but in a very concentrated form. They are also an elevated expression of greater flows of energy. In yogic terms, this is called sattwic energy, meaning that which clarifies and uplifts our understanding.

Animals live by pure instinctual wisdom, without the veils that separate humans from the Nature kingdom. They also have a richly developed feeling nature. In addition, their senses are heightened beyond our comprehension, even to the point of telepathy. A cat, for instance, has hundreds of thousands of scent-sensitive cells in his nose, whereas a human may have about five thousand. It boggles the mind to imagine what life would be like in that kind of body!

Flower essences stimulate our pre-existing, positive flows of energy. They awaken our joy, no matter how deeply it may be buried. They enliven the deep inner stillness that resides within all living things. This is most likely a hundred times truer for animals, who don’t have the mental interferences and obstructions of the human mind.

As their caretakers, parents, guardians and friends, we can use flower essences with intuitive knowing that we are contributing to the betterment of their lives.

Have you ever had a hunch that you knew was right? Or do you ever “just know” something, no matter how unlikely it is to be true?

If so, there may be an “inner practitioner” within you waiting to emerge. Combine that with a love of nature, an insight into human (and animal) nature, and a keen interest in helping others, and you may have found your true calling.

Basically, there are four elements to becoming a good practitioner of flower essences, the first three being: study, experience, and intuition. These components are all interconnected; each of them needs to be strong and balanced, to create this “triangle of wisdom.”

First, you will need to study: read the literature, learn the books, visit our website for the latest educational material and, if you feel inclined, take our Formal Home Study Course. As any good practitioner in any field knows, you will need to familiarize yourself with your tools and how to use them.

Next, you will need to gain experience, which happens through working with the essences—usually in an expanding sphere outward from yourself to those close to you, then to word-of-mouth referrals, and onward. Here’s where the great adventure begins. Knowing that you can’t hurt anyone is reassuring, especially for the beginner! Flower essences are safe, non-toxic, non-habit-forming, and have no side effects or contraindications—whereas with allopathic medicines, dosage levels and proper selection may be severely harmful if not administered according to directions.

Then comes the development of intuition. This is the faculty, or “sixth sense,” awakened through your study and experience. Intuition, as it is defined, is the ability of your highest, clearest self to know truth. It was said that Dr. Bach knew which essences his clients needed within the time it took them to walk into his office and be seated across from his desk.

We too can have these intuitive perceptions. And why not? We are energetic beings, and flower essences are energetic substances.

The fourth and last element to consider is, simply, trust. Trust your study, your experience, and your evolving intuition. This is the formula for becoming a brilliant flower essence practitioner.

Sometimes a project takes longer than expected, and this one certainly has been “in the ether” for a long while.

To say that people have been waiting years for these Affirmation Cards is an understatement. It’s more like decades! Based on people’s comments, they are being well received and are already proving to be worth the wait.

The two underlying qualities of this essence line are strength and beauty—qualities that permeate the essences themselves as well as our design—and the cards convey these themes. It’s been a great joy to pull together all the elements of this product, with the help of my designer—collecting the flower and fruit photos, choosing the fonts and borders, and watching the magnificent gift box design evolve, down to the jewel on the front lid.

It seems I have been living and breathing this project for about eight months. I remember waking up one morning with the idea fresh in my mind, to use the watercolor flowers from our logo as a trim for the top and lids of the box. It was a thrilling moment!

The photos come from a conglomerate of sources, including myself. Although I don’t consider myself a photographer, I learned a lot about working with lighting, positioning my “subject matter,” and capturing the “essence” of certain fruits. The date fruit photo, for example, is one I’m particularly pleased with.

Dates are not what you’d call pretty, and yet this composition with the morning sunlight glistening on the sliced fruit and its stony pits happens to be one of my favorites. This photo conveys more than the encyclopedia version of dates: “these are what dates look like.” I feel it visually captures the theme of the Date Essence’s richness: the sweetness of the fruit and the firmness of purpose of the central stone. The cards, like the essences and the affirmations, are vibrational in nature.

What now remains to be seen is how the visual splendor of these Affirmation Cards will enhance peoples’ usage of the essences themselves.

Here’s a testimonial from a former elementary school teacher who has used Spirit-in-Nature Essences for herself and her cat for many years: “The Affirmation Cards are gorgeous, and very powerful. I can feel the power in the affirmations as I read them, and I am starting a new self-transformation through the essences and the affirmations. I’m going to be a new person. I can’t thank you enough.”

As explained on the back of the gift box, flower essences act as “bottled affirmations,” while affirmations may be called “verbal essences.” There is a power in both affirmations and essences that is greatly enhanced when the two are used in conjunction with each other.

These affirmations, as you will see, differ from those in The Essential Flower Essence Handbook. They have been rewritten by J. Donald Walters, whom you might say is my “silent partner” in this company (explained in the introduction of The Handbook). They express a musical lyricism that is especially engaging for the three levels of our consciousness: the subconscious, the conscious, and the superconscious.

I hope you find these “essential” Affirmation Cards useful. Try them out, and see what you think.