Emotions and Animal Essences

How Essences Work: A Brief Review

The idea that energy can get blocked and prevent or limit the flow of healing, balancing energies is fairly well known today. Edward Bach, M.D., originated the idea’s application to flower essence work by noticing that blockages often took a particular form. One person might be blocked from expressing unconditional love by feelings and thoughts of anger, another by resentment. Someone else might find her ability to be guided by her inner source limited by the feeling she had to ask the opinions of others; another might always feel there were too many choices available to decide.

In the Bach Flower Essence system (and in many others), each of the flowers embodies a particular energy frequency. When an individual resists the expression of that particular energy (i.e., patience, calmness, enthusiasm), she is out of touch with that aspect of her fundamental nature.

Melting Emotional Blockages with Wild Earth Animal Essences

While these essences also relate to specific qualities, I have noticed that some of them have a more general effect on emotional release and rebalance. No matter what emotion I’m choosing to release with the appropriate essence, the addition of one of the following essences in my mixture seems to make it easier to let go of the persistent emotional pattern.

You probably couldn’t go wrong in choosing any of the three below. Each, however, has a particular relationship to emotional release.

Big Girls Don’t Cry (or Big Boys)

They’d be happier if they did. That’s my opinion, and for those interested in astrology, I have Moon in Pisces, which is about as wet and emotional as it gets. I believe that a good cry, like the rain that relieves drought, revives us and gives us a new beginning.

The deepest levels of healing are accomplished on the emotional level. Emotions are associated with water, especially in the context of tears. If we are brought up to believe that tears are shameful and childish, we deprive ourselves of a powerful form of emotional release.

Frog medicine follows this principle. With its help, we can begin to experience tears as being as natural and necessary as rain.

For me, one of the most welcome signs of spring is the evening chorus of the spring peepers. Their song tells me that the ice in the ponds and streams where they live has melted. So Frog medicine symbolizes the unfreezing and flow of emotions.

Water cleanses and replenishes the earth, and in terms of healing, this animal’s medicine can help when our lives feel dry and dull, when we feel mired in the mud of circumstances, or when we have allowed emotional toxins to poison our outlook on life.

A Scottish version of the story of the Frog Prince illustrates the power of this medicine. A queen who was ill could only be healed by a drink from the well of true water. When each of her three daughters tried to get this water, a monstrous frog refused to allow them access unless they agreed to marry him. The youngest daughter agreed and was able to heal her mother. She also later discovered that her unattractive bridegroom was actually a prince.

This story teaches us that to heal ourselves (and others), it is often necessary to face the emotions within ourselves that we’ve buried because we find them unacceptable, or “ugly.” When we can honestly look at all aspects of ourselves, we find that the “ugliness” washes away, and our true beauty shines, like the sun after healing rain.

Seal: The Inner Voice

As humans, we often don’t realize the purpose of negative emotions, which are intended to tell us when we’re out of harmony. Guilt, for example, is meant to warn us when we’re about to violate our true nature. If we find our love for someone diminished because we judge them, we may feel guilty. This emotion isn’t intended to beat us up but to guide us back to unconditional love.

Fear is supposed to us of true danger, as opposed to an imagined danger. If I see a bear in the background, I am wise to stay inside, but if I spend my waking hours worried that a bear might appear, I am misusing the power of fear.

We humans have the tendency to let negative emotion misguide us that we can’t hear the deeper song of inner guidance. The seal reminds us of our connection to our inner rhythms, feelings, and knowing.

Often, when we create, the feeling aspect is missing. As a sea mammal, Seal is strongly symbolic of our feeling, sensual selves, and connects us to our deep inner rhythms and knowing. As animals with intellects that we believe set us apart from other animals we often resist surrendering to these deep rhythms, being fearful that we will lose what we think of as ourselves.

Playful Seal leads us to the water’s edge and urges us to lose our heaviness in the buoyancy of the sea. This animal reminds us that we can swim gracefully with the current, and that when we do, we can learn to release the worries created by our minds. With this perspective, our emotions, rather than pulling us down, provide us with the buoyancy that gives joy to our journeys.

Though the seal spends much of its life in the sea, it gives birth on land. This helps us to know that there are two essential ingredients to the fulfillment of our dreams and visions. They are optimally conceived in the deepest part of ourselves and given nurturance through the strength of our ability to imagine them with all the senses. They are then most easily realized when we help to bring them to birth with the help of practical and material acts.

Dove: Peace

Where I live one of the most familiar sounds of a summer evening or early morning is the cooing of the mourning dove. When all the other birds are asleep (except the robin and nightingale), the dove’s haunting call fills the air.

Thus, this bird is associated with these transitional periods in the day’s cycle, during which, according to mystical and magical traditions, the veils between the physical and spiritual worlds are at their thinnest.

I find it interesting that the crystal, amethyst, which is the color the skies of sunset and sunrise often assume, is, like the dove, related to peacefulness. Amethyst is one of the most popular crystals, and a comfort to those of us who live in a world that seems to be characterized by stress, tension, and major changes.

It is certainly a world in which we all need peace, and we can work with both amethyst and Dove Medicine to achieve it, especially when we are going through major changes and transitions. The peace symbolized by Dove is that of the deepest kind. It quiets our worried and troubled thoughts, and allows us to find renewal in the silence of mind.

It teaches us that, regardless of external circumstances, this quality of peace is within us, and always available to us. The regular practices of deep breathing and meditation can help us to find inner peace and enable us to move calmly and with purpose during the hours between dawn and dusk.

Just For Today

This article is about one way to make new beginnings, based on five principles formulated by Mikao Usui, the originator of traditional Reiki. Usui developed the principles out of his realization that spiritual, emotional, and physical health depend on a change in attitude and the assumption of responsibility for one’s well-being. The principles are valuable for anyone who wishes to increase their enjoyment and appreciation of life.

The First Principle:

Just for today I will not worry

Worry may result from a feeling of separation and isolation. We are often taught that we’re individuals. We separate ourselves from the so-called lower species; as individuals we isolate ourselves from those of our own species.

Alone, we feel small and vulnerable, and we worry about our ability to bear the burden of survival. Lost in worry, we forget that we can choose to reunite with the energy of universal love, a power which can dissolve our worries and fears. The more we allow that energy to flow through us the more we come in touch with a natural state of grace. The more we consciously become open to trust and faith the more we experience ourselves as part of a safe and loving universe.

Every small step towards trust is a victory. When we review our lives we notice how little the huge disappointments of the past mean to us now. We find ourselves glad that some of the things we wanted so desperately didn’t happen. We discover a larger purpose to the events of our lives.

The Second Principle:

Just for today I will not anger.

This isn’t a recommendation to keep anger bottled up inside or to pretend that it isn’t there. I’m for feeling every emotion. I hit pillows, write letters (which I later burn) to the objects of my anger. I experience the anger until it dissipates, then examine its roots.

Once I reach the point at which I cab look at the situation dispassionately I often find that I hold beliefs which are compatible with the situation which is making me angry. Because I used to believe that bosses were unfair I regularly encountered bosses whose behavior confirmed my belief.

When a person makes me angry I ask myself if they mirror emotions or issues within me which I don’t want to face – that is, unless I really don’t want to face it. It takes courage to face those inner demons, but the reward is great. The braver I get the more willing I am to view people in my life as manifestations of lessons I need to learn. Some day (when I’m a realized being) I’ll come to appreciate them as my teachers, and love will replace anger.

Until that glorious day, I say to myself, “Just for today look at the people and circumstances you’ve attracted into your life – without blaming others or yourself. Just for today, see what within yourself needs healing.”

The Third principle:

I will honor my parents, teachers, and elders.

I (and many others) have modified this principle to be more inclusive. I hold it as, “Just for today I will honor all of life.” It’s another way of honoring myself.

When we honor other creations with the grace and love of our spirits, practical gestures are also appropriate. We can plant a tree, overcome laziness and recycle. We can honor the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the fire which warms us. We can thank all beings who have helped us by passing their gift of understanding and support on to someone else who needs it.

The Fourth Principle:

I earn my living honestly

This statement can be expanded to read, “I live my life honestly.” This is less a question of whether one calls in sick to work, then goes to the beach than of whether we are honest with ourselves.

If we say we want to grow spiritually, but do nothing to create that growth, we need to honestly examine the depth of our commitment. If we ignore the loneliness inside by pretending we don’t care that we’re not in a committed relationship we need to acknowledge our feelings, to honor the truth of our emotions. We can’t solve a problem if we refuse to admit its existence.

Ask yourself what longings lie hidden inside your heart; what creative urges have been suppressed. Ask for guidance through dreams and visions. Ask for an understanding of your soul’s purpose in choosing physical existence. The answer is within you’ it awaits only your receptivity to unveil itself.

The Fifth Principle:

I show gratitude to everything.

The fifth principle flows naturally from the other four. If instead of worrying, we trust that love and happiness are our birthrights, if we recognize that what makes us angry mirrors the beliefs which block us, if we honor all of life and our own divinity by being honest with ourselves, we will become grateful for the gift of physical existence.

Step by Step

The bold among us may want to take on all of The Five Principles at once. Those of us who prefer to experience transformation in smaller doses may prefer to work on one at a time.

Say, for example, that you decide to work on anger. One step in this process might be to list everything in your life that you’re angry about. To truly discover this you may find it helpful to apply the principle of living life honestly. If you do so you might find a number of issues you’ve avoided handling because someone might get angry because you raised them (or you might get angry at someone else). The next step might be to feel your anger fully, then to decide what changes you’d like to make.

I’ve found that an ongoing maintenance program is valuable, too. Anger is less overwhelming when we acknowledge it and deal with it as it arises, and when we allow the possibility that anger often stems from anger at ourselves we go a long way towards handling anger with honesty.

Programming for Peace of Mind

Crystals are invaluable tools for assisting us in keeping our commitments to ourselves. Because the molecular structure of crystals is orderly and symmetrical they radiate energy in a consistent and steady manner. Simply being in the presence of this harmonious energy field can help us to become more harmonious in our beings.

When we program crystals we intensify this energy flow. The process is very simple.

Create an affirmation (always in the present tense), i.e., “I live my life honestly;” “I have loving communication with my children.”

As you hold your crystal visualize yourself in the desired situation and experience the feelings of being in it. Say the affirmation to yourself.

Then put the crystal some place where it won’t be disturbed.

Below are some stones and flower essences which closely relate to the Five Principles. Clear quartz may be used for any of them.

Just for today I will not worry.
Crystal: rhodochrosite.
Flower essence: Chamomile (FES)

Just for today I will not anger.
Crystal: red garnet, sugilite.
Flower essence: Holly (Bach)

I honor all of life.
Crystal: moss agate and chrysocolla, in particular, but any crystal helps to reveal the beauty and wisdom of nature’s creations.
Flower essence: Nicotiana

I live my life honestly.
Crystal: obsidian, lapis
Flower essence: Deerbrush

I show gratitude to everything.
Crystal: rose quartz, rhodochrosite, rhodonite.
Flower essence: Holly, Willow