New Zealand Iris
Flower Essence

A flower essence, made 17 November, 1998.

During October and November, I had noticed the dainty little
New Zealand Iris plants, with their delicate, white flowers,
while walking in the Otari Bush at Wilton, Wellington.

The New Zealand Iris is a small plant, no more than 0.5 metres tall. It grows in partial shade in the New Zealand bush, and in the Otari Reserve it grows alongside many of the walking tracks.

It proved to be very tricky to photograph this plant, as the light is tricky in the partial shade, and the flowers are very small.
With the bright white flowers and green foliage, there is a
very large contrast range.


My camera equipment is fairly basic (an elderly Olympus OM-1,
with 28 to 80 mm zoom macro lens). For these situations, I should
really use a flash-gun, but I cannot be bothered with the extra hassle
(I am a flower essence maker, not a professional photographer!)

Anyway, I took lots of photos, hoping that some would turn out OK,
and yes, a few of them did, although I would have liked to have got
some shots of the flowers a little larger.

However, as an amateur, I was satisfied with the results. The photos
will be good enough for illustrating the essence book that I will be
publishing, and probably good enough for the set of photo cards
that I intend to eventually produce.

However, I have found that, when scanned in to digital format,
for use on these Web Pages, the quality is not really good enough,
as you can see from the photos on this page. Maybe I will go back
to Otari Bush, with camera and flash-gun, and take some more.

After making this flower essence and obtaining the definition,
I discovered that a close friend needed the essence in quite a major way.
As well as making her up a mix that contained the Iris along with
other essences, I also gave her a bottle of the N.Z. Iris stock,
to use whenever she felt a need for it. And it worked, it helped her
through the phase that she was going through.

This essence has been used many times since by both myself
and Lisa, and we consider it to be one of the more important
essences in the New Millennium range. It has wide application
for anyone feeling frail or vulnerable, or like they are about to
fall off the edge.

This essence is also, of course, a key ingredient in some very
important Super-Essences (see below).

It is especially important in the “Suicidal” Super-Essence,
as it provides a type of support that appears to closely match
what is needed by a person who is feeling suicidal.

Further to the above comments about the quality of the photographs,
I have now re-photographed the N.Z. Iris with my new digital camera.
(As at November, 2003). However, I still like the old photos, so have
left two of the old ones on this page (the top two), and have added
two new digital photos (the bottom two). The new photos from the
digital camera are much clearer, but they do not have the same
energy as the old photos.