The New Millennium Essences

Historical Summary....

Here is a summary of the New Millennium Essences, laid out in chronological order, of how they were developed, with brief details of each major product group, and with links to other (more in-depth) pages on this website, where relevant. For a much more detailed, and “personal”, version of this story, please see Peter's Life Story.

The early genesis of this story was in 1992, when both Peter Archer and Lisa Bruens first became involved with flower essences. They both attended the same flower essences workshop, facilitated by the late Mary Garbely, who was the major pioneer of modern-day flower essence work in New Zealand.

Resulting from this workshop, in Wellington, in July 1992, both Peter and Lisa obtained from Mary the complete set of her flower essences, the “New Perception of New Zealand Essences”, and they began working with these essences, for their own personal healing work, and as practitioners. They also attended further workshops with Mary, and around this same period they were also undertaking training in various other healing modalities. For details of Mary's “New Perception” essences see this webpage.

Mary's essences became more and more important in the lives of both Lisa and Peter, and, when, sometime in late 1993, they heard (from Mary), about “Perelandra”, they both began obtaining the “Perelandra” flower essences, books, tapes, and other resources, and, from early 1994, they did in-depth work with all of these “Perelandra” resources.

A note of explanation about “Perelandra”, which is a nature research center in Virginia, U.S.A., and has undertaken innovative research work on working with the intelligence of Nature, including the production of flower essences. For in-depth details, see our summary of Perelandra, in our on-line version of our Essence Practitioner's Manual, or have a look at the Perelandra Website.

One thing led to another, including, in 1995, Peter and Lisa becoming involved with using the “Living Essences of Australia”, from Western Australia, and also along the way various other essences from a number of suppliers in various parts of the world. For details of the Living Essences of Australia, you can check out their website.

Gorse. Click to see details of this essence

From 1996, Peter started making flower essences, only a few to start with, and then, from 1997, more and more. Some of those very early essences, that now hold important positions in the New Millennium Essences range, include the Pink Cyclamen, the Red Clover, and the Gorse. For a more complete narrative of these early essence-making activities, see the chapter From Small Beginnings in our on-line Flower Essences Manual.

Bog Sage. Click to see details of this essence

Through 1997, and into 1998, Peter continued on making a moderate number of flower essences, while also still holding down a full-time job in the computer industry, in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. Essences made during this period included Pink Camellia, Mahoe, and Bog Sage. All of these now fill important roles in the New Millennium range.

Plum. Click to see details of this essence

From August 1998, the development of the New Millennium Essences accelerated, when Peter ceased his employment in the computer industry, and became a full-time researcher and developer of flower essences. Over the summer of 1998-99 (the southern hemisphere summer, of course), he made a total of 111 flower essences, among them being Plum, Bird of Paradise, and Statice.

And in February 1999, at the Festival of Opportunities, in Nelson, New Zealand, the New Millennium Essences were given their first public showing.

All through these early days in the life of the New Millennium Flower Essences, although it was Peter who was making most of the essences, and Lisa had relocated to Waiheke Island, (400 miles north of Wellington, close to Auckland), Lisa did play a very important part in the project. Peter and Lisa kept in very close contact, and visited each other regularly, and they discovered that Lisa had a very highly developed talent for intuitively determining what any particular essence was for, and it was she who provided most of the “definitions”, and the affirmations that go with each essence. For a personalised story of Lisa's role, see the chapter Tale of Two Flower Essence Therapists in our on-line Flower Essences Manual.

Looking up the beach opposite the little cottage.

Looking up the beach opposite the little cottage.

By April 1999, the New Millennium Essences had become a very comprehensive and powerful set of essences, and Peter moved from Wellington City up the coast, north of Wellington, to the Kapiti Coast, where he spent the winter in a beach cottage, working on the documentation of the essences, as an essence practitioner, and on his own personal healing.

He believed that his work with the flower essence making was more or less complete, and what was now needed was the testing, documenting, and marketing. However, the universe had other ideas, as we shall soon see.....

Ostrich Foot. Click to see details of this essence

During that winter of 1999, when he had taken a spell from making flower essences, Peter soon discovered “sea essences” (essences made from stones and small pieces of driftwood, washed up on the beach), and also “shell essences”. And from around the time of the winter solstice, he was very busy, finding lots of these “treasures” on the beach, and making many of them into essences. These included the Quartz and Granite, the Pink Pumice, and the Ostrich Foot.

Piripiri. Click to see details of this essence

This sea-related activity continued into the spring and summer of 1999-2000, although a modest number of new flower essences were also added to the New Millennium range at this time, among them being the Giant Geranium, the Plantain, and the Piripiri.

Pink Blossom. Click to see details of this essence

From April 2000, Peter left the beach, and moved to Hawkes Bay, which is over on the eastern side of the North Island of New Zealand. He spent the winter of 2000 mainly writing the documentation for a flower essences manual, much of which was later to be used on this website (although at that time, he had no idea that he would create this website). However, the essence-making activity continued at a good pace, and over this winter a number of important new essences were added, including the Pink Blossom, the Bloodstone, and the Hine Aotea.

Awakening Essence. Click to see details of this essence

In September 2000, in the spring, Peter made a trip down south, visiting a number of areas of the South Island, including Punakaiki, on the wild West Coast of the South Island. At Punakaiki, several very important new essences were made, including the Cabbage Tree, and the Awakening Essence.

Looking down the Punakaiki beach from the pancake rocks

Looking down the Punakaiki beach from the pancake rocks

Punakaiki is one of those rather rare places, where the energy is truly “special”. It is in a small valley, where a small river meets the sea, and the big waves come crashing in onto the rocks. On this trip, Peter also facilitated a series of talks and workshops, in Christchurch, Nelson, and Greymouth, and the essences were also exhibited at the Reefton “Festival of Enlightenment”.

Universal Family. Click to see details of this essence

On the beach at Punakaiki, a number of powerful stones were found, and some of these were made into sea essences, including the Universal Family Stone, which is a very special stone.

Late in 2000 was a time of major change for Peter, and for the New Millennium Essences. The essences were exhibited at a series of shows all around the lower North Island, and a series of public talks were given. And, from November, Peter was on the move again, moving to Palmerston North, a small city about two hours drive north of Wellington, where he quickly settled down with a new group of friends and co-workers. However, the essence-making activity had finished, at least for now, and it was now time to consolidate.

One of the consolidation jobs that was undertaken at this time was the development of the Super-Essences. The basic idea of combining together small groups of individual essences into self-contained “super” entities, that then become like a “super version” of an essence, this idea was conceived in October, and developed during November, and the Super-Essences were launched in December 2000. For a detailed explanation of the Super-Essences, read this article.

Second Chance. Click to see details of this essence

However, before the consolidation could be completed, a few more essences were needed, to fill in a few gaps in the Super-Essences needed to make up the new Practitioner's Set. So, late in 2000, a few visits were made to Peter's old haunts on the beaches of the west coast north of Wellington. On these visits, made specifically to find stones for sea essences to fill specific gaps in the Practitioner's Set, among the stones found were the Everyday Challenges, the Executive Burnout, the Second Chance, and the Same Old.

In April 2001, after a summer spent on consolidation, Peter was on the move again, this time to spend the winter in a beach cottage at Foxton Beach, which is on the west coast of the North Island, about two hours north of Wellington, and 40 minutes west of Palmerston North.

The little cottage at Foxton Beach.

Just like in the earlier winter spent by a beach, this winter of 2001 was a time of consolidation, long walks on the beach, and also some very deep “inner work”. However, it was not all rest, relaxation, and recreation. Within a short time of arriving at the little beach cottage, the idea of creating a website came up very strongly. An internet website for taking the New Millennium Essences out to the wider world! Peter set to work immediately, first to learn HTML programming, and then on creating the website, this website, and the rest as they say, “is history”.

And, where was Lisa over this time? What was her role in the New Millennium Essences? She remained involved, not so much in a directly “hands on” role, she was more of a “consultant” and, at times, “co-worker”. All through this project, Lisa and Peter have been in regular contact, often by telephone, occasionally with personal visits, and, since the end of 2001, by E-Mail and internet chat.

By the spring, when Peter left the beach-house, in November, the website was well-established, with several hundred pages, including the Practitioner's Set, all of the basic infrastructure pages, including the F.A.Q. pages, and the Articles, and also a good start had been made on the Self-Help On-Line Healing facility. From around July, the first internet sales had been made, including Practitioner Sets to the U.S.A., Austria, and England, and the New Millennium Essences had gone global.

From late 2000, and for all of 2001, no new essences were made. It seemed like the New Millennium Essences were complete. All that remained now was consolidation and promotion. In part two of this brief history, we shall see if this was indeed the case.

Click here to go to Part Two of this history.