From Small Beginnings.....
Things often turn out unexpectedly.....
I made my first flower essence at Easter 1996. Or, to be precisely correct, I made my first two flower essences, with the help of a friend, at Easter 1996.....
Ever since I had listened, totally enthralled, to Mary Garbely speaking of how she made essences, I had wanted to make essences myself. Mary spoke in some depth about the essence-making process, at that weekend workshop in July 1992, and I had just known, right from then, that one day I too would make flower essences.
However, first I needed to learn how to use essences! To immerse myself in everything about using essences. To take on, like Mary had, (as she describes in her book), an “essence approach to life”. By April 1996, I was ready. And, when my friend Barbara asked me whether I would like to join her in the making of an essence, I did not hesitate.
We made the two essences, Dandelion and Wild Fennel, at Barbara's house, that day at Easter 1996. The dandelion came from her back lawn. And the Wild Fennel from beside some steps on a public walkway near her house, in Mornington, Wellington.
Now, before you start diving through your lists of the New Millennium Essences, looking for Dandelion and Wild Fennel, I must say that neither of these essences are part of the “New Millennium Essences”. They are duplicates of two of Mary's “New Perception of New Zealand” essences. Barbara and I deliberately made these two, with the intent for them to be duplicates of two of Mary's essences, to obtain for ourselves an unlimited supply of these two essences that we seemed to be always running short of! Dandelion, for tension, especially muscular tension in the body, and Wild Fennel, for repelling negativity.
Click on the photo to see details of the essence.
Note, however, that the Wild Fennel now has become a “New Millennium” essence, for the same basic purpose as Mary's Wild Fennel, that is for the handling of negativity, but with a different “flavour” to its energy. For details of the New Millennium version of the Wild Fennel,
refer to its page
on this website.
Anyway, we made the essences, and we each obtained for ourselves a supply of several bottles of mother tincture of both the Dandelion and the Wild Fennel. Enough to last for several lifetimes! And, when we began to use these two essences of ours, they worked! We could feel their energy. Their energy was very similar to Mary's Dandelion and Wild Fennel, maybe a little stronger. And, they appeared to cover all of the issues that Mary's versions of these two essences covered.
I was so pleased with the results of this, that I wanted to make more essences! So, on 5th May, 1996, I made two more essences.
Gorse and
Mouse Ear. Now, you will find these two flower essences in the New Millennium lists of essences, and on this website. So, this was the actual beginning of the “New Millennium of New Zealand” essences; although I was not to know this until almost three years later.
Click on the photo to see details of the Gorse essence, and click on
each of the photos below to see details of those essences.
Over the next few months, I made more essences. On 29 June (1996), I made
Red Clover and
Lacecap Hydrangea. During August (exact date not recorded), I made three essences from container plants, White Geranium,
Pink Cyclamen, and
Primula obconica.
At this time, 1996, I was living in a rented house in Fortunatus Street, Mornington, Wellington. Over the autumn, winter and spring of 1996, I went through a period of my life when I did some very deep personal healing work. I was working full-time at Wellington Hospital (in the computer department), and most of my spare time was devoted to my personal healing. It was during this time that I was doing the “Quantum Dynamics” work on myself, and just about every day I would come home from work and sit straight down at my desk to do some more of this personal healing work.
To read about this, my personal journey, I suggest that you read the story
The Modern-Day Alchemist.
In this very deep personal work, I was using flower essences intensely. Over this whole period, I must have been carrying around with me every day an average of six to a dozen bottles of essences for my personal use. And, as I progressively made my own essences, I would find that as soon as I made a new essence I would be using it in at least one of the essence mixes that I was currently taking.
Click on the photo to see a large version, and other photos.
Usually, I did not initially have a definition for each of the new essences. I was “flying blind”, working entirely intuitively, just trusting that I did need this new essence, and not concerning myself with the essence was actually for.
Sometimes, I would have some insight about an essence as I made it. For example, the
Lacecap Hydrangea, made on 29 June. As soon as I saw the flower, I just knew that for me, this flower would help me with some very deep healing of my issues with my mother. I just trusted that this was the case, not needing to know the specific details.
And, I was right. When I eventually obtained the definition for the Lacecap Hydrangea (two and a half years later), I found that it is “To help access one's anger, hidden behind the mask of love”. This fits exactly with how it was in my feelings towards my mother, the core issues that I was working on.
This process continued through 1996, and as spring turned into summer, I made more essences. In November, I made seven essences:
Spur Valerian,
Broom,
Marguerite Daisy,
Potato Vine,
Wild Turnip, Cream Climbing Rose, and Cabbage Tree.
These seven are an interesting sample. The
Wild Turnip and
Potato Vine were to become very important essences in the New Millennium range of essences. The
Marguerite Daisy is the “Arnica of Flower Essences”, so it fills a unique, key role.
The
Spur Valerian and Cream Climbing Rose are important essences in the New Millennium “Relationship” Set, and the Cabbage Tree is a duplicate of Mary Garbely's “New Perception” version of a Cabbage Tree flower essence (this one is not the
Cabbage Tree essence that is in the New Millennium Essences). At this time, although I did not know it, I was beginning on the groundwork of the project that was to become the “New Millennium Essence Project”
At the end of November, I moved house. I had to quit the Mornington house because the owners wanted to move back in. I rented a house in Mt. Victoria and stayed there for six weeks while the owner was overseas. This house had cottage gardens front and back, it backed onto the Wellington Town Belt, and of course, I made essences there, although only three.
Pink Hydrangea,
Buddleia, and
Snowball Daisy.
Also during this summer in Mt. Victoria, I began a new relationship, with the woman who I call “Jane” in the my life's story, who was very interested in my essence work. It was from her garden that I obtained the flowers for my next group of essences,
Zucchini, Strawberry, Scarlet Runner Bean, Pohutukawa and Erigeron Daisy. The Pohutukawa and Erigeron Daisy were “New Perception” duplicates; the other three were to become part of the “New Millennium” essences.
Click here to continue the story of what happened next, as the pace of Peter's
flower essence making hots up, in the new house, and in the new relationship with his
“soul-mate”.
