Theme and plot

Lila Devi of Masters Flower Essences has developed the idea of theme and plot essences. There are theme essences which help with your personality type. Can you guess mine? Have you noticed the excessive enthusiasm, the desire to convert everybody to my way of thinking, the rapid speech?

My theme essence from the Bach system is Vervain. Vervain calms the busy, overactive mind. Complementing Vervain are the Master's Corn to restore mental vitality when I've burned up all my energy, and Verbena from Petite Fleur which is similar but subtly different to Vervain.

Theme essences are essences you return to time and again. They represent the major personality issues you are dealing with in this lifetime. My major personal issue is to learn patience and allow things to happen at their own pace, not mine. Have a think about what yours might be.

Identifying your key issues leads you quickly to the appropriate essences. In fact, as you will remember from the discussion about placebo effect, merely identifying the issue starts the healing process - unless you block it with denial because it is too painful.

Often a series of plots happen in turn, each supported by a different essence, as we learn about different issues and different facets of ourselves on our journey through life. Helper essences such as Walnut (Bach), which protects you in time of change, and Chestnut Bud which helps you gain insight and wisdom from life's events, are neither particularly theme or plot essences but are often useful.

The Confusion of Choice

But if there are 38 remedies in the Bach listings alone, how do you choose the correct ones? Does it matter if you don't? What happens if you choose the 'wrong' ones? How do you know which to take and when? And for how long? There are over 200 essences mentioned on this site and several thousand in the world. How can you choose the right ones? Isn't it all too confusing?

In this section all these questions will be answered. In the years since I was given my first set of Flower Remedies I have had to answer them myself. At times I learned the hard way, but I hope to help you learn the easy way.

Plot essences help deal with specific issues which come up from time to time. Gerard was going through a negative phase when nothing seemed to be going right. All seemed failure, and he had lost his usual faith and conviction in his certainty of success. Gentian (Bach) might have helped him but Tomato (Masters) was exactly right. After six days he felt fully restored. Curiously, for two weeks before starting the remedy he had been craving tomato juice, an unusual choice for him. Perhaps his body knew what it needed and was dropping a hint?