Attuning to Nature

‘To attune to the flowers you must be in conscious contact with your own soul or divine presence.  Through this attunement one can become aware of the oneness of consciousness, of love, behind and in the whole of creation and then through this you can enter into contact with flowers and know the expression of the divine in the flower, the underlying aspiration of the flowers for the divine.  Love of flowers brings you into the experience of love within the self and when you are perceptive to the inner expression within and between you, perhaps through the beauty of flowers, is can lead to an awakening by Nature within you to the consciousness underlying the manifested form.’

Flowers and their Messages, The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press 1992

When preparing a flower essence I go into an attunement process which leads me into a deep connection with the intelligences informing the nature kingdom (the devas* and the nature spirits) by way of meditation. I sit before the plant to observe and contemplate the plant's 'expression'. 

Throughout the course or duration of preparing an essence, from the attunement phase until the time of collection and for a period of time following its final preparation, I experience the flower's nature working within and through me – the associated feelings and effects in my mind and in my body. More often than not I will meet someone or a situation which expresses the personification or the qualities of the essence. It is this hands-on experience, along with information received and orgnised through the mind that gives me a picture of the healing qualities and potential of a flower. 

The making of sycamore illustrates this process:

After collecting the sycamore essence I trudged home, feeling completely exhausted.  Falling onto the bed, I fell asleep still wearing my coat and shoes!  Later that evening, a special dinner was being hosted for Sir George Trevelyan, a former Findhorn Foundation Trustee. This was his last visit before he passed over.  Frail and barely able to stand, Sir George rose to the occasion and gave a rousing speech, the strength of his spirit shining through his time-worn physical body.  

I had learned that day that the essence of sycamore can help us to tap into the unlimited energy source of our inner light and life force, restoring smoothness to our energy flow and bringing strength and perseverance.

Understanding the inner meaning through attunement

 Spend time with the plant. Sit with it look at its shape and colours, touch it, inhale its scent. Observe its environment, soil, dry/moist, sun or shade etc. There are power places in nature where it is easier to make contact with the spirits of nature.

In your inner vision, observe what you are attuning to, look at what you think it is and then open your mind to understanding what the immediate esoteric or hidden impact of energy it has.  What is the type of energy? What immediate impressions come to mind? It’s using the intuition, it’s not thinking about it.

Observe its properties and phenomena. What chakras did it strike? What chakras were stimulated by contact with it?  It's all those things that are immediate and non analytical that happen on immediate contact. You don’t have to figure it out.

The next study is a conceptual one. What does it mean? You understand it’s meaning as to what it’s trying to tell us and teach us. This is using the mind to interpret information.

*Deva

This is a Sanskrit word, from the Hindu tradition, which literally means ‘shining one’. However Christian, Judaic and Islamic cultures know these beings as angels of which the cherubim and seraphim are a part. There are devas that look after towns and cities as well as tracts of the countryside.