Elder flowers

The elder flowers are beautiful just now.

'Both the berries and flowers make excellent wines, jams and jellies and can be added to the cooking of meat, vegetable and sweet dishes.  In addition, elderflower water makes an excellent facial rinse, which cleanses and brightens and if cotton pads soaked in it are placed over the eyes, they will feel brighter and refreshed.

Elderflower tea can be taken as a painkiller and is useful in the treatment of colds.  Elderflower tea cleanses the blood and is slightly diuretic so it can also speed recovery the morning after the night before!  

Elder leaves can be made into an infusion and rubbed onto the skin to deter flies and other insects.  Elder leaves boiled until soft are useful for dressing bruises, strains etc.  However, I would not recommend using them on an open wound as, under some circumstances, they can be toxic.'

From:  'The Real Witches' Garden' by Kate West

The Bach Flower Remedies

Between the years 1930 and 1936, Edward Bach, M.B.,B.S.,M.R.C.S.,L.R.C.P.,D.P.H., found, perfected and put into use, a system of medicine as simple as it is has proved effective. After a successful career in London, He abandoned a lucrative practice to seek and find herbs which would heal the sick, but from which no ill-effects could be derived.

Dr. Bach taught that the basis of disease was to be found in disharmony between the spiritual and mental aspects of a human being. This disharmony, to be found wherever conflicting moods produced unhappiness, mental torture, fear, or lassitude and resignation, lowered the body's vitality and allowed disease to be present. For this reason the remedies he prepared were for the treatment of the mood and temperament of the patient, not for his physical illness; so that each patient becoming more himself, could increase his or her own vitality and so draw from an inward strength and an inward peace, the means to restore health.

Each patient must lead his own life and learn to lead it in freedom. Each was a different type, a different individual, and each must be treated for his personal mood and the need of the moment, not for his physical disease.

Bach wrote in his book, The Twelve Healers and Other Remedies, 'in treating cases with these remedies, no notice is taken of the nature of disease. The individual is treated as as he becomes well, the disease goes, having been cast off by the increase in health. All know that the same disease may have different effects on different people. It is the effects that need treatment, because they guide to the real cause.

The mind, being the most delicate and sensitive part of the body, shows the onset and the course of disease much more definitely than the body, so that the outlook of mind is chosen as the guide as to which remedy or remedies are necessary.'

Dr. Bach stressed that his remedies could be used in conjunction with any other form of treatment, and would not clash or interfere. Equally, they could achieve great results used alone.

My father, D.r F.J. Wheeler; who knew and worked with Dr. Bach from 1928 until his death in 1936, and who has himself achieved many remarkable results with the 38 remedies, which Dr. Bach produced, set out a repertory for the guidance and help of those who use these remedies.

These indications for the use of the remedies should be studied together with The Twelve Healers, to which they are intended to be a supplement. There can be no hard-and-fast rules in treating patients with these remedies, as each patient must be regarded as an individual and helped in the light of his personal and particular circumstances and moods. However, the basic states of mind and the remedies remain constant, and while always bearing in mind the need to retain flexibility and a mind ready to receive fresh inspiration while using these methods of treatment, this repertory should prove of assistance to those seeking to develop their own ability to choose and administer the right remedy either for themselves or for others.

It is the sincere hope of making yet a further contribution to the understanding of the true art of healing that this book was prepared.

Taken from: "Preface to 'The Bach Remedy Reperty Remedies' by Frances M. Wheeler
London 1952"

You can read more about The Bach Flower Remedies here.