Virtue Birth Heart: Sunflower Flower Essence 向日葵花精

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus)

Positive qualities:
Balanced sense of individuality, spiritualized ego forces infused into a sun-radiant personality.

Patterns of imbalance:
Distorted or vacillating sense of Self; inflation or self-effacement, low self-esteem or arrogance; poor relation to father or solar aspects of Self.

正面特質:個體性的平衡，陽光射入心靈

不平衡模式:
自我的扭曲與猶豫，誇大或自我輕視，低自尊或自大，與父親或太陽的能量關係不佳

Sunflower in South France
(different species from FES use for flower remedy)

Sunflower is a bright yellow flower. It is hard not to love this big flower. People smile when watching sunflower. This summer, I went to Plum Village, the Buddhist monastery of the Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh tradition, located in south France near Bordeaux. There were lot of sunflower farm nearby. I joined the retreat there for two week, and walked through sunflowers everyday. Since I started to learn flower essence of systems of Bach and FES. I realized each flower has their particular signature to show its language of divine in the Nature. However, at the first few days, I didn't realize how sunflower would be important to me, to help transform the suffering in my family.

During these two weeks in the retreat center, I kept my cellphone open to not miss message from my parents who always try to keep in touch with me anytime (to confirm I was safe because of fear, of course). I didn't want to cause more panic to me and to them. So I secretly opened my cellphone but suffered for such decision and fear.On the 3rd day, my father responded to the fear, he sent me a message with blame and fear : "Where are you, what are you doing now!!". I felt panic right away because I didn't want to admit where I was in the retreat center. The habit in me pushed to call back immediately to explain, but I knew it was not positive energy. I will pass the energy to them if I was not stable and still. Thing didn't become better if I talked to them now. Then I deiced to practice mindful walking meditation in the sunflower farm all day long firstly and see what was next step. I knew sunflower connected with the issue of fatherhood. I needed sunflower's support to help me understand deeply the emotion and habit energy in me, and in my father.

I didn't eat flower essence in the retreat center. I believed the mindfulness energy help me to take good care for any trauma inside. However, it was the energy of Nature to help me most. When I sat with such big and bright yellow sunflower, my heart opened and listened to my suffering without judgement. Sunflowers were quiet but not being silence, they showed to me warmth of the Earth, including the love of fatherhood. The garbage can transfer to the flower. Therefore, fear and love are inter-being, which is the wisdom I learned from Buddhism practice. I kept silence and deeply listened to the inner voice, looking at the habit energy with father and I had. Our fear were connected tightly. The fear may be cultivated for a long time seeded from father's childhood experience or subconsciousness. So, what should I do at that moment. I practiced mindful walking to calm down myself, I also prayed to the sunflower to give me sun-radiant energy and courage. After one-day walking and inner working, I sent back my message with mindfulness energy. Then my father never text any other negative one to me during the retreat.

For me, flower essence is not only a medical product as natural therapy but clear message from nature. I did appreciate Dr. Bach to discover the way to make such remedy with energy from sun, flower,water and wind and have no any side effect (note: some people may say flower essence still have side effect emotionally. I will change to use Rescue if the respond is too strongly). People like me having no "traditional medical background" can also learn how to take care ourselves. The most significant thing is I re-connect with nature. Mindfulness is a tool called by retreatants in Western society nowadays. However, it is just WALK SLOWLY and PAY ATTENTION at PRESENT MOMENT in Nature. Everyone have ability to do and talk to flower.

Finally, just quick talk about some dreams with Jungian therapist recently . My dream connected with father and old men archetype a lot for last three weeks. My therapist and I both realized the issue I was dealing with seemed important to integrate Chinese culture and American (western) culture since I settled down in SF for few months. It was interesting to record dreams and found the male characters in my dreams were quite interconnecting to each other. The common part was "They are dying, and some were died already". I would love to study more analysis from Jungian perspective about this archetype. It should connect with sunflower essence a lot.

Sunflower in FES

plant study workshop in FES

Helianthus annuus L.

Hairy leaved sunflower, Sunflower, common sunflower

Helianthus annuus, a dicot, is an annual herb that is native to California and is also found elsewhere in North America and beyond.

Communities:	weed, species characteristic of disturbed places, wetland-riparian
Habitat:	disturbed [Walker]
Wetlands:	Equally likely to occur in wetlands or non wetlands [U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.]
Elevation:	between 0 and 6234 feet
Family:	ASTERACEAE
Related:	See a list of other species in the genus Helianthus found in California.http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/species_query.cgi?where-calrecnum=4040