Centaury and Chiron

I have just learned* that the centaury flower was named after Chiron, the Greek god known as the wounded healer. He was a centaur – half man, half horse – fathered by Cronus, and the only centaur (a brutish species) to help others, including humankind.  He was a healer and herbalist and his name lived on in chirurgeon, the old English word for surgeon. Chiron was said to have invented surgery.

Chiron comes from the Greek word for hand, and as we know, Centaury types in the Bach flower system are people always willing and happy to ‘lend a hand,’ to help others wherever they can. Even if they do so at the expense of their own health or needs because they never feel able to refuse. That’s when the Centaury flower remedy will help them to recover a better life balance, strengthening their will by learning when to say no to excessive, unreasonable or inconvenient demands on their time or energy.

Chiron was abandoned as a newborn and later was permanently infected by a poisoned arrow.  He used the centaury plant as an antidote to the poison but the pain never left him. So he was wounded in two life-changing ways. His mission in life – as is often the case with Centaury types – was to serve others.  In order to free Promethus from everlasting torment Chiron relinquished his immortality; as a result, Zeus fixed Chiron in the sky as the constellation Sagittarius – also known as Centaurius. 

For more on the flower essence, click on Centaury in the index on the right.

 

Photo: Ally Matson

References:

* Beatrice Groves on X/Twitter

Neel Burton, M.A., M.D. in Psychology Today

Chantal Bourgenje on flowerology.substack.com

Fear: a perspective you may not have considered before.

In Twelve Healers, Dr Bach mentions the word fear five times in the first 300 words for he knew how much fear lives in every one of us. And I suspect he also knew what psychologist Tara Brach currently says: ‘If you have any really difficult emotion and you scratch below the surface, you will find fear.’*

Dr Bach gave us – out of 38 flower remedies – 5 notionally for fear. But when we scratch below the surface we can detect fear in almost all of the others. When we need Gorse, for instance, we can detect the fear that there is no point in trying further as the situation is doomed to failure. With Wild Rose we are numbed into apathy from the fear of being powerless to change our circumstances. (Freeze, flight, fight, the trinity of how fear affects our adrenals.)  All the remedies in the Despair Group are for fear of life never being as good as it was once, not good enough to meet current need, nor improving in any way.

And the remedies in the Overcare Group are all about the fear of losing control – the ‘fight’ element in adrenalin stimulation. While in the Loneliness Group, Impatiens and Water Violet point towards ‘flight’ and Heather shouts of the fear of being excluded from a loving circle, from the warmth of the fire at the heart of the tribe.

Dr Bach of course never wanted us to scratch below the surface when finding a remedy for someone. He made it clear that we should select purely on the basis of what the person is feeling now, whether it’s burn out after a long period of stress, inability to be decisive or to say no when under pressure, and so on.  But for those of us interested in psychology and the development of the human psyche (especially with 100 years of advancing knowledge and understanding available to us), what lies beneath the surface will continue to be of interest and importance.  When we understand someone, our hearts can support them in other ways.

‘Fear is an intelligent emotion.’* We need its primeval drive to protect us from anything that may harm us, but too often the mind goes into overdrive in the anticipation of what might happen. The origin of the word worry in fact comes from the verb strangle – and look how often we can see worry and anxiety strangling our pleasure in daily life and choking our ability to cope or meet challenges. Hornbeam, Walnut, Scleranthus, White Chestnut are just the first to spring to mind for these occasions.

We suffer fear because of feeling a loss of connection with others. In that suffering we are no longer in a position to listen to our heart^, which would tell us that we are not alone, we have never been cut off from connection with the wider human family. The flower remedies help us to remember that. By dissipating fear and worry they restore our sense of community, of belonging, of being One with all that is.

Photo: Ally Matson

* Awakening your Fearless Heart, Parts 1 and 2 by Tara Brach on Youtube

^ More on this in my previous blog. 

Trees and living from the heart

 

In ‘How to read a tree’, the author* writes, “Trees aren’t aware of what the next question will be, but they know the answer. It’s always, ‘Grow more wood.’” In other words, “Trees grow more wood wherever they sense [stress], until it evens out the strain.” This sounds like the essence of Oak, doesn’t it? Responding to ongoing demands without taking a sensible break for rest and recuperation, but adding resilience and determination to the flagging spirit, just as the oak tree adds more timber.

Considered again, this insight into trees is equally true of all 16 trees in the Bach flower range.  As we scan our recollection of them we can see how the essence of each underlies the tree’s own strength and aims.  Walnut gives us the protection and strength to resist outside influence on our plans and dreams. Pine and Larch give us the ‘extra bark’ to resist unnecessary feelings of guilt, or lack of confidence, respectively.  Elm provides the fortitude to overcome our belief that we cannot cope with all our responsibilities.  And similarly with all the other tree remedies.

Trees prioritise the security and well-being of their armour, their bark (not their heartwood) and do whatever is needed to preserve it in prime condition.  Do humans do the same with their heart? Or is it the mind?  Which one does all the thinking, reacting, over-reacting and over-thinking when something appears to threaten us?

The first 8 cells of a human foetus form the heart, such is its importance. But the mind is something that small children start to develop in response to their environment – which includes siblings, parents, daily life, emotional atmosphere etc.  The mind is the one that ‘grows wood’ in self-protection.  I imagine the heart as a loving, caring mother holding the hand of a tired, fretful toddler (the mind), trying to soothe and allay the fears, anxiety, impatience, bad temper and self-centredness that all small  children (and minds) are prey to.  Amidst all the noise which the mind generates on a continual basis, the voice of the heart can go unheard and ignored, yet remain always open to compassion, always ready to love.

The primary role of the mind is to protect the human from danger but it can get over-stimulated.  It may not know the answer to perceived threats but it knows to ‘grow more wood’, so it shields itself with a carapace that onlookers see as aggression, boasting, garrulity, anger, irritation and a hundred other negative emotions.

The flower remedies restore in us a proper balance. They quieten the mind’s hectic voices so that the loving energy of the heart can come to the surface. The fretful child stops growing wood and allows the mother to come to the rescue with the caring, protective energy that restores peace and radiates harmony, compassion and calm – to the benefit of everyone.

*How to read a tree: clues and patterns from roots to leaves, by Tristan Gooley.

 

Self-pity - a distorted version of reality

Willow catkin by Ally Matson

Willow is the flower remedy to help us shift the feelings of self-pity and resentment which we can all experience from time to time.

The word ‘resentment’ means ‘to feel again’. When we are resentful we re-live the emotion which upset us and stoke the embers of self-pity and injustice into a new flame of bitterness and ‘poor me’. Willow is for those times when we are in the ‘me versus them’ mood. ‘They’ always have it so good, everything is easy for them, whereas I am always the one who suffers, I’m always the last one to be considered.  The anger we aim at others can also be a way of avoiding anger at ourselves.

When we feel sorry for ourselves, we have chosen a version of reality to fit our feelings. Paget Kagy (@pagetkagy) says on her Instagram page that life is like Netflix – we can choose any programme to watch and even while we are watching it, all the other programmes still exist, running concurrently in the ether rather than in front of us. When we choose the programme that shows us as the long-suffering martyr, we can take Willow and come to realise that life is whatever reality we wish to enact: we can select the programme for love, laughter, self-fulfilment, hope – or the opposites.

Even quantum physics supports this way of perceiving reality. It finds that past outcomes are only fixed when decisions are made in the present. This echoes what Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Don’t feel harmed, and you haven’t been."

When we are suffering from self-pity, we wallow in the story. The initial causative emotion may have passed some time ago but we keep replaying the story of who made us unhappy, what they said, or what they did or didn’t do, that felt unfair and undeserved. That story rumination is unhealthy. Taking Willow helps to ground us so that, having felt the feelings which caused us misery, we rise up from that mire, see the mud for what it was – something to learn from – and grow upwards into a bright, new day.

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More about Willow and the other 37 remedies in my new book Space to Reflect,  here

Drained as a dud battery

Reading^ about the Fair Trade programme to replant the West Bank with olive trees, prompted me to look again at the chapter on Olive in Julian Barnard’s book*. He discusses how olive plants (like vines) are subject to constant coercion, dominion and pruning by human beings.  Olive trees, once their annual fruit harvest starts to fail, are chopped back to the ground, from where they will produce shoots that eventually form a new tree.  Thus an olive tree can essentially be over 900 years old, based in the same soil, faced with the same blazing sun for 9 centuries. No wonder it becomes tired out. “Olive gives, giving until exhausted.”*

Artwork by kind permission of Inga Berkensträter, BFRP

But the resilience which is integral to the olive tree is also echoed in the flower remedy. “…yet through the scent of water it will bud and bring forth branches like a young plant.” Julian Barnard includes this quote from the bible** and we receive this benefit from taking the Olive remedy when we need it: our strength of mind, body and spirit is restored. We partake of the olive’s ability to regenerate, revive, renew.

The 2-3 year old saplings being planted in Palestine will not mature enough to give fruit for another 5 years. Olive trees mature at 15 – and will struggle on with their existence until they are 800-1000 years old.  We can see how exhaustion is a key note in the Olive flower remedy. Exhaustion as in completely depleted. As drained as a dud battery.

Fascinatingly, in Gwenda’s book on the flower remedies^^ she describes how olives contain oleic acid, a compound also released by some insects such as ants when they die. She recounts an experiment where an ant was daubed with oleic acid. It was immediately sensed as being dead by the other ants and was ejected from the nest. Only after the ant managed to clean itself of the smell was it allowed to return. Gwenda calls it the smell of, ‘I’m dead’ – exactly how those in need of Olive might think of themselves!

 

For more information on all the flower remedies, see my new book, details here.

^  Positive News, Jan 2026

*   Bach Flower Remedies Form and Function, Julian Barnard @HealingHerbs

**  Job 14:9

^^ The Plants of Dr Bach, Gwenda Kyd

 

Male Loneliness Epidemic

Photo by Danill Onischenko on Unsplash 

On social media there is much talk of the male loneliness epidemic. There seems to be quite a number of reasons for it: can the Bach Flower Remedies help to dispel it and if so how?

One of the remedies listed for the distress of loneliness is Heather.  It is easy to see why those in need of it might be lonely – because they can only talk about themselves and their own issues, with no interest or curiosity in anyone else.  They are so desperate for attention, to fill the emptiness inside, that they have no awareness of how they are tiring and boring their audience. Who, feeling drained of energy, leave as soon as they can.

Why are there only 3 essences in Dr Bach’s Loneliness Group?*  Maybe because many of the  other flower remedies have elements of loneliness about them too. And it’s for this reason that if someone says to us that they are lonely, we should not automatically assume the choice lies between just 3 remedies.  There are many issues which may give rise to someone feeling lonely.  They may be dictatorial or controlling, which would call for Vine.  They may be critical or condescending about anything they perceive in another person – partner, date, friend – which could be ameliorated with Beech.  As romantic partners they may be too possessive, or clingy to the point of being manipulative, and would benefit from Chicory.      

Or they may feel consciously lonely through carrying a burden of guilt (Pine) or a hankering after a person or situation in the past (Honeysuckle), or a grief or trauma they haven’t yet healed from (Star of Bethlehem).  They may feel lonely because they consider their appearance or health is off-putting (Crab Apple) or because they never have the confidence to try anything new (Larch).                                           

Most lonely people will have a complex background or family history giving rise to a complicated set of emotions that won’t be resolved by one remedy alone. That’s where a Bach Flower Remedy Practitioner can help.  Anyone can learn to choose and use the flower remedies for themselves but sometimes off-loading to a practitioner can provide insights which we can’t see for ourselves.  Search for a registered practitioner here.

Isolation versus connection: in the light of a spiritually evolving humanity, we come to understand that if we are all one, part of the same Unity, then ultimately loneliness is a social construct. We may feel a temporary disconnection from others, but loneliness itself cannot exist. We find that the word loneliness contains the word Oneness. Separated from it we feel *ill* – and those 3 letters infiltrating Oneness spell Loneliness.

More about all of these remedies can be found in my new book Space to Reflect.

* These are the other 2: Impatiens helps when we are so keen to save time, to manage by ourselves rather than accept help, that people can feel repelled by our manner. Impatience is often expressed as irritation so others avoid you or do not enjoy your company.

Water Violet is useful when your need for detachment and distance is perceived by others as aloofness or even disdain. Water Violet helps us to understand how remote our manner has become so that we can bridge the gap that yawns between us and others.

Holly - the mender of hearts

Yay, last week the sun (in the northern hemisphere) stopped setting earlier and sank at the same time each day. From now on, sunset will be a minute or two later every day until midsummer.  

In the old Julian calendar (which existed until the middle of the 18^th century) the shortest day was 13^th December and is St Lucy’s Day.  Her name means ‘Light’ and she is also the patron saint of sight, reminding us we need light in order to be able to see – both physically and spiritually.  Her colour (in the church liturgy) is the same as that of the holly berry – bright red, a colour we always associate with heart love.  Something that’s noticeably lacking if we are in the emotional state that calls for Holly.

"Repairing Hearts" by Charles H. Geilfus. 1900,
from Vintage posters and Visual Curiosities 

Poet John O’Donohue* writes: 

“Love is the light in which we see light. Love is the light in which we see each thing in its true origin, nature and destiny.… The loving eye sees through and beyond images and affects the deepest change. To recognise how you see things can bring you self-knowledge and enable you to glimpse the treasures your life secretly holds.”

This year, with all the divisiveness, aggression and hatred  both in public and private life, we have seen a great need for Holly, as these hostile emotions are the antithesis of love. Where we see the urge for revenge – ‘getting my own back’ – or the urge to cause suffering (malice and spite) or witness the verbal or physical reactions that are prompted by jealousy, envy, antagonism or suspicion, we see a need for Holly, for the love which manifests as compassion, understanding and goodwill. In Celtic folklore the holly tree is sacred and symbolises peace and goodwill.

“Holly connects us with the fundamental unity in the universe.  There can be no hatred of others when we and they are part of the same whole,” writes Stefan Ball.** 

*John O’Donohue in Anam Cara

** Bloom, available from the Bach Centre, along with my books.