Times of change: Grief and loss

During this dark time of the year, losing those we admire or love seems somehow harder. We often forget life is a continual series of loss of one kind or another. Just as the year changes with different periods of light and shade, we also move from infant to child, adolescent to adult, fertile to infertile, active to physically challenged, life to death and the passage something else or nothing, depending your own belief system. Each stage brings its own grief which may or may not be noticed or acknowledged.

Shakespeare depicted it in his own inimitable way when he wrote in “As you like it”

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with a good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Nancy Kerr recently introduced me to a round which sums up “a good life” eloquently in so few words. She was given it by her mother, Sandra, who attributed it either to Kabir, the Indian mystic or “an old Cherokee saying”.

When you are born you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.

Whether the loss be large or small, however it arrives there will be periods of grieving to a greater or lesser extent. There is one certainty; everyone will experience grief in a different way and probably at a different time, often when it is least expected. This is normal.

Many people today expect life to be like Norfolk; flat, when the reality is that life is like Birmingham; filled with hills and valleys but often covered with buildings so sunrise and sunset can be obscured.

Many people fear change and many more feel helpless when those around them are physically or emotionally in pain. There are many simple things which can be done to support those suffering and there are several herbs which can help.

Immediate support

It’s hard to plan for loss. News that something is ending whether it is a life, a job, a relationship or something else can elicit shock. Reactions can vary. Denial, avoidance, anger and pain are common and many people experience numbness where nothing seems real and the world turns in slow motion or catapults you into places where you have no control over events.

Shock puts great strain on the adrenal glands. An immediate response can be to offer Rescue Remedy Flower Essence (4 drops under the tongue every half hour for the first four hours or so). I use rose elixir in the same dosage or one dropperful/1/2 a teaspoon every hour.

Perhaps the most important role at this time is being with the person suffering. It doesn’t mean doing the “There, there, don’t cry” routine or “Would you like a cup of tea” because both those phrases impart an unconscious message that you can’t cope with their emotions so please will they stop doing it and you can’t cope so you need to escape to make the tea. Having said that, those suffering will often want respite from the presence of others so going into another room to make a drink can be helpful.

If someone is shocked and numb, they do need someone with them to take care of practical issues. If you know someone is likely to be given bad news, it’s best to go with them so you can hear what is being said and hopefully remember the important points and can make sure they are safe afterwards.

Herbs which help

All the soothing nervines will help to greater or lesser extents. Teas made from chamomile, lemon balm, lemon verbena or lime flowers taste good and can help to make the person feel more relaxed and cared for.

Although alcohol such as whisky or brandy are often given to people in shock it’s not really a good idea in large amounts. Alcohol may deaden the emotional pain for a while but the individual will be dehydrated and suffer other damage if it is used for any length of time.

When I was training mental health nurses and drugs teams several years ago, they all told that people who misused either alcohol or other substances nearly always started because of a bereavement they could not cope with. If grief is not acknowledged and supported, so many difficult life events can follow.

Many people find it difficult to sleep at this time. This is normal but can be debilitating. Chamomile relaxes smooth muscle and has a noticeable effect if tea is drunk twenty minutes prior to going to bed. You can also put it into a bath for both adults and children if drinking tea isn’t an option.

If going to sleep or waking in the night is a problem, passionflower tincture is really helpful for stopping the brain’s chatter. It is recommended to keep a dropper bottle by the bed so a dose can be easily taken without getting out of bed. Both passionflower and skullcap can be used in half doses with children, who will also be suffering, especially if those around them are noticeably upset.

Longer term herbal support

Grieving people often find themselves experiencing quite violent emotional outbursts. This can be anger, sorrow, regret or despair. It’s useful to remember that anger is known as a secondary emotion and usually arises from pain or fear. Often, if you address the primary emotion, anger will die away. Anger needs to be acknowledged so it can be properly addressed, ignoring it only makes it worse.

Emotional pain is also a very real event. If someone is suffering from a complicated grief reaction, which is more likely if they have lost a child or a loved one who was murdered, it can be life threatening.

I will often make up a “bereavement tonic” for someone who is grieving based on a mixture of four nervines. Those in the very early stages of grief will receive Vervain (it makes you let go), Lemon balm, St John’s wort (providing they are not only any other mental health pharmaceuticals) and nettles. The dose is 1tsp three times a day. I also give them a small dropper bottle of skullcap tincture to take when they feel a screaming habdab moment coming on or they just can’t cope any longer. A bottle of tonic should last about a month.

As time goes on, if things are still difficult or they approach me further along their timeline, the mix will probably contain Vervain, Milky Oats, Lemon Balm and Motherwort (especially if they’re experiencing hot flushes and minor palpitations which their doctor has already investigated and found nothing untoward) as a blended tincture and they’ll be given nettle seed to eat 1-2 tsps every day for up to three months.

Other herbs which can be really helpful are hawthorn flower essence which will aid forgiveness either of the person taking it or the person who died or who did something unhelpful around the time of the loss. Agrimony flower essence will also assist anyone who is keeping up a cheerful front but crying inside, the “tears of a clown” syndrome.

Lavender tincture has been called “a hug in a bottle” so may be useful to anyone who needs a hug during difficult times.

If you don’t have a flower essence available but do have a tincture, drop doses of the tincture can be given to obtain the same effect. Dose is 4 drops under the tongue four times a day or sipped in a glass of water throughout the day or 4 drops every half hour during a crisis.

This is only a very short commentary of a very complex subject. If you are interested in more information I have a booklet written especially for those who work with grieving people in any capacity as well as leaflets about herbs which can assist in restoring sleep. Please email me via the blog and I will send them to you.

May blog party : Flower essences

The wonderful thing about blog parties is the diverse wealth of articles produced by participants. This month is no exception.

Ali at Eldrum Musings offers a new (to me) way of considering medicinal herbal doses using the five elements from "earth" to "spiritual" which is the flower essence. She also shares her latest flower tinctures, white archangel and hawthorn.

Danielle at The Teacup Chronicles has looked at the background to flower essences and told her personal story of making and working with dandelion flower essence. I especially love her dramatic photos.

Debs at Herbal Haven has written a courageous article explaining why she doesn't agree with the whole concept of flower essences.

Lucinda at Whispering Earth blog has written a beautiful article, By Sun and Moon, descibing how she has made both a sun essence and a moon essence - something I have not yet attempted.

Jackie at Moongazing Hare has contributed a description of her personal journey with flower essences showing how anyone can make and use them.

My contribution can be found below. Again, it's very much a personal growth story. What I especially love is offering people who come to the Sanctuary the opportunity to build a personal relationship with a plant through making a flower essence. The whole process brings a delight and deeper understanding of possibilities which was not there before they started.

Flower essences : Working with energy and emotions

My first encounter with a flower essence came on 27 January 1988. I was lying in one of Solihull’s delivery suites with my new daughter by my side. As always, the birth had been quick and incredibly painful (5 hours instead of three and a half, but only because I woke up earlier!) and although my body had been very co-operative and efficient (it knew exactly what to do and told me to go away and let it get on with delivering the baby!), I was left in shock with a traumatised diaphragm because I’d pushed semi-prone rather than sitting up.

The door to the suite was open and my friend from the Solihull Community Health Council (CHC) Mother and Child Special Interest Group walked by. Margaret was an experienced NCT tutor and had been a stabilising influence to our survey of parentcraft classes throughout the borough which was our current project.

I beckoned her to come and meet my daughter as I was incredibly proud of finally producing a girl after two boys. When she saw the state I was in, she unearthed a bottle of rescue remedy from her bag and told me to put four drops under my tongue as often as I could.

“It won’t hurt,” she told me, “and it will help.”

I have to admit, with no herbal knowledge at that time, I was more than a little sceptical, but with paracetamol not touching any of the excruciating pains in my body – both from my diaphragm and the contracting uterus whenever I fed Kathryn – I tried to follow her instructions as often as I could. I suspect if I had taken it every half hour as I would recommend to anyone in crisis now, I would have gained more from it, but thankfully the diaphragmatic pain ceased after twelve hours or so and my general recovery was fairly trouble free.

The next time flower essences crossed my path was in 1996 during an oil making demonstration given by Christopher Hedley at the Chelsea Psychic Garden on behalf of the Herb Society. As we waited for the rosemary oil to infuse in its water bath, he told us stories about his patients.

“If you let people talk for long enough,” he said, “they will not only tell you what is wrong with them, but what they think has caused it.”

Once he treated a lady for a boil on her head. The boil had burst on Christmas Day and, not wanting to disturb Chris on this public holiday, she had gone to her local A&E. Chris said he would much rather have had his day disturbed because the boil became infected from the hospital visit and took much longer to heal. He treated the infection with thyme oil, but the lady also told him the emotional reason for developing the boil in the first place. He treated her emotion with flower essence and everything healed well.

Learning about energy during my healer training, gave me confidence to think about energetic uses of plants. It wasn’t something I could cope with at all during my early years with herbs, but gradually it seemed helpful to think about how plants targeted our emotional bodies as well as our physical ones.

The first flower essence I ever made was marshmallow. It was a laborious process bringing spring water and marshmallow flowers up from the Sanctuary, finding out a suitably sized bowl and then waiting for several hours until the infusion was complete. Marshmallow has a property of enabling people to make friends more easily. It suited my black humour at the time to threaten to send some as a present to the financial department of our managing Primary Care Trust who were giving me grief over my budget, knowing they would not appreciate the irony of the gift.

It was yarrow who taught me the most powerful energetic lesson with three separate instances over several years. The first came when one of my East Birmingham CHC members began his final illness. He’d been in pain for over a year, but no-one could put a definite cause together. His diagnosis of metastasised oesophageal cancer came days before I visited him in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. I was a student healer at the time and John had come to me for healing on several occasions. He was very angry with himself for “not doing enough to beat the illness”. I told him he was doing what he needed to be doing at that time, but I don’t know if the thought brought him any comfort.

I sat by his bedside holding his hand asking for as much love, light and healing as he needed. When I left, I kissed him goodbye on the forehead, not realising he was covered in a foul-tasting sweat which lingered on my lips. Making my way back to the car, I was desperate to find something to take the taste away. There on the steps leading down to the car park were some yarrow leaves. I gratefully picked them and chewed them and the taste was gone.

I didn’t know then about yarrow’s affinity with boundaries. Mathew Wood taught me that property when I read his “Book of Herbal Wisdom: Using plants as medicines”. He told the story of the man whose boss was continually in his face. Matthew suggested he keep a sprig of yarrow in his tool box. The man did this and noticed his boss back off almost immediately, allowing him to carry out his work without hindrance.

By this time I was beginning to offer flower essence making during my workshops – first as a specific workshop with one plant being chosen and a joint meditation - and then as an integral part of most summer workshops. After all, the most important component is at least three hour’s sunshine and access to flowers, so there seemed to be no reason to limit anyone’s activities in this area just because it wasn’t on the official list of things to do that day. Reading about the flower essence makers of Findhorn also showed it was possible to make essences on overcast and rainy days if the intention was clear.

I also learned bowls weren’t essential too. Carrying glass bowls down two fields and up again was not an easy thing to do. You could achieve exactly the same results with flowers spread over the tops of jam jars or glass tumblers. The picture might not be as aesthetically pleasing, but the flower isn’t going to mind!

Some people find it difficult or even impossible to go and sit quietly by a flower and see what it tells you. They look at me blankly when I suggest they wander around the Sanctuary or the field and see which flower calls to them. I remember one woman who did not stop talking for the entirety of the exercise, but even she found a flower which was perfect for her needs. (Lemon balm)

One of the flower essences we made during 2004 was yarrow. In June 2005, a close friend was involved in a traumatic situation and I was terrified of the possible consequences both for them and their family. This worry settled in my solar plexus as a physical pain. It took me several days to remember the yarrow flower essence, but eventually I decanted some into a tiny bottle and took it into work with me. I put four drops into a glass of water and sipped it. I repeated this several times that first day, amazed to find the pain disappeared almost immediately. I continued to dose myself for several days, but the severe pain did not return. It helped to teach me I was an individual separate from my friend. What was happening to them was not happening to me and being so fearful was not an effective way to offer support.

The setting of clear boundaries is something I often find difficult when offering support to others, but yarrow sometimes has to beat me over the head to get me to listen. A couple of years later a yarrow plant suddenly decided to grow outside my backdoor in Solihull. I’d never consciously grown yarrow in the garden, so was surprised to see it appear.

Each day I would open the back door and brush past the plant but never took the time to wonder why it might be growing there or what I might do with it. Several weeks after it started to flower, I realised I was getting very stressed by the clients I was seeing and various issues being faced by my family. The yarrow flower was trying to tell me I needed more help from the flower essence to rebuild and strengthen my boundaries. Needless to say, I took heed of the plant’s message!

The method I use for making flower essence comes from Non Shaw’s little book "Bach Flower Remedies : A Step-by-Step Guide". The sun method is for flowers and the boiling method for twigs, buds and leaves.

The sun method
Gather flowers in the morning when the dew has evaporated, but the flowers have not become too stressed by the sunshine. Pour 1 litre of spring or mineral water into a clean glass bowl and sprinkle the flowers on the surface of the water until it is completely covered. Leave for three hours in direct sunlight in a safe place. Remove the flowers with something other than metal or your hand e.g. a stick and pour 50ml of fluid into a clean dark bottle. Add 50 ml of brandy. Label the bottle and date.

The boiling method
Pick small twigs with flower clusters and young leaves. You will need enough twigs to 3/4s fill a large saucepan. Place them in the saucepan and add 1 litre of spring or mineral water. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for half an hour. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Remove flowers, allow sediment to fall to the bottom, then filter 50ml fluid into the dark glass jar. Add 50 ml brandy. Label bottle and date.

This makes 100ml of flower remedy. As long as you add equal amounts of brandy to the infusion, you can make any amount of what is called by Julie Bruton-Seal the mother essence. I have been using this as my dosing medium, but Julie suggests diluting twice before using the essence. She adds three drops of the mother essence to a 30ml bottle filled with brandy which is then known as the stock essence. This can then be used as follows:-

- Put 20 drops in the bath, then soak for at least 20 minutes
- Rub directly onto the skin or mix into salves or creams
- Put a few drops in a glass or bottle of water and sip during the day
- Make a dosage bottle to carry around with you by putting three drops of stock essence into a dropper bottle containing a 50/50 brandy and water mix or pure distilled rose water. Use several drops under the tongue four times a day or as often as necessary.

People have always said that you can’t overdose on a flower essence, but this refers to the diluted essence, not the mother stock. One of my apprentices misunderstood the dosage of a horse chestnut bud essence they made and took a large teaspoonful (over 60 drops) of the remedy. It was very resinous, which worried the apprentice greatly, but apart from the initial concern no long term harm was done.

Some herbalists don’t find flower essences helpful. This doesn’t mean they don’t use the energetic property of herbs, but they take them as teas or drop doses of tinctures, rather than a diluted infusion. I have made a vervain flower tincture when I didn’t have access to spring water because I wanted a drop dose medium to help people access vervain’s ability to make them ‘let go’.

Although there are standard energetic “uses” for particular plants, it is the close relationship and meditation between plant and human which reveals the use for that person at that time. As with everything related to universal energy, there are no set rules. You have to find what works for you and take responsibility for both accessing and using it.

REFERENCES
Bruton-Seal, J & Seal, M Hedgerow Medicine: Harvest & make your own herbal remedies 2008 Merlin Unwin Books Ltd
Cowan, E Plant Spirit Medicine 1995 Swan Raven & Co
Davies, J R Hawthorn 2000 Element Books Ltd
Davies, J R Marigold 2000 Element Books Ltd
Lavender, S & Franklin, A Herbcraft: A Guide to the Shamanic and Ritual Uses of Herbs 1996 Capall Bann Publishing
Sanders, K “The Spiritual Properties of Herbs” on Herbal Highways June 17 2004
Shaw, N Bach Flower Remedies : A Step-by-Step Guide 1998 Element Books
Wood, M The Book of Herbal Wisdom: Using Plants as Medicines 1997 North Atlantic Books