How To Make Plant Spirit Essences

To make Plant Spirit Essences, you'll need a clear glass bowl filled 2/3rds of the way with water (preferably Spring Water, but Distilled or Purified should work just as well).

Decide on which plant you want to make an Essence from, based on its spiritual and metaphysical properties. It's preferable to choose a plant that is considered non-toxic, but since essences are highly diluted and carry no phytochemical actions (only energetic actions), even toxic plants can be used with extreme caution. Regardless, choose one type of plant for an Essence only.

If you are harvesting day-blooming flowers, gather your materia in the morning after the dew has tried, when the sun is strong and the sky is cloudless. But gather them before noon, or before the weather gets too hot. If you'e harvesting night-blooming plants, however, they should be gathered at night instead, when the moon is full and the blooms have fully opened. The sky should likewise be cloudless; though Plant Spirt Essences contain only energetic actions, you still want the materia to be at its peak production of oils when harvested, for the strongest Spirit imprint.

Regardless of what kind of plant you're harvesting, harvest your materia while focusing on your intention. It's usually preferred to harvest flowers in particular, but one wants to avoid touching the materia at all during the harvesting process. So (for example with flowers) hold the stem just beneath the flower head, and cut just below your fingers. Drop the flowers into the bowl one at a time until the surface of the water is covered- but don't harvest so much that the flowers start to crowd one other.

Ideally when picking the flowers you don't want to touch the plant with your hands at all. One approach is to hold the glass bowl just below the flower with one hand, while snipping the stalk directly beneath the flower head with the other. This allows the flowers drop directly onto the surface of the water with zero contact.

When you're finished, set the bowl in clear sunlight for day-blooming flowers- or clear moonlight for night-blooming flowers. The bowl needs to stay in unbroken celestial light, away from shade, for 3 hours at this point. Once that time frame has been reached, strain the water through a cotton cloth to remove the materia and any debris.

To finish, the energized water is then mixed 1/2 and 1/2 with 40 proof brandy (some people use different preservatives other than Brandy, but Brandy is the traditional preservative). After stiring or shaking well to combine, the resulting mixture is then stored once amber glass bottles, appropriately labeled. You now have what is known as a "Mother Essence" or "Mother Tincture".

These Mother Essences are further diluted to make the actual Essence Remedies. The correct dilution ratio should be 2 drops to every 30 ml. So, for example, if you have a 10 ml bottle, it should contain 2/3rds a drop of Mother Essence. A 20 ml bottle should contain 1 and 1/3rd drops.