Contact author Laura S. - antique@vfr.net

Let me start off by saying I am not an expert in flower essences (or "essences" for short). One of the things I like about flower essences is that no matter what flower essence you give a cat, it either does nothing or it benefits the cat -- in other words, it does no harm. ~ Safe, no side affects or chance of misuse, flower essences can be given in water, food or directly in the mouth. As little as two drops added to drinking water for benefits. ~ Oh goody, a safety net -- just my speed. Idiot-proof. Easy. This I like.

I am not a "formal" flower essence diagnostician or practitioner. There are people who become specially trained in practicing in the field of flower essences, on humans, cats, dogs, birds, whatever), but I could not afford to pay such an expert so I had to learn the rudiments from books in order to make the essences available to my own cats.

I have no training other than what I've learned from books by people who know more than I on the subject (these books are listed below). The several books I have function as constant references I can go back to time after time to find out more about my cats' symptoms and the characteristics/properties of the specific essences. Each essence has a set of characteristics attributed to it -- for example, a characteristic/property of the plant called "Star of Bethlehem" = good for shock or trauma, either recent or from a past experience. There are a number of other essences with this same (or similar) characteristic, like "Calendula" and "Lavender."

When I refer to giving flower essences to cats, I don't mean to imply that cats are the only beings that can be helped by flower essences -- humans, dogs, and I imagine many other animals are benefitted but I leave these up to the experts because I've worked with cats only. This article is about flower essences and cats, but do know that whatever applies to cats also applies to other beings as well.

Flower essences when given to cats have such wonderful long-term healing qualities that I am willing to waste some flower essences liquid to make sure the cat gets some essences that help. I call it a "shotgun approach": some flower essence is bound to be the right one. Not very elegant, but it gets the job done. I work with probabilities.

Even after lots of studying of the books, I was never very good at finding the EXACT flower essence(s) a cat needs at a particular time. I tried and tried, and gave up. As an example, it is likely I'll now give a cat three essences (guessing), one of which benefits her but the other two appear to do nothing, but I never can figure out which of the three helped. I sort of feel that even the essences that "appear" to have done nothing (even if I could identify those) really do end up helping on some level invisibly years down the line.

Before I really get into the flower essences themselves, know that flower essences heal emotional, mental and spiritual wounds of a being, and are very subtle. Essences are not substitutes for conventional allopathic medicine -- or substitutes for herbs, homeopathy, acupuncture, aromatherapy, or other modes of healing. It is appropriate to do flower essences concurrently with other healing techniques. Include flower essences in an overall plan of getting your cat well and contented. If you are addressing a specific medical issue or emergency like a bite wound, get the cat to a veterinarian right away. Where flower essences fit in is they'd help the cat deal with "how she FELT about having the bite wound," if you get my drift. If you need to help your cat recover from a broken heart or other trauma, flower essences are the best, but they'll take TIME.

I gave up trying to look for much of a concrete result within a specific period of time. What I learned to look for over several weeks' time is: 1) Is the cat looking better and feeling better? 2) Is she behaving the way cats generally behave when they are content? 3) Are there signs she is "coming back to life," so to speak? In other words, at least for me, there is no immediate and concrete result, and that's okay -- I can live with that. All I look for in a cat I've been giving flower essences to is an increased sense of well-being over a number of weeks -- that's it. Emotional and spiritual wounds of ANY being takes time (weeks or months, sometimes years), and expect the cat to exhibit plenty of (or off and on) "down-time" and "crabby-time" -- and know that "down" is appropriate and good. Beings, including cats, don't heal according to a linear progression -- they heal in fits and starts, so don't look for consistency. Just look for a general trend of gradually increasing contentment.

There are a lot of people who know a lot more about flower essences than I, and there are people who know a lot more about flower essences + cats than I. I am here to point you in the direction of people who are more expert than I, including books, websites and suppliers. When I first got into flower essences in the mid-1990s, there wasn't much published, whereas now there's is lots available for "do-it-yourselfers" like us. The Internet is a really good resource too.

Try different techniques. Read different authors. Start here but go beyond it. Experiment and find out what techniques, strategies and suppliers work for you and your cat(s). The payoff is huge.

You'll find different authors saying conflicting things. Pick one and see if it works for you. If nothing happens, move on and try something else. You will eventually settle into a routine using specific resources that work for you. Don't try to make the authors agree. One may say that two drops is the minimum while another says five drops. One may say that putting essences in the drinking water doesn't work, yet another may say just the opposite, that putting essences in drinking water is the only way to go. Keep in mind that the authors are saying what "is true for them" according to their experience, cats and environments, but not necessarily true for everyone. Just try something, and see if you see small changes in mood or behavior in the cat.

What I know from personal experience is that flower essences work. But they don't necessarily work FAST, and Americans don't like SLOW. Can't please 'em all.