Aspen: Making a Bach Flower Remedy by the Boiling Method

Have you ever had one of those moments when you’ve felt uneasy and apprehensive for no obvious reason? Maybe feeling a strange sense of foreboding, a shiver of anxiety, or the feeling that something unseen is unsettling you? This is the Aspen Bach Flower state – the unknown fears and worries that we cannot quite explain.

In this article we’ll explore the emotional state behind the Aspen flower essence, and how Dr Bach prepared it using his new boiling method.

The Aspen Bach Flower Remedy

Aspen (Populus Tremula) is one of the 38 Bach Flower Remedies that were created by Edward Bach in the 1930’s. The Bach Flower Remedies are now used and loved all around the world, but when Bach first created his flower remedies, they were something completely new.

Dr Bach is often known as the father of modern flower essences, and the remedies were a culmination of his life’s work. He made the remedies from the wild flowers that he found in the natural landscape around him, using the subtle energy signature or energy imprint of a flower. To capture this subtle energy, he pioneered two new making methods – the sun method and the boiling method. Aspen is one of the remedies made by the boiling method.

So, lets take a more in-depth look at the Aspen remedy, what it is and how it’s made.

What Is the Aspen Bach Flower Remedy Used For?

Aspen is the Bach Remedy for fear of the unknown, those vague fears and apprehensions for which there are often no obvious or logical reasons. These fears can be potent, and intense and yet vague and unknown at the same time and the Aspen state can be most uncomfortable to be in.

They are often not easy fears to share either, as Bach said ‘sufferers often are afraid to tell their troubles to others’. Aspen fears are often vague and can be of some unknown future event, forebodings, fears of dark or strange places that give you the creeps, unsettling dreams, or the creepy, shivery feeling fears of the unseen world around us. Understandably Dr. Bach placed Aspen in his fear group of remedies.

Doctrine of Signature

When you look at an Aspen tree in full leaf, you can clearly see the doctrine of signature – the leaves flutter, tremble and quake in the lightest of breezes – clearing showing the trembling fear of the Aspen remedy state. This unusual effect is caused by an Aspen’s flattened petioles (a petiole is the stalk that attaches a leaf to its branch), which means that the leaves are able to catch the wind from any direction. Also if you stand against an Aspen tree you can often feel a slight quivering tension or shaking in the trunk of the tree.

When Did Bach First Make the Aspen Remedy?

Aspen is one of Dr Bach’s second nineteen remedies, and these he made over the course of six months or so in 1935. He would have made Aspen in the countryside in or around the village of Sotwell, where he had settled by this stage of his life. In her biography of Bach, Nora Weeks suggests that these were not easy discoveries and that in the run up to making the second nineteen remedies, Bach experienced very strongly the states of mind for which that particular remedy was required.

Making an Aspen Mother Tincture

Aspen and all of the other ‘second nineteen’ remedies (with the exception of White Chestnut), Dr Bach prepared using the new Boiling Method of preparation that he had pioneered at some point over the winter months. This is a very different method of making a Bach remedy to the sun method that he had used to make each of his first nineteen remedies.

Why Did Dr Bach Use the Boiling Method?

Unlike the sun method, which uses the heat and power of the sun to potentise the water with the energy signature of the flower, the boiling method uses the heat of a fire to energise the water. There may have been a number of reasons that Bach chose to use this new method, not least because many of the trees, such as Aspen, Beech, Elm, Cherry Plum and Larch flower early in the season before there is consistent warmth in the sun.

There must have been more to it than this though, as Bach carried on using the boiling method throughout the year, and with more delicate flowers such as Star of Bethlehem, Honeysuckle and Wild Rose that could have been prepared by the sun method. As neither Edward Bach nor Nora Weeks left any notes on the matter, we are left to think that maybe the qualities of the fire from the earth (the qualities of the heat from ancient sunlight) give the remedy some quality that was different to the direct heat of the sun?

Certainly, Bach himself said that “there is no doubt that these new remedies act on a different plane to the old. They are more spiritualized and help us to develop that inner great self in all of us which has the power to overcome all fears, all difficulties, all worries, all disease.”

How to Make an Aspen Mother Tincture

To make a boiling method remedy you need a 20cm saucepan (enamel or stainless steel), spring water, a stove or burner, and of course the flowers, in this case Aspen. The Aspen tree flowers from towards the end of February through to mid or late March, although as with any tree, this varies from season to season and on where it is found in the country.

When you come to make your remedy choose a clear, bright day, and aim to get your flowers picked and in the pan before 9am. Choose both male and female Aspen flowers from a variety of trees with around fifteen centimetres of twig and flowers on. Fill your saucepan three quarters full of flowers and then add around 1.1 litres (2 pints) of spring water, and after putting the lid on, take this home as soon as you can.

On a stove, bring the water in the pan to the boil with the lid off, before simmering for half an hour. When the 30 minutes are up, put the lid back on, take the pan outside, and leave the liquid to cool until it is cold. Then remove the twigs and flowers and filter the remaining water and mix with an equal amount of brandy. This will give you an Aspen Bach flower mother tincture.

Handmade with Love & Care

Making a mother tincture is a special and beautiful process. When you’re making a mother tincture or mother essence you’re working with the energy of the flower that you are making the essence from.

This is a process that needs to be undertaken from a heart centred space of love, a centred and connected space where you are in communication with the nature spirits and devas and your own higher self. This is a very important part of the essence making process as the quality of the essence will depend in part on the energy or vibrational frequency of the flowers that you use.

Choosing with heart, integrity and discernment and connecting with the nature spirits of the plant that you choose and asking for permission are a really important part of the process.

Al of our Bach Flower Remedies are handmade with love and care, according to the original instructions of Dr Edward Bach.