In reviewing my various posts, I see that just little over a year ago I wrote about Dr. Bach’s Mustard flower remedy to help with the winter gloom normally referred to as ‘seasonal affective disorder’ or, SADS. So many people suffer from the lack of sunshine during winter, especially in Northern climes, that temporary depression is more common than not.
Many years ago I had the opportunity to experience Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. I traveled to the furthest place north, up to the ‘Butt of Lewis’ where I looked out at the sea and thought, ‘this is the end of the earth…in the words of the medieval map makers, “Here Be Dragons”. In those days there was no such thing as satellite discs or internet in every crofters’ cottage, not to mention that the cottages were often miles apart from one another. Even though I was there in June(when the sun shines as if it were high noon at two o’clock in the morning!) I distinctly wondered about what had to be wide-spread depression during the winter months of howling winds, massive snow and endless darkness…and this was in the 1980’s…imagine what it was 200 years ago! Fortunately today, technology has come to the Hebrides, but nevertheless the mood swings that accompany lack of sunlight can affect us all. For this reason I thought it appropriate to re-post my piece on Dr. Bach’s Mustard from a year ago as his remedies, like the change of seasons, are timeless.
If Colonel Mustard did the dastardly dead in the library with a pistol, he’s clearly not your man to help with seasonal gloom. As I look out my office window at the December rain that’s pouring down, I’m reminded there’s an emotional fog that can come with the onset of the winter season or suddenly appears for no reason at all. This fog can settle over any one of us, especially for those in the more northern areas of the country. For some, this ‘funk’ arrives like clockwork throughout the months that I call ‘the dark ages’ when sunlight takes a holiday replaced by grey days that are endless. For others, they’re fine one moment and in the next, they feel like they’ve suddenly fallen into a black hole. When this happens, there’s relief to be found (besides taking vitamin D), in Dr. Bach’s flower remedy Mustard.
Mustard was not one of Bach’s Twelve Healers and therefore wasn’t one of the Soul Type remedies that I’ve been writing about in previous posts. And, it wasn’t one of the ‘Seven Helpers’ which were next in the line of discovery. However, it is one of the final 19 remedies which Bach discovered between 1934-35. He described these remedies as being more ‘spiritualized’, functioning at a ‘higher vibration’ than the earlier 19 and that they functioned on a ‘different plane’.
How and why these or for that matter any of Dr. Bach’s 38 remedies work, we don’t know as yet in a way that is understood by the bio-medical model. But, at the end of the day, this isn’t really the issue. More importantly, when there’s a resonance between a remedy’s vibrational energy, life force, prana or Qi (whatever word you want to use) and the individual, there’s a shifting of perception and mood. With Mustard it’s as if the remedy ‘lifts’ the gloom up and out of wherever it has settled within the person’s energy fields and emotional experience.
The key to identifying a ‘Mustard state’ is that there’s no one specific event or happening that throws you into the sense that you have a black cloud hanging over you. It can simply be that you are routinely sensitive to the lack of sunlight or that you occasionally experience a sudden onset of feeling low-spirited. If you happen to be someone who experiences these moments or seasons of depressive gloom, Mustard is the remedy.
For clients who often experience a negative Mustard state, I recommend making a ‘personal formula bottle’. This will help the 20ml ‘stock bottle’ you buy in the stores go a lot further, nor will the fact that the remedy is diluted in 1 oz of water, affect its power in any way. On my website, look at the sub-link, What if you feel you need more than one remedy? There you will find directions for making a personal formula bottle for one or a combination of remedies.
DR. EDWARD BACH’S MUSTARD
Photography©Dr. Edward Bach Foundation
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