Pedicularis flower essence helps the soul to remember and to release. One who needs Pedicularis often displays anxiety along with deep sensitivity, for there is fear within the soul that one is merely repeating or revisiting past states of soul life, without the strength to clearly name the reality and to move forward from it.

We love to climb to the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada in late summer – right to where alabaster snow caps turn into glorious flowing streams. One of the extraordinary flowers we cherish growing along these melting waterways is Pedicularis (Pedicularis groenlandica). This unique wildflower is fully married to the water element. Its fern-like, finely serrated soft leaves remind us of an earlier evolutionary state in plant life, when ferns and algae flourished within swirls of vast watery vapors and mists. The inflorescence is likewise intriguing with its soft magenta clusters, featuring unusually shaped flowers with two large wing petals, and a banner flower with a protruding beak or spur. This unusual formative gesture in the plant explains its common name of Elephant’s Head, resembling the trunk and the floppy ears of the elephant.

The dried flowers of several Pedicularis species, including P. groenlandica, are employed as a herbal smoke with deeply relaxing and tranquilizing qualities for the nervous and muscular-skeletal system. Some herbalists recommend a tincture for Insomnia when caused by muscular “jolts” upon falling asleep. Other practitioners use it in myotherapy or deep muscle work like Rolfing, not only for relaxation and receptivity, but also to prevent muscles from returning to old patterns and postures.

These herbal uses provide insight for how Pedicularis works as a flower essence. There is a pronounced patterning in those who need this flower, an entrenchment of powerful states of soul consciousness from the deep past of the soul’s identity. Accompanying this soul condition is a hyper-sensitivity, a watery amorphous emotional state that remembers and carries the past, but is lacking in clarity or separation. We can also see this soul gesture in the form of the plant, with its distinctive beak or spur, which extends out but then curves back in on itself.

Pedicularis flower essence helps the soul to remember and to release. One who needs Pedicularis often displays anxiety along with deep sensitivity, for there is fear within the soul that one is merely repeating or revisiting past states of soul life, without the strength to clearly name the reality and to move forward from it. The following example was reported by a client who used Pedicularis for some time, either alone or in select formulas:

“I was standing in line for various details of paperwork involving my immigration status. Suddenly, my general unease and apprehension escalated to a full-blown panic anxiety attack. These attacks were not unknown to me — I had suffered them sporadically for many years. However when taking Pedicularis something new happened. As the anxiety began to pervade me, I saw clearly a picture of another time several centuries earlier in which I was violently taken prisoner by military authorities from another country. I worked more extensively with this image, and saw that I met my death in a cold and damp prison, isolated from family and friends, after many years of suffering. I cannot prove any of this. I only know that once I clearly identified this overwhelming reality which seemed to have been lurking in the subconscious strata of my soul, it no longer had any hold on me. I never again suffered those panic anxiety attacks. I knew that I was now a different person, with a different destiny. I was free to choose my reality and I was no longer haunted by an unknown past.”

Pedicularis is in the Magenta Self-Healer formula to help transform past karmic patterns, that block healing. 

See this enchanting video of the Pedicularis growing along a mountain stream.