the Bach Flower Remedy:
Chicory

Chicory: Remedy from the set of the Twelve Healers

About this music

Performed with flute, saxophone, piano, bass and drums on several occasions.

Highly syncopated opening section in 2/2 time focussed on saxophone energy, then blues-like improvisation leading to 12/8 section with higher calmer melody for flute with inner fast triplet feel on piano.

Calm ending as triplets change to quavers, and the opening is echoed in a slower tempo.

Lyrics for Chicory

Chicory is an instrumental piece.

About Chicory, the Bach Flower Remedy

Originally Chicory was named the Egoist by Bach, with the soul lesson of becoming selfless through devotion to others. Later he described the Chicory person as over-full of care for others, correcting and needing family and friends close to them. But earlier he was more outspoken – Chicory people were possessive, self-centred, hard-natured, spiteful, vindictive and cruel.

The remedy, in addition to relieving any symptoms of this class of patient, stimulates sympathy with others, which is their lesson: hence turns their attention more from themselves, and so, out of sympathy for their victims, they cease their aggression; and may become of service to those they previously devitalised

Chicory flowers are an indicator, like a type of litmus, which changes colour according to the acid-alkali chemistry of the water. The flowers have a very short life, opening at around 8am and collapsing by noon.

Just as the flowers change colour so Chicory types change the way they behave according to the company they are in: charming and pleasant to a visitor they may be simultaneously heaping emotional garbage upon the family or friend who is out of favour. To understand the true nature of the Chicory type we may need to see then outside and away from their domestic environment. Bach noted this when observing that they want to love and bless the whole world but feel constrained by those nearest to them.

Chicory always asks the question: How do I feel? What are my concerns? We see this in the powerful domineering structure of the plant that thrusts others aside. The leaves and the stems are tough, while the flowers are as fine and delicate as could be. This is the contradiction of Chicory: it is changeable, fussy and contradictory. Chicory people know what is best for everyone, correcting and criticising those around them.

The root stands for the past, the family and karma. The root can be seen as the place where experience from the metabolism of life is stored to supply the force for the future. The root is deeply attached to the earth and to the past. Chicory behaviour is often passed on to the next generations who become bound into a perpetual drama of restrictive relationships.

The seed reveals much about the remedy type. If the root speaks of the past, the seed speaks of the future. Chicory keeps its seeds hidden and in its own time, during the winter, drops then on to the ground, right at the feet of the mother plant. Chicory keeps the family close by. Chicory plants produce as many as 3,000 seeds.

Chicory people need to control others. The positive Chicory type gives love without restraint, freedom without binding ties of obligation and the blessing of celestial harmony from the celestial blue flowers. Chicory has one of the longest flowering periods of all Bach flowers, from June to October. As in the daily display of new flowers, Chicory people give and give and give. Love will always be there.

This account of this Bach Flower Remedy is based on the book Bach Flower Remedies : Form and Function by Julian Barnard.

For full information see HealingHerbs.co.uk→.

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