the Bach Flower Remedy:
Rock Rose

Rock Rose: Remedy from the set of the Twelve Healers

About this music

Realised several times in performance for flute, bass and piano

A long slow intense piece. The opening section is very still harmonically with a chromatic descent in the bass. The second part is more lyrical, but with many strange harmonic shifts of direction.

There is a deep searching in this piece as befits the remedy which is part of the well known Rescue Remedy and which relates to the experience of disconnectedness.

Lyrics for Rock Rose

Rock rose is an instrumental piece.

About Rock Rose, the Bach Flower Remedy

At first glance, Rock Rose seems to be more of a situation remedy that a soul type. It is for ‘those in absolute despair, in terror – who feel that you can bear nothing more, terrified’. Yet Rock Rose is a soul type – with the soul qualities of Terror and Courage.

Rock Rose has a deep resonance with a certain type of person, one who lives mutely under the intense pressure of fear. If this fear can be overcome, such people become able to help calm the distress of others, as Bach had anticipated. What we are talking about here is not the nervous fear of Mimulus but a deep fear of life itself.

In Latin Rock Rose is called Helianthemum nummularium, the flower of the sun. The golden yellow leaves are round and flat, lying on the ground like gold pieces that have fallen among the grass. The five petalled flowers are frail, they last only a day and the petals quickly fall.

The delicacy of the petals shows the tenuous nature of the Rock Rose type with such a loose grip on life. Bach said that this is the Remedy to use when there is an accident, emergency or intense fear. The Rock Rose soul type lives with such a fear throughout life. The strength and hope come from the golden light of the sun which is reflected in the golden light of the flowers.

The plant grows close to the ground in a massed clump. Rock Rose is an evergreen. Its gesture lacks the directed vertical growth of a strong will or ego expressing a clear purpose in life. Rather the spreading horizontal growth holds the plant to the earth.

For the Rock Rose type, just existing is work enough. Life is undifferentiated – without seasonal growth and decline. The individual flowers turn to face the sun as they open. As buds they face down but in the sun the stem flexes and turns the gentle flower to face the sky. Rock Rose people have a similar watchful quality – awake, observing, responsive. They say little but see much, waiting for life to respond.

The germinating seeds of Rock Rose put down a quick and deep diving root. This root strength shows an inclination to work strongly into the materiality of life.

With the discovery of the healing power of Rock Rose, Dr Bach’s Twelve Great Remedies were complete. There was no doubt that at this stage they appeared to him as a complete and finished set of Remedies.

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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