(Continued from Part 1)
There is a lot more on this site, which you can consult if interested. I will, however, quote one more passage that is especially relevant for those who are Catholics.
I won't quote any more since the remainder of the page becomes less intelligible.
You can find more about this snake-oil salesman at another Wikipedia page, including references to studies that have reached the unsurprising result that the Bach flower remedies have no effect.
Back to the Question
Now return to the question: What is fireweed essence? Naturally, I started by googling it. Little did I know that I was about to embark on a journey through the hold-your-nose underside of American culture. Google first led me to http://www.treefrogfarm.com/store/flower-essences-tree-essences/fireweed-flower-essence.html. Here is an excerpt copied from this site.
Product Information
Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) - A powerful transformer and healer! Initiates shifting personally and collectively from a male dominant, power over paradigm to a more feminine loving, joyful, nurturing, in-harmony-with-nature paradigm.
As the essence says of itself:
I AM loving joy of The Sacred Feminine in harmony with Nature.
Flower Essence Symptom:
Use Fireweed Essence when you are caught in the male power-over cultural paradigm. When you believe that you have to compete for power and the stronger, swifter, most aggressive and domineering will win. Empowering when you hold anger or fear around male authority figures. Great for recovering Catholics and others who have had their personal and spiritual power taken away by male religious figures.
Enlightening as this site is, it didn't tell me what fireweed essence is, I went to http://wrc.net/encyclopaedia_entry/fireweed-fe/. Here I learned more about fireweed:
Positive qualities: Removes anger and transmutes karma; Excellent for war veterans; enhances connection with higher realms; encourages spiritual breakthroughs
Patterns of imbalance: for psychic problems; unbalanced anger; unresolved karma
I won't quote any more since the remainder of the page becomes less intelligible.
Epilobium angustifolium Positive qualities: Recovery of vital forces; Phoenix-like powers of soul to re-construct and re-create new life; assimilation of alchemical fire toward new forces of life and rejuvenation
Patterns of imbalance: Healing for events involving adversity and disruption, "trial by fire," wounding or disruption due to fire, heat or light and related technology or military weapons
I still didn't know what fireweed essence is. I tried a fourth site http://www.powerfloweressences.com/fireweed-flower-essence and found:
All Power of Flowers Healing Essences are made from pristine pure organic wild flowers in their natural habitat. Our flower remedies are made using the sun/water method devised by the late Edward Bach in the late 1930's.
Cazart! A clue! I googled Edward Bach and found in Wikipedia that he is one of the most notable charlatans of our time:
In 1930, at the age of 43, he decided to search for a new healing technique. He spent the spring and summer discovering and preparing new flower remedies – which include no part of the plant but simply what Bach claimed to be the pattern of energy of the flower. In the winter he treated patients free of charge.Rather than being based on medical research, using the scientific method, Bach's flower remedies were intuitively derived and based on his perceived psychic connections to the plants. If he felt a negative emotion, he would hold his hand over different plants, and if one alleviated the emotion, he would ascribe the power to heal that emotional problem to that plant. He believed that early morning sunlight passing through dew-drops on flower petals transferred the healing power of the flower onto the water, so he would collect the dew drops from the plants and preserve the dew with an equal amount of brandy to produce a mother tincture which would be further diluted before use. Later, he found that the amount of dew he could collect was not sufficient, so he would suspend flowers in spring water and allow the sun's rays to pass through them. [Footnotes omitted]
These web sites sell products that are obviously based on fraudulent claims. How do they stay in business? It is because American citizens are duped into buying these products. Our schools are letting us down and are not instilling the power of critical thinking. That businesses like this exist is the best argument yet for reforming our schools.
Getting back to my quest, whatever these sites mean by "fireweed essence" apparently has nothing to do with fireweed jelly. Not being able to figure out what went into my jelly, I was almost in despair.
I thought it might help to look up some of the uses of fireweed. Monofloral honey from fireweed is said to have a distinctive, spiced flavor; you can buy it as this site (see picture). Some native Americans added fireweed to their dogs' food. A fireweed preparation can be used to glaze salmon. Some like to drink fireweed juice (see picture). Other uses are supplied by this site:
Fireweed is edible and valued by white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), elk (Cervus elaphus), grizzly bears (Ursus arctos), livestock, and humans. The young shoots can be steamed and eaten like asparagus, or pickled if harvested when they are still pink on the lower stem and the leaves are mostly closed. The raw inner pith of stems is sweet when harvested before flowering, but yields little for the effort. Fireweed leaves can be brewed into a tea rich in Vitamin A and C. The tea is mildly laxative and may help settle the stomach and other irritated mucous membranes (such as sore mouth and throat, ulcers, and hemorrhoids). The tea can also be used externally for burns and other skin irritations.The Blackfoot people rubbed fireweed flowers into rawhide as waterproofing and dusted a powder made from the core of the plant on their hands and face to protect them from getting chapped by the cold. Many tribes used the outer stem fibers of fireweed to make fine cordage for fishing nets. Coastal tribes used the silky seed fluff for padding and for weaving blankets or clothing by adding it to dog hair, goat wool, or duck feathers. The seed fluff also makes good tinder for starting fires.
No help there. I was about to give up on finding out what is meant by "fireweed essence" when I stumbled on a site that revealed how to make fireweed jelly. The first step is to combine eight cups of fireweed blossoms and eight cups of water in a saucepan (first picture). Simmer for about five minutes to make fireweed "tea" (second picture). The rest of the steps are the standard steps in making jelly; see the site if interested. (Other than sugar, the only other important ingredient is pectin. Citrus peel, which is 30 percent pectin, is the main source of pectin; we saw on 15 Mar 2015 that citron, with its thick peel, is a favored source.) You end up with a massive haul of fireweed jelly (third picture). One conclusion is that the list of ingredients, which is supposed to order the ingredients by weight, is incorrect. The order should probably be sugar, pectin, fireweed. (I spot-checked some other jelly labels, and I find that inaccurate labeling is the industry standard.)
I conclude that "fireweed essence" is a vague term that the user can define as desired; in the realm of jelly, it means cooked flowers.
Gift Idea
If you are looking for a gift that is more intimate than a jar of jelly, consider a fireweed necklace.
Travel Tip
If you are fired up for fireweed travel, take a trip to the Fireweed Lodge on Prince of Wales Island, which is close to Ketchikan in Southeast Alaska. As you see below, boating and fishing are its specialties. To fire your imagination, watch this video. You can get away from it all for four days and three nights for $3700 per person, assuming two in a boat. Trip Advisor gives this lodge five stars.
