The Magic of Flowers: A Guide to Their Metaphysical Uses & Properties - Tess Whitehurst 2013

Crabapple
The Flowers

Botanists believe that crabapple is the result of a cultivated apple tree running wild, and I don’t doubt it. She can easily be compared to a pristine, beautiful princess gearing up to be queen who suddenly rebels against her fate, lets her hair down, skinny-dips under a waterfall, and runs freely and gloriously through a meadow on a sparkly spring morning.

Crabapple is also one of Edward Bach’s famous thirty-eight flower essence remedies, and in this form she’s well-respected in holistic healing circles for her ability to purify the skin and infuse our awareness with feelings of freshness, purity, and self-love.

Magical Uses

Healing from Abuse

When we’re abused in any way—mentally, physically, emotionally, or sexually—we sometimes harbor a deep feeling of being unclean or tainted by the energy of our abuser. If not consciously recognized and healed, we can hold on to this feeling for many years, perhaps even getting so used to it that we no longer notice its effects. Crabapple is perhaps unsurpassed in her ability to help us release this feeling by reaching deeply into our psyches and drawing out the poison so that we can feel like ourselves again. If you have the good fortune of being near a tree while she’s in bloom, visit her. Sit beneath her, relax, and let her pamper you in her miraculously healing aura. If you don’t have this opportunity, however (or even if you do), take the essence regularly until you feel the shift.

Freshness and Purity

Some of us (Virgos and Libras, raise your hands) can experience moments of obsessive cleanliness that stem from a feeling that we—or our homes or the entire planet—are dirty, disorganized, unkempt, or fundamentally wrong. At these moments, crabapple can set us straight and infuse us with the opposite feeling: that we, our homes, and the entire planet are fresh, ordered, harmoniously aligned, and fundamentally right.

To experience these benefits, soak for at least forty minutes in a hot bath into which you have added one cup sea salt and forty drops crabapple essence. To heal a long-standing emotional imbalance related to feeling unclean, you might also take two drops of crab-apple essence under the tongue twice a day for forty days. (As a Virgo, I find that it’s good to keep a bottle of crabapple essence in the medicine cabinet right next to the aspirin and bandages.)

Self-Acceptance, Self-Love, and Self-Worth

Are you like I was when I was in my early and mid-twenties, constantly berating yourself for your imperfections and obsessively thinking negative thoughts about your skin, waistline, ideas, and the sound of your own voice? Exhausting, isn’t it? And as if that weren’t enough, it drains your effectiveness, happiness, and magical power.

The good news? Crabapple. Spend time with her, work her into rituals, and work with the flower essence.

Magical Correspondences

Element: Air

Gender: Female

Planet: Venus