Latin Name: Pinus sylvestris

Group: Second Nineteen

Emotional Group: Despondency or despair

Emotional response: Self-blame

Method: Boiling

Indication

For those who blame themselves. Even when successful they think they could have done better, and are never content with their efforts or the results. They are hard-working and suffer much from the faults they attach to themselves. Sometimes if there is any mistake it is due to another, but they will claim responsibility even for that. [Bach: Twelve Healers and Other Remedies 1936]

Affirmation

Health is, therefore, the true realisation of what we are: we are perfect: we are the children of God. There is no striving to gain what we have already attained. We are merely here to manifest in material form the perfection with which we have been endowed from the beginning of all time. [Bach: Collected Writings]

Emotional State

For self-reproach, guilt, those who blame themselves, self-condemnation, often assuming responsibility for a situation that is not their fault. They are discontented and critical of themselves, over-conscientious, apologetic and over-humble. The constant effort they make to improve themselves may lead to tiredness and depression. Helps to alleviate any feelings of guilt. [Barnard: Guide to the Bach Flower Remedies]

Habitat

General
Scots Pine is a native of woodlands on acid soils in the Scottish Highlands, but is widely planted and regenerates from self-sown seed elsewhere.

Britain
Pines grow throughout Britain, often on the poorer thin soils, on gravel and greensand.

Pine Form and Function

Pine is an emotional condition which develops over time. Like a mole it burrows out of sight, reappearing unexpectedly. Or, as with certain traumatic events, it remains buried in memory only to surface years later. This time delay can be seen in the process of pollination and growth of the seed. While the flowers of Red and White Chestnut change colour almost immediately, to signal fertilisation, Pine has a prolonged period of incubation during which the seed embryo develops. The process is complex. It takes nearly a year for the male pollen grain and the female ovule to fully mature inside a cone and for fertilisation to occur. During this time cones remain outwardly unchanged; in January or February they are still the small brown knobs, seen last summer, bending over at the end of the shoots. When spring arrives a new shoot will grow upwards and produce flowers. Meanwhile the cone, now sitting under the branch, swells and begins to form seeds, internally. These will not be ready until the following spring, however, when the cone is two years old. It is for this reason that we can see three stages of cone growth on a branch, together: the female flower, the immature cone of last year and the ripe cone of the year before. It is a picture of successive generations: grandparent, parent and child….

Clearly Pine is a complex remedy state. It involves more than guilt and self-blame. It contains a personal life story for the individual, parts of which may be hidden or suppressed. Pine helps to establish way-markers in the biography or life journey, like the hilltop clumps of trees which are prominent in a landscape. Acting within the detail of our feelings Pine also helps to straighten out tangled and confused emotions – just as Pine’s needle-leaves are narrow and straight. The leaves are similar to those of Larch and offer the same thought of needing to clarify and reassess self-worth. But Pine, being an evergreen, keeps its leaves through the winter, hanging on to the past. Each year some new leaves appear with the new shoots which also bear flowers – the older leaves fall after three or four years. The dark red female flowers, so strong and upright at first, bend around through 90° during the summer. Later they continue to turn and face downwards towards the ground as the cone develops. It is an expression of turning again to look at the past, the experience of your life on earth. 

£4.25/10ml