The Sierra Nevada mountains have been blessed this year with an extraordinary endowment of snow. We especially look forward to finding Fawn Lily in superabundance as the snow melts. Its botanical name is Erythronium purpuracscens, a native plant found exclusively in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains and southern Cascade range, at elevations from 5000 to 9000 feet (1500 – 2700 m). It is so inspiring to behold the Sierra slopes glistening with the emerging green shoots of the Fawn Lily alongside glittering snow crystals.
When we contemplate the gesture of the Fawn Lily, we see its intimate environmental relationship to snow crystals melting into flowing water. Its tender green leaves have a distinctive wavy character, as though this plant becomes form in the very moment of meeting the movement of water. Its alabaster petals are curved back toward heaven, as though still connected to its pristine crystal abode, while its yellow sun center springs earthward. As the flower matures and comes more fully into the warmth of earthly incarnation, it takes on purplish hues (hence the species name of purpuracsens).
The Liliaceae Family and its Affinity for the Water Element
The Fawn Lily is a glorious representative of the Liliaceae family, emerging from a globe-like bulb with elegant curving leaves and a flower consisting of 6 tepals (3 petals and 3 petal-like sepals). It forms a vibrant yellow center, out of which emerge six protruding stamens with large yellow anthers and one pistil with a yellow stigma. The Liliaceae family has an archetypal affinity to water. The round self-enclosed bulbs of the Liliaceae are akin to large dew drops of water that have found their way into earth, while its typical six-fold botanical structure mirrors the hexagonal properties of water in its crystal form.
Contemplating the sacred geometry of the hexagonal snowflake, one comes to an inner experience of its radial symmetry in cosmic perfection. It is a form so inwardly composed and harmoniously complete, that we feel nothing should ever disturb its heavenly splendor. Yet as one deepens this meditation, there develops the feeling that its form must be broken open in order to find renewed life and warmth.
In the archetypal phenomena of water, we come to an inner appreciation of its pure and infinitely harmonious spiritual form surrendering to the flowing movement of life giving waters. Within the Liliaceae botanical family as whole, we also find the archetype of something heavenly that has descended into earth; even as water herself begins as a snow crystal, melts into moving form and then lifts itself again skyward into clouds and crystals.
Fawn Lily Flower: The Embrace of Earthly Life and Warmth
In the healing gesture of the Fawn Lily flower, we discover the dramatic polarity of crystal perfection alongside flowing surrender to life. The Fawn Lily character types are deeply dedicated to excellence. They are the young children who will carefully draw their first letters again and again to achieve the right form. The are the superb artists who are motivated to practice for endless hours in order to present a flawless performance. The Fawn Lily types can create remarkable interior structures not only in their spacious minds, but also in their homes or environmental surroundings, resembling crystal palaces of splendid form and harmony. Even though Fawn Lily souls strive for virtuosity, they are not typically motivated by outer accolades or fame, but rather by the intrinsic pleasure within perfection itself. They are classic introverts with minds so cosmic and spiritually attuned that they can be endlessly absorbed within and devoted to higher realms of being. In this sense they are like the virginal snow itself, in its white crystal heaven of inner peace, silent solitude and pristine purity.
However, these very qualities also become life obstacles and difficulties for the Fawn Lily type. Disharmony of any kind is registered with greater acuity. The sub-conscious need to remain perfect means that spontaneity, risk-taking. adaptation and change are much more challenging. Experiences of failure can create acute anxiety, low self-esteem or depression. Yet it is exactly in the “breaking open” of form that the river of life flows. The Fawn Lily flower is intimately married to the heavenly heights of snow crystal purity, and yet she also knows how to move towards warmth, life, movement and color, and this is what she teaches the human soul.
Balancing Yin and Yang Forces: Fawn lily Strengthens Stomach Qi
Building on over four decades of professional practice in auricular acupuncture, Drs. Frank Bahr and Christiane Wesemann have noted demonstrable changes in the “Nogier-Reflex” or “Nogier-Pulse” when using flower essences. Based in Germany, they have published their research: Kalifornische Blüten: Akupunktur und Blütenschätze Vereinigt. (California Flowers: Uniting Acupuncture and Flower Resources). They have observed that clients who test for Fawn Lily are typically encapsulated in their own mental and spiritual realities to the degree that they are not able to engage in real life. The Fawn Lily flower essence resonates with various points that strengthen the “stomach qi” and “middle yang core” of the individual. In this sense we can understand that the soul as well as the physical body need to learn how to engage with and digest matter in order to become strong, integrating the more yin feminine side with necessary yang forces.
Case Example: Learning to Live with Disharmony
The Fawn Lily flower essence was the main one used for nearly one year to support a kindergarten teacher who sought help for the high stress and anxiety she was experiencing in her career. She was attracted to teaching young children because she valued the qualities of innocence and imaginative playfulness that belonged to this age group. Yet she was increasingly challenged by more active students, especially rambunctious boys. Several parents began to complain that she did not “understand” their children and that the “atmosphere” she created in her classroom did not allow for their more lively extroverted expressions. During the time of taking Fawn Lily flower essence along with regular counseling sessions, she came to see that her classroom approach was one-sided. She also realized even more deeply how her inability to live with any form of stress or disharmony had led to the failure of her marriage. As she came to recognize these patterns for the first time, she widened her pedagogical approach with greater compassion and insight for the more outgoing children in her class. She also noted many changes in her own personal life, especially letting go of the compulsion to have her personal living space in exact order at all times.
Treating Severe Social Isolation in Japan
A form of severe social withdrawal, called hikikomori, affects many adolescents and young adults in Japan. They can become recluses in their parents’ homes, unable to work or go to school for months or years. In addition to experiencing stress and anxiety when venturing into urban city life, these young persons also become addicted to video games involving fantasy and highly intricate “other” worlds of reality. Practitioners in Japan report that Fawn Lily is one of the main flower essences, along with counseling, used to help these individuals re-integrate into outer life and appreciate the warmth of social connections, even when challenging.
Healing Addiction to Perfection
Many practitioners report that Fawn Lily is one of the major flower essences used to help women who are addicted to dieting, extreme exercise and/or cosmetic procedures, in the quest to attain bodily perfection. One practitioner described how she originally had the insight to use Fawn Lily for a woman whose face appeared frozen from extensive Botox treatments. “It was as though her face was like an ice sculpture, so perfect that even the warmth of her smile or a raised eyebrow of astonishment could not come through,” she noted. During the time period of using Fawn Lily the practitioner could literally see her client’s face un-thawing, becoming more real and able to accept her authentic self with its human flaws.
A Core Component of the Grace Formula
The Grace Formulais composed of eight white flowers in the Liliaceae family that work synergistically to strengthen and balance feminine qualities of soul in both men and women. The Fawn Lily helps the part of the soul that wants to retreat or hold back in order to protect an ideal image of the feminine identify, especially in cases of trauma, abuse or lack of cultural recognition.
For example, a 50-year-old man used this formula for over a year to help him transition from his career as a firefighter to a new profession as a bodyworker and therapist. He identified Fawn Lily as an especially important part of the formula because his father had discouraged him as an adolescent from anything “touchy-feely” believing it was not a “manly” profession. He felt that this more inward feminine part of him had remained frozen and locked up until he began to use the Grace Formula. He commented, “I felt that I had become a block of stone with no feelings, except hardness. After I used Grace for several months, I felt that my heart became a river of flowing and feeling…”
The Grace Formulais also used widely in many healing centers for women in recovery from domestic violence, sexual slavery and abuse. For example, Dr. Natalia Fernández coordinates the Women’s Shelter program for the National Institute for Women of Costa Rica. She reports that Grace is the foundational formula to help women recover their sense of dignity and integrity, giving them the courage to affirm and act upon their core feminine identity in spite of prior trauma and degradation. The Fawn Lily in the Grace Formulahelps her clients to step out into the world again and take new risks, when otherwise they would retreat or hide and continue to be confined by their psychic trauma.
Fawn Lily – Distinctions from Similar Flower Essences
Crab Apple–Fawn Lily and Crab Apple flower essences both address extreme desires for perfection. In the case of Crab Apple, the body-soul identity always feels in some sense unclean. Such an individual often fixates on some particular part of the body while being out of touch with a greater sense of wholeness and health. Crab Apple stimulates the life forces, bringing purification as well as greater health and inner sense of well-being. Ultimately, Dr. Bach points out the Crab Apple essence frees the individual from an over emphasis and preoccupation with bodily identity, so that one is able to regard the physical self as a “vehicle for Soul and Mind.” Fawn Lily works from the opposite direction, helping the Soul-Spirit identity to move toward greater identification with the forces of warmth and bodily incarnation, in spite of flaws and challenges.
Pretty Face – Fawn Lily and Pretty Face flower essences both address the need for perfection in outer form. In the case of Pretty Face, this is related to a perceived feeling of ugliness or unworthiness. Pretty Face types have typically suffered social rejection, shaming or bullying during childhood, based upon their looks. Also, they may have experienced an injury or illness that results in physical deformity or other related changes. These changes are perceived by the individual, or by others in one’s family or social culture to be inferior, or in some way ugly. Thus the Pretty Face type struggles to try to re-gain social acceptance in their physical appearance. As a contrast, the Fawn Lily soul retreats from social connections into its own world as a way of protection and social distancing. They are also inclined toward cosmetic procedures or bodily interventions that create a cosmetic mask of impassivity or perfectly sculpted form.
Violet – Similar to the Fawn Lily, the Violet type is intensely inward and “cooly” sensitive. However, the Violet type suffers from actual shyness. The Violet type would like to be warmer and more socially connected but feels stymied. Violet souls need to learn to trust in the social process itself, and especially the quality of social warmth and engagement. Violet is most classically a remedy used in childhood and adolescence when one still needs to gain greater confidence and social engagement. Fawn Lily souls have a similar need, and in fact both flowers are commonly used together. But with Fawn Lily there is a greater comfort or satisfaction in remaining in one’s “ice palace.” At the far end of the spectrum, Fawn Lily types can be autistic, preferring to live in their own highly refined interior states of consciousness.
Water Violet – Both Water Violet and Fawn Lily flower essences share a quality of social withdrawal and sensitivity. However, in the case of Water Violet, the soul is more attracted to preserving its distinct social identity. This is often due to cultural factors such as family background, social status or education. The Water Violet type has in some sense set itself apart in order to preserve its sense of identity and integrity. As Dr. Bach wrote, such types need to learn the “exquisite joy of helpfulness” to others through social service and connection, balancing the tendency toward pride and aloofness. By contrast, the Fawn Lily is drawn to the interiority of Self as a sense of protection and solace from the intensity or complexity of life.
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