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Scleranthus – Form and Function

One of the smallest of the Bach flowers, Scleranthus hugs the ground, a tangle of green stems, leaves and flowers that is of so little significance and stature that we might easily overlook it. To those of us who know what we want, what we want for breakfast or what we want to do with our lives, this soul condition of indecision may seem of little significance as well. But there are those who suffer, silently according to Bach’s observation, ‘unable to decide between two things, first one seeming right then the other’. This alternating energy leaves them powerless to act, trapped in an oscillation between left and right, up and down, good and bad, between any polarity of choice. This state of mind paralyses the will and prevents the individual from moving, from acting in life.

Looking back at some of the earlier remedies we might draw a contrast with Impatiens, or Vervain. Here the gesture, of both the plant and the person, speaks of an active will driven by a soul who knows what it wants to do in life. It is portrayed in the upright stature of the plant, its main stem vertical and strong, growing in a clear direction, like a tall tree. This is in contrast to the languid, clambering gesture of the Clematis and the loose, shrubby form of Cerato. These two lack the definition of the ‘I’ form, the upright stance of the fully incarnated self. The same is true of Scleranthus which grows higgledy-piggledy, tumbling over itself, without main stem, direction or apparent purpose. Mimulus, too, lacks this upright form, draping itself across the rocks, falling out over the water.