Latin Name: Mimulus guttatus

Group: The first twelve essences

Emotional Group: Fear

Failing: Fearful

Personality: Nervous fear

Virtue: Sympathy

Method: Sun

Indication

Fear of worldly things, illness, pain, accidents, poverty, of dark, of being alone, of misfortune. The fears of everyday life. These people quietly and secretly bear their dread, they do not speak freely of it to others. [Bach: Twelve Healers and Other Remedies 1936]

Affirmation

Fear in reality holds no place in the natural human kingdom, since the Divinity within us, which is ourself, is unconquerable and immortal, and if we could but realise it we, as Children of God, have nothing of which to be afraid. [Bach]

State of Being

To combat all fear. Fear of disease, of accidents, of unknown things. Fear of people, of relatives, of strangers, of crowds, of noise, of talking or of being questioned, of being alone. Fear of damp, of cold, of heat, of the dark. Fear of complications in illness, or of being incurable. [Bach]

Habitat

General
Mimulus grows on wet ground. Found naturally in the west of North America in damp places from sea level to over 3000m in the Rockies and other mountains. It is very variable.

Britain
Mimulus is now naturalised and grows on watercourses throughout Britain. But it is becoming more local as it will not tolerate the chemical pollution that washes into most streams and rivers from farmland. Where Bach found Mimulus ‘growing to perfection’ along the River Usk it is now little in evidence. He spoke of ‘crystal streams where the water is clear’- they are now a rarity in lowland Britain.

Mimulus - Form and Function

In his earliest description, Bach spoke of Mimulus types as having ‘a marked desire for quietness, aversion to talking and to being questioned’. Later he mentioned ‘fear of…crowds, of noise, of talking of being alone’. This has been extended to indicate a generally nervous disposition and a desire for tranquillity. Mimulus people are hypersensitive to their environment, and avoid conflict. Their delicacy and sensitivity lead them to shy away from the rough and tumble of life. We might picture a child covering its ears and running away from fireworks, seeking protection.They are delicate flowers we might say. Yet here we have a plant which lives in mountain streams, often overhanging the water, on the edge of rocks, or tumbling down a rock face. Perhaps it is driven to the edge.

As much as anything it is this fact that Mimulus lives dangerously which speaks of the inner nature of the plant. Other plants, with less of a firm hold on life, might be swept away by the flooding stream in winter. Other plants choose to live securely in the hedge or shelter safely at the edge of a wood; not Mimulus. It can be found clinging, precariously to a ledge in the water-shoot of a mill wheel, where the driving force of the millstream pours constantly across its roots, splashing the stems and flowers. The roaring of the cascade ever present. Or it grows next to a limestone swallow-hole, where the water plunges into the ground.

Buffeted by such a flood, then by wind and rain, the stems can be broken and bruised.

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