Yerba Santa (Eriodictyon angustifolium) is also called Holy Herb, Sacred Herb, and Mountain Balm. It is a woody bush that grows to between two and 7 feet tall in the dry plains, slopes, and ridges of Arizona, Texas, Utah, and Colorado.

Yerba Santa's history of use includes Indians of Old California and the Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers. Its outer leaves have a sticky, shiny substance with a smooth top. The sticky, mucilaginous leaves strongly indicate the plant's herbal use for chest colds, bronchitis, and hay fever.

This signature suggests the plant's practical and physical uses and also demonstrates the powerful cleansing effect that Yerba Santa has on both the inner and outer body. Yerba Santa flower essence is a wonderful healer and teacher that helps us sort out our impurities from within to without. It renews energy in the "temple space" of the crown (7th) chakra, filling our body/mind/spirit with Spirit's love and light-filled radiance.

• Key Rubrics for Positive Healing Patterns: cleansing, inner loving, receptivity, renewal, reverence for all life, self-discovery, spiritual guidance
• Key Rubrics for Symptoms and Patterns of Imbalance: anxiety, impurities, inferiority, out of touch with self, psychic toxins
• Other Rubrics: ambition, appreciation, bronchial, chest, clarity, confidence, coughing, crown chakra, follow-through, healing, heart, lungs, outer patience, phlegm, psychic toxins, purifier, sacredness, self-discovery, self-empowerment, self-esteem, throat, understanding

Yerba Santa may be an appropriate flower essence for those who:

• Understand their true needs, yet lack follow-through by not honoring them or carrying them out
  
• Demonstrate the paradox of two different personalities, such as in one instance being overly naive and trusting, and in another lacking trust without a cause
  
• Seem to have a healthy perspective toward life ("have it together"), yet don't seem to see their own flaws
  
• Lack understanding or knowledge to survive their deep, inner, personal work, and who lack follow-through in any level of life
  
• Have weak resistance to and need cleansing of "psychic toxins."

Yerba Santa flower essence is a wonderful healer and teacher that helps us to sort out our impurities from within to without. When we feel closed and shut down, it's as if we have shut out everything within us and everything that surrounds us. Yerba santa helps us to discover what it is we shut down and to find a way to move whatever is stuck. Yerba santa, the "holy herb," renews energy and strength in the "temple space" of the crow chakra, filling our body/mind/soul with Spirit's love and light-filled radiance.

Yerba Santa also builds strength of character, acceptance, willingness, and determination to work from within to heal the whole person. Through this process, we begin to truly understand ourselves and to find out who we are. The "holy herb" gives us spiritual guidance in our ability to follow through with our outer tasks and our inner intuition.

Prepare some time to be with yourself. Take 3-4 drops of Yerba Santa flower essence try the following exercise. Think of one thing about yourself that you might call an "impurity," such as something that goes very deep and probably feels buried. Try to pick it up and look at it carefully. Feel it, touch it, and listen to what it has to say. Ask what you can do for it. The more you can get in touch with it, the better you'll be able to move it around, give it a shove, or throw it out the door.

Affirmations:

• I give thanks to myself and my ability to rediscover my lost parts
  
• I pray that I will heal in body, mind, and soul and that all impurities will come out in the open and be seen, heard, and touched.
  
• I take full responsibility to follow through with life's tasks (name a particular task) and to make an achievable goal of completion
  
• I honor the sacred within myself.
  

Editors Note: This article is from the book The Complete Book of Flower Essences, ©2002 Rhonda PallasDowney. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. Toll-free 800/972-6657 ext. 52.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rhonda PallasDowney has a diploma in Homeopathic Medicine and is a fellow, graduate, and tutor with the British Institute of Homeopathy, and a staff member at Arizona School of Integrative Studies, where she teaches herbal studies, plant life, and flower essences. She is a professional in the human services field, and conducts ongoing research into flower essences, color and energy healing, and the chakra system. She lives in Arizona.

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The World Wide Essence Society does not mean to imply any recommendation of nor give certification to any individuals or companies above. This article is provided purely for informational purposes. We ask consumers to make their own determination as to quality of the services and products offered above. This article is not meant to be advice, and the information is not meant to replace medical or psychological treatment.

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