24/05/2026
Heather is a remedy for loneliness. This reflection from Julian Barnard in Form and Function, shares a unique perspective on how Heather can help transform loneliness to a sense of belonging.
“When we make a flower remedy, especially if it is a long way from home, there is not much else to do but sit and just be there. You sit and look at the sky, you look at the flowers, you sit and think and then you just sit. This morning it was so beautiful. The sky was intensely blue, the Heather vibrant pink-purple. The day was so warm and fine. Nobody else was there. Slowly, as I quietened myself, the quietness became immense – the silence stretched away over the great empty valleys below; the space filled with the warm, vibrant, living air.
The quiet joy of being there was so strong. Although it is hard to put into words, I felt that this is the remedy for unification. I felt a presence that is behind all individual things … like the spirit that is behind each species. There is the spirit that is behind the Heather or every other individual plant, animal or insect. Each plant knows how to be itself because it is connected to this spirit. The bees that were thronging the Heather flowers knew how to be themselves because of the spirit of ‘bee-ness’ that they are a part of. They fly up from the valley below, drawn by the scent of the Heather, gather the pollen and nectar from the millions of flowers and unfailingly navigate their way home. They know their purpose within this spirit and live it.
But there are many, many other lives just as complex and purposeful. The spiders laying webs, the minute insects that crawl, buzz and hover, the gnats that hang like a mist suspended over a particular rock as if pointing a meaning to it. Then there are birds that curve and call in the air, the skylark thrilling high and clear. They come like the spirit of freedom that lives there wild and remote.
Many of us, I suppose, know this experience, the joy that we can have in such a place. But at the same time I saw that while the plants, the insects and the birds were each connected to their own spirit and knew their nature – I saw that human beings so often were not. It seemed that some people failed to contact this spirit in themselves and that was why they felt lost and confused. That was the message of the Heather. The negative state of the Heather remedy was this feeling of isolation, of loneliness, of being unable to endure the wild and open space of the soul, alone.
Then I saw that there really is a ‘universal mind substance’ that each of us can reach into and be a part of. That is the spirit that lies behind or rather within human beings. To reach the spirit one had only to move towards it, rather than turning away. It carried all within it. It knew all, saw all, and was all. To be a part of that unity was to be no longer alone. It was the comfort and blessedness of communion, being one with all life, separate but part of a united creation. Sitting up there with the Heather that morning I felt that I was no longer a stranger in the land, no longer apart and isolated but one with it all. I didn’t want to leave. I sat there for three hours while the remedy was making and they were like minutes, warm, rich and beautiful.”
Form and Function, Julian Barnard pp 161 – 162
https://www.healingherbs.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Form-and-Function-book.pdf
