Simon writes:
All flowers are different and so are all flower remedies. One I have researched in great depth is foxglove.
Foxglove
Digitalis purpurea
Connect to the consciousness of foxglove when difficulties, tensions and challenges present themselves in relationships. Since all relationships are based, to a greater or lesser extent, on love and trust, the heart becomes hurt when pain is experienced. Although the pain is a growth within the relationship, this can be difficult to appreciate when the heart is feeling wounded or betrayed. Foxglove is a protector of the heart, allowing the higher truth of the situation to emerge through the tension and encourages personal responsibility for whatever has caused the emotional hurt. “I accept and own my pain.”
Growth within a relationship inevitably means that the contracts, conventions and boundaries of the relationship are encroached and impinged upon. Within the changing landscape all parties involved struggle to regain a new sense of security. Foxglove’s emotional protective quality will prove useful not only to sooth the heart pain and ease the mental anxieties that arise during these periods of realignment, but to preserve the existing bonds of love.
Foxglove has a very powerful signature. The ancient herbal and modern medical use of digitalis, to protect against heart attack, is a crucial aspect of the signature of this flower remedy. The heart is protected because foxglove’s effect upon the sympathetic nervous system slows down the heart rate, resulting in the heart having a longer period of time to fill up with blood. (This is equivalent to the lungs taking in deep, rather than shallow, breathes.) The consequence is that the heart’s blood supply is improved and the heart has greater protection from potential heart attacks. The symbolism of a heart attack is a crisis with the emotional centre of love; this always occurs when relationships come under strain. Foxglove calms the emotions around these fraught times. Furthermore digitalis is an extremely difficult drug to administer as it builds up in the body. It is frighteningly easy to fatally overdose on. The emotions that the flower essence of foxglove calm are those that emerge in relationship traumas: a feeling of emotional life or death, intense and amplified feelings, deep grief, loss, anger, confusion, anxiety, humiliation, etc.
Outside the dynamics of relationships foxglove essence addresses similar feelings of being on the edge, vulnerable, over-exposed and fearful of some form of attack. It will make a good addition to a combination remedy for agoraphobia or stage fright, for it can also be used when we need to be seen but are shy. Although tall and distinctive there is a shy and retiring quality about this plant. The foxglove personality type is distinctive, stands out in a crowd, yet hides at the back, away from the limelight. They shy away from physical contact, feeling awkward and vulnerable around intimacy.
The slipping of the flowers onto the fingers like small gloves, indicates the protective nature of the flower. The medicine of the fox is camouflage.