Calendula Officinalis –
A member of the compositae family where multiple florets, both disk and ray floret types, to form a single flower head. The flower heads follow the sun and will close when dark cloud passes over, closing at sunset to open with the dawn next day.
Native of the Mediterranean, with numerous cultivars which are grown as bedding plants. Also cultivar strains having escaped gardens appear self-sown wild in many northern European countries.
The seed germinates quickly and easily, and the plant comes up rapidly, the flower heads fade quickly, making room for the next. Almost as soon as the strangely curled, exquisitely shaped seeds are in the ground, the first leaf appears. Hence its Germanic name, ‘rampant flower’.
The flower heads are a radiant golden orange. Esoterically, it is a plant of great peace and protection after trauma, ensuring the soul returns to Source and raising the healing on the physical vibration to impart the gift of wholeness, peace and surrender after trauma and fragmentation, enabling the person to regain their composure after wounding by reconnecting with Source and their life purpose. Its essence is Light.
In common with other great vulneraries[1], of use in the treatment of wounds, as are Arnica and Bellis Perennis. In particular, Calendula is of great use in the treatment of lacerations and suppurative open wounds as it is one of Nature’s remarkable antiseptics.
Within Homoeopathic material medica it is the pre-eminent anti-septic and unlike Arnica, which has irritating properties capable of producing erysipelas, is ideal on wounds where the skin is broken. Warm or hot Calendula lotions are preferable, either in the form of hot compresses applied locally externally in pneumonia or applied on a sponge to the female perineum after labour. It is an excellent curative after tooth extraction or gum surgery, scalp wounds, assisting the wound healing with its haemostatic properties on broken capillary vessels.
It can be given as an external compress, or lotion, or taken internally in homoeopathic potency.
In Homoeopathic repertory it is pre-eminent in antiseptic properties, assisting the formation of healthy granulation tissue and preventing pyaemia. Its properties assist in pain relief in open wounds which are very sore, where laceration has occurred or suppuration is likely. After surgery, in wound healing.
Calendula is called for when external trauma occurs; where there is a constitutional tendency for erysipelas.
Keynote symptoms:
Almost all the symptoms appear during the chilly stage of fever; he feels most comfortable when walking about, or lying perfectly still.
Pain is excessive and in disproportion to the extent of injury.
Great disposition to take cold, especially in damp weather. Worse in damp, heavy, cloudy weather during chill.
Mind symptoms: easily frightened. Great irritability. Fretful, sleepy, dreamy. Extremely nervous, dread of something bad happening. Starts with a fright. During a chill is anxious, morose and solicitious.
Abdomen: Epigastric gas and distention.
Ears: ruptured eardrum. Deafness, worse damp surroundings. Eczematous conditions. Hears best on a train and distant sounds. Hearing acute.
Eyes: scratched cornea. Injuries to eye which tend to suppurate after surgery.
Female: vaginal tears after childbirth. Sensation of weight and dragging in groin, pain on sudden movements. Profuse pus discharge after forceps delivery.
Stomach: Hunger immediately after nursing. Bulimia. Heartburn. Nausea in chest. Vomiting. Sinking sensation. Epigastric distention.
Skin: assists in wound healing, with formation of healthy granulation tissues, helps prevent keloid scar formation.
Temperature: Heat in evening. Skin feels warm to touch. Coldness, with great sensitiveness to open air, shuddering in back.
Throat: painful swelling of submandibular glands, worse moving head.
The sphere of Calendula’s healing action is yet more subtle and deeper than is usually considered. It is the wound healer par excellence. This extends to the wounded nature of emotional suffering, where there is, to the unprejudiced observer, an awareness that a person continues to act in a manner as if after a wound or trauma whether physical or emotional, usually where the physical deep injury has healed but a person remains caught in the family, cultural or emotional dynamics which led a person, or caused themselves to be precipitated into the trauma event (cf. Syphilinum) but at a different level of vibration. It is the healer of the etheric. For wounds which remain open. Where the perceptions of others cause deep hurt to the individual and where they may feel powerless to redress the balance, no matter what they do or how hard they try, even in their deepest spiritual heart – soul work. Like an energetic bruising at a karmic level. Where the ties which bind them to their present situation hold them back. The teenager who continues to rebel against parental or societal boundaries which are set up by truly incorrect perceptions of that individual, where behaviours continue and the pattern escalates where the individual becomes increasingly rejected and traumatised by family or society, physically injured, fractures, wounds where Arnica, Buddleia and Syphilinum seems not to act because the causation is operating at a different level. The wounds of the subtle bodies, where a person feels they do not fit in where they aught by rights feel most loved.
Calendula’s sphere of action is extremely gentle bringing calmness and peace to the emotions and etheric bodies through the heart. Oneness with the Divine nature.
There is a link with the Buddhic nature of a person, through and beyond their incarnations and soul lessons to the Source of their being, bringing solace to the solar plexus, reconnecting the heart and taking them truly into their state of grace, with perfect understanding through the higher centres.
‘You may easily see we are not now dealing with a condition that exists because of a state within the economy of the health, but because of something that is without. There is nothing that will cause these external injuries to heal so beautifully as the calendula’.
In recognising the individual’s soul contact with the Divine nature he stands firm and confident and can look with gentle kindness upon those who previously caused him to suffer and return it with love.
It is greatly protective and restorative. Immensely gentle, Calendula acts subtly over time to protect and reconnect the person with their soul purpose.
Materia Medica Sources: Boericke. Clarke. Kent. Murphy.
[1] Denotes of use in healing wounds