Bach Flower Database

Botany: Clematis vitalba
Production: Sun Method
Represents: Creativity

The clematis personality is characterized by its incredible creativity and strong drive to produce art. Given an outlet for this creative drive, clematis people often go on to become filmmakers, novelists and decorators.

If their creative drive is not nourished, though, a negative clematis state can arise. The result is a soul who drifts through life only partially engaged in the goings-on around them. They have difficulty concentrating on the plain old reality in front of them and prefer to spend their time in the fantasy land they've constructed in their imaginations.

In a negative clematis state, a person gives the impression that he or she isn't really "there". Negative clematis personalities are often described as lost inside their own minds. To others, they seem disengaged from (and completely uninterested in) the conversations going on around them. They are the daydreamers and the scatterbrains among us.

Eventually negative clematis souls come to realize that no living, breathing person can ever compete with the picture-perfect people in their imaginations. In their minds, their fantasies are complete, beautiful and fulfilling. Negative clematis personalities can become so disengaged from our world that they approach what Bach called "a polite form of suicide" because they resemble vacant, empty zombies.

Imagine a woman who goes through her life barely a step ahead of her commitments. She is constantly running late and often oversleeps. Once she makes it to an appointment, her clients and customers wonder if she's really listening. She seems to be lost in her own thoughts and asks them to repeat themselves throughout their meetings.

She is also scatterbrained and may have to search the parking lot for her car. On shopping trips, she may frequently arrive home with unplanned purchases but few or none of the groceries she actually went to the store to purchase.

Upon arriving home, she may find that she remembers little of her shopping and almost none of the actual driving. She hopes that she didn't run that stop sign down at the corner.

This woman is in a negative clematis state. Her search for beauty and her drive to create have been unfulfilled so she retreats into a fantasy-land of her own making. Why talk to plain, boring people when you can imagine up the perfect conversationalist, she unconsciously believes.

The Positive Clematis State

The positive clematis state is grounded in reality. Clematis souls see the world clearly and work actively to bring their creative ideas to fruition. They surround themselves with beautiful things and share that beauty with all who pass through their lives.