Crab Apple vs Rock Water
Crab Apple is about how you feel about yourself. Rock Water is about the rules you keep. One wants to be clean and the other wants to be good, and they do not answer to the same remedy.
Crab Apple
Feeling unclean or ashamed of yourself, and fixating on small imperfections
Rock Water
Strict with yourself, holding to rules and standards that never let up
We earn a small commission if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you. How this works
Why they get muddled
Both point inward, and both look like high standards from outside. Neither is imposed on anybody else, which is why the people around you often notice neither. The split is between disgust and discipline: a feeling about yourself you cannot shake, or a system you have decided to live by.
The differences
What is wrong
Crab Apple
Something about you feels tainted, and it is usually physical.
Rock Water
Nothing is wrong. You are simply not allowed to slip.
Where the attention goes
Crab Apple
One mark, one patch of skin, one detail out of all proportion to the rest.
Rock Water
The routine as a whole. The run, the diet, the same start time on a Sunday.
How a bad day feels
Crab Apple
Unclean. You want a shower after a difficult conversation rather than a rest.
Rock Water
Like a failure. A missed day counts against you instead of just being a day.
What other people see
Crab Apple
Usually nothing, because the thing you cannot stand is often invisible to them.
Rock Water
An example. You get quietly held up as one, which makes loosening harder.
Which one to pick
Choose Crab Apple if
- There is one thing about yourself you cannot stop noticing
- You want to wash after a bad day rather than sit down
- Small details take over and the fact that you are largely fine barely registers
Choose Rock Water if
- The rules are for you and you would never put them on anyone else
- Missing a day feels like a failure rather than a day
- You cannot remember the last evening where nothing was being improved
What if both sound right?
They overlap when a routine has quietly become a way of feeling clean rather than a way of feeling well, which happens more often than people admit. If both descriptions land, take both, and notice which one you would find harder to drop for a week.
Common questions
What is the difference between Rock Water and Pine?
Rock Water is a standard you hold yourself to. Pine is guilt about something specific you did or failed to do. Rock Water says the rule was broken. Pine says you were wrong. They can arrive together, since a broken rule is a very easy thing to feel guilty about.
Is Crab Apple the remedy for feeling unclean?
That is exactly the traditional picture, and Bach described it in those words. It covers both the literal version, wanting to shower after something difficult, and the version aimed at one detail of your own appearance that takes up far more of your attention than it deserves.
Why is Rock Water not made from a flower?
It is the one exception in the 38. Bach made it from the water of a natural spring rather than from a plant, which is why the entry has no Latin plant name. The method is otherwise the sun method exactly as he used it for the flowers.
Keep narrowing
The pairs closest to this one, if neither of these two turns out to be it.
Crab ApplevsPine
Pine is I did something wrong. Crab Apple is there is something wrong with me. Guilt points at an act. Shame points at you.
LarchvsPine
Larch doubts what you can do. Pine blames you for what you did. If the feeling is I would not be able to, that is Larch. If it is I should not have, that is Pine.
BeechvsVine
Beech criticizes and Vine decides. If you notice everything and say nothing, that is Beech. If you notice everything and reorganize it, that is Vine.
Still not sure?
Read both profiles in full, or start from the feeling and let the quiz narrow it for you.