Within the groves of Meadow, essence can be gained in many ways, and used in quite a few other ways as well.

Whether it be the eagle skin you're after, or some unlockable actions, here are the different ways you can gain essence:

Flowers and Mushrooms:
These are plentiful throughout the Meadow and give varying amounts of essence,
Common flowers and shrooms: 5 essence
Uncommon flowers and shrooms: 10 essence
Fabled flowers and shrooms: 50 essence (with the outlier flower giving 75)

Crystals:
Took me a while to notice, but crystals do actually give essence, so even if you've still unlocked skins, emotes, and animals, you can still collect the crystals for varying amounts of essence,
Red/Pink Crystals: 10 essence
Blue Crystals: 20 essence
Golden Crystals: 40 essence


Food
Food is actually a great souce of essence as it is plentiful and placed commonly throughout the map, all food counts for 10 essence when consumed.

As far as essence goes, there are a few uses for it.

Each time you collect essence it logs it onto Steam's leaderboards, where all other players who have collected essence are also placed.
When you reach the 100th spot on the leaderboard, a white eagle skin unlocks for the eagle animal.

Some also use the essence as a way of tracking progress.

Certain essence milestones also unlock different actions in the game, such as sitting, waving, and drinking.
Sit: 2,000 essence
Set Home: 5,000 essence
Wave: 9,000 essence
Drinking: 15,000 essence

The white eagle skin requires the player to hit spot #100 on the leaderboards for it to unlock, this might seem a bit daunting at first, and even though it does take some time and grinding, it's a smooth process.

Here are five areas that you should take note of when trying to go for the white eagle skin:

Consistency:

This is probably one of the most important factors for unlocking the skin. I found that when I played for 1 hour a day, following a route where I could gain the most essence, I could coast through the leaderboards kinda quickly.

Most of the people playing probably have jobs or are a student, so time might be tight, but keep in mind that unlocking the skin is not a race.
I'm a fulltime student, and with some inconsistencies, I unlocked the skin at about 120 hours into the game.

Getting through the lower parts of the leaderboards like the thousands range is pretty simple, and if you play for 1 hour a day, you should find that you'll jump quite a few spots if you're gaining essence efficiently. In the hundreds range, you might not jump up a spot as much because the space between essence numbers begins to grow.



Finding the Perfect Route:

Gaining the most essence possible is key. I took a route that led me around the whole map, and made sure to go to places where I could find fabeled flowers and mushrooms, as those provide the most essence.

Using Nemo's Rough Map , I marked out the route I took that went to areas that had food and fabled flowers commonly spawning there.




The Right Aniaml:

Choosing the right animal for your route is important. Some animals are fast, whereas others are slower. I would recommend the mother lynx or the frog. Many of the areas are around or in water, making the frog's fast swim speed quite usefull. The lynx also has pretty solid speed, and doesn't swim too slow.

Boredom:

I found that it was easy to get a little bored while travelling the same route for mostly every day, which is why I recommend listening to a podcast, some music, or maybe even an audio book if you're into that.


Motivation

Now, you might be thinking, "Why unlock the white eagle skin? Seems like a lot of work for just one skin." For me being a completionist, I made it necessary for myself to try to unlock the skin, but for someone else who maybe isn't focused on that kind of thing, it might be grueling to have to grind a lot for just one animal skin.
If you're going for the white eagle skin, and it's feeling like a whole lotta work for nothing, I recommend just not going for it. While it is a grind to get it, I still tried to have fun during the game, and listening to music, or just thinking and being alone with my thoughts was pretty calming, and I found it to be enjoyable.

If you're going for the eagle skin, or just climing the leaderboards, I do hope this guide was of some help to you!