The Magic of Flowers: A Guide to Their Metaphysical Uses & Properties - Tess Whitehurst 2013

Iris
The Flowers

Magically and medicinally employed in many cultures (including Japan, America, Egypt, Arabia, China, France, and Greece), Iris, like the Greek goddess for whom she is named, is an iridescent bridge between the realm of humans and the realm of the Divine.

Magical Uses

Alignment with Inner Truth

Who are you really? While you’ll never have a definitive answer in the scientific sense, each of us has a unique spiritual essence within us just waiting to be honored and expressed. And when we do express it, our divine gifts blossom forth, and we become clear, open channels of divine healing and love. But we can only express our inner truth once we get in touch with it and align with it, and helping us do so is one of iris’s specialties.

To begin getting in touch with the deepest, truest essence of who you are, as you feel guided, try working magically with the blossom or essence.

Creativity

When we create, we are like prisms or crystals receiving and reflecting divine light and transmuting it into rainbows. The clearer and more receptive we are, the more we sparkle and the more beauty we spread out into the world. Just as the goddess Iris was a rainbow bridge of light between the human and the celestial realms, the flower iris can connect us to the ever-present divine download of creative light and energy so that we can express our creative visions in healing and beneficial ways. This allows us to transmute stagnant feelings and challenging emotions into beauty, and to experience countless benefits in every life area.

To open your creative channel with iris, try spending time with the flower, working with the essence, placing an iris in water near your creative workspace, or sleeping with an iris in water on your nightstand or otherwise near your head.

Energetic Balance and Calibration

Iris is a master energy healer. If you feel physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually out of balance, even if you’re not exactly sure why, she can help make the necessary adjustments and get you back on track. Because, like a rainbow, she possesses all colors in equal measure, it’s in her nature to add exactly what is needed and to absorb and release exactly what is not needed. You might think of her like a piano or guitar tuner for your chakra system. To fine-tune your energy in this way, take two to three drops iris essence under the tongue first thing in the morning, surround yourself with blossoming irises (indoors or in your garden), or try the following bath ritual.

CHAKRA HEALING AND ENERGY CALIBRATION BATH

Draw a bath and dissolve one cup sea salt, one cup of Epsom salts, and one-half cup baking soda in the water. Light a white soy candle and place an ample supply of drinking water near the bath. Add forty drops iris essence. Remove your clothes. Stand above the water and hold your hands over it, palms down. Close your eyes and relax your mind. Say:

Iris, goddess of rainbows, divine bridge of color and light, I call on you!

Please infuse this water with your iridescent healing light.

Please balance and calibrate my aura, adding what is needed and removing what is not,

so that my body, mind, and spirit may sing and dance with the music of the spheres!

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Blessed be. And so it is.

Feel iris’s healing light moving in through the top of your head, down your arms, and out through your hands and into the water. Soak for about forty-five minutes, drinking water as needed. When you’re finished, place the blossoms aside. Before the end of the day, be sure to return them to the earth by placing them at the base of a tree.

Intuition and Divine Messages

Not only is iris named after the divine messenger goddess herself, but her petals are most often indigo, purple, or white: the colors associated with the third eye and crown chakras, which govern intuition, inner knowing, and divine connection. Indeed, she is herself a doorway between our everyday human awareness and the all-knowing, all-seeing awareness of the Divine.

When consciously activating your intuition and psychic awareness, iris can be an excellent magical support. For example, you might create the following magical accessory inspired by the irises that were reverently placed on the brows of the sphinxes in Egypt.

FAERY CROWN FOR ACTIVATING INTUITION AND ENHANCING DIVINATION

Gently and lovingly gather an iris blossom or two and a length of ivy long enough to weave into a simple crown that will fit comfortably around your head. Using hemp twine, ribbon, or twist ties as necessary, tie or weave in the iris blossoms. Wear so that the blossom rests near the center of your forehead.

Love-Drawing

A Muslim friend of mine once taught me that in the Islamic religion, God is known by many descriptive titles, one of which is “The Subtle One.” Those who desire to meet their partner call on this divine title when praying because there is so much subtlety involved with the alchemical correlation between the two souls who together make up what is known as “a perfect match.”

Similarly, iris’s subtle energetic precision can help us prepare for, and then draw, our perfect partner. Historically, powdered iris root (known as “orris root”) has been employed in love-drawing spells, but the blossom works too. So if you’re ready to embark on a lifelong romantic journey (pretty serious business, to be sure), you might perform the following spell.

LOVE-DRAWING SPELL

Within around ten minutes before or after sunrise on the morning of a new moon, approach a blossoming iris. Relax and tune in to her, and then let her know that you’d like to employ her in a ritual to draw your true love. Ask her if this is okay. If she says no, thank her anyway and retreat; you can try again at the next new moon (or in another year if she’s no longer in bloom then). If she says yes, thank her by pouring a bottle of spring water and placing two lepidolite crystals near her base. Then gently and lovingly snip the blossom and wrap it in clean muslin or undyed cotton. At home, place the blossom in a small paper bag and leave it on your altar to dry. At the next new moon, by candlelight, at the same time (ten minutes before or after sunrise), remove the blossom from the bag and tie it into the muslin with hemp twine, along with two lepidolite crystals. Sleep with the charm under your pillow until your true love appears. Then return to the iris from which you snipped the blossom and bury the charm close by with an expression of heartfelt thanks.

Purification and Protection

Irises possess a very purifying and protective energy. For example, it’s said that irises helped the Frankish King Clovis extricate himself from a river bank on which he was stranded by growing up through the water and revealing to him that the Rhine River was shallow enough to cross. This led to them being adopted as the symbol of French kings in the form of a fleur de lis.

In Japan, irises were placed on thatched roofs to purify the environment and protect from fire. And May 5 is known as “Iris Bathing Day,” when iris leaf tea is added to bath water to protect the bather in the forthcoming year.

Additionally, irises are said to share the energy of the Virgin Mary, who has a very purifying and protective energy all her own.

Here are some ideas for employing irises for purification and protection:

✵ To energetically purify and protect your home, bring irises indoors and place them at or above thresholds.

✵ Create a protective charm by placing dried iris petals and dried yarrow in a charm bag and hanging it on or above the front door and any other doors that open to the outside.

✵ Employ iris petals in spells or rituals designed for purification and protection.

✵ Employ the fleur de lis symbol as a protective sigil in your magical work.

Walking Between the Worlds

As a goddess who walks between the worlds—the worlds of form and spirit, known and unknown, human and divine—Iris has been invoked in Greece to help successfully guide the spirits of women and girls to the afterlife. Traditionally, iris blossoms are employed to adorn caskets belonging to females.

All true magic is worked “between the worlds.” In other words, perceiving and dwelling within the connection between the worlds is a prerequisite to successful magical workings. Consequently, if you feel stuck in one world or the other—or perceive things as only mundane or only magical but never both—iris can help you unite your vision and reclaim the fullness of your magical power.

Try working with the blossom or essence in any way mentioned above, or place five to six drops iris essence in a glass of red wine and drink it just before a spell, ritual, or divination work.

Magical Correspondences

Element: Water

Gender: Female

Planet: Venus