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

Lantana (Shrub Verbena)
The Flowers

This feisty little guy is in the verbena family, but I can’t for the life of me see the resemblance between him and his kinfolk (energetically speaking, that is). While they’re both magical, beautiful, and helpful in a number of ways, lantana is strong, sunshiny, and sassy, while other verbena varieties tend to be etheric, otherworldly, and gentle.

Important notes:

✵ Lantana is not edible like many other verbena varieties, so do not consume any part of the plant.

✵ For information on the rest of the verbena family, please see the “Vervain (Verbena)” entry.

Magical Uses

Breaking Old Patterns

Lantana can be magically employed to act like a virus scan that can uncover and dismantle harmful patterns that may be stored in our consciousness, energy field, home, or workspace. Since we have all inherited issues stemming from childhood experiences and even further back into our ancestry and past lives, lantana can be a helpful ally in helping us end these patterns right now, during this lifetime, so that they never resurface in the lives of our descendants or future selves. For this purpose, I suggest taking the essence, spending time with the plant, or creating a charm.

KARMA-CLEARING CHARM

Dry five blossoms in sunlight, and place them in a small cotton bag or tie them up in cotton fabric. Empower the charm with the intention to clear old karmic patterns, and hang it so that it’s above your head while you sleep.

(Please note: magically speaking, though he is quick, lantana is not gentle. So this might be a little less than pleasant, like getting a tooth pulled.)

Exorcism

Lantana is so clear, dynamic, bright, and positive, it’s hard for him to coexist with the stagnant, heavy, muddled, negative energy that characterizes unwanted ghosts and entities.

Here are some ways you can employ this aspect of his magic:

✵ Set a glass bowl outdoors in bright sunlight. Place a (cleansed) white quartz crystal in the bottom of the bowl and fill it with water. Float forty lantana blossoms (forty whole heads, not just forty tiny parts of the blossom) on top of the water. Hold your hands near the bowl and direct positive energy through your hands and into the water. After leaving the bowl in sunlight for one hour, fill a mister with water from the bowl. Add ten to twenty drops angelica essential oil to the mister. Close and shake well. Use the remaining water to feed plants around your yard or pour it out near the base of a tree. During a waning moon, shake the bottle and mist your home with the mixture to send entities packing. You may also employ this mist in other exorcism and space-clearing rituals.

✵ When exorcising entities or negative patterns from the energy field of a person, begin by calling on divine helper(s) of your choice. (Personally, I’d call Archangel Michael and his angelic helpers.) Smudge the patient’s entire aura with a smoking bundle of desert sage, feather sage, or sagebrush. Then set the sage aside (while leaving it safely burning) and sweep the patient’s aura with a small bouquet of lantana blossoms. Finish by very lightly tapping the patient’s third eye, heart, belly, and hands with the blossoms.

✵ Plant lantana around your home to keep negative entities (physical and nonphysical) from entering.

Getting Energy Moving

Sometimes our energy can get stagnant because there’s something somewhere that we don’t want to look at or something that we’ve learned we’re supposed to repress. And once that happens, every aspect of our mental and physical health suffers. What’s more, we find ourselves with a marked lack of motivation, direction, and clarity.

While it might not be entirely pleasant at first, lantana can help cure these challenges and get our energy moving in the right direction by taking us straight into whatever it is that we’re so cunningly blocking from our own conscious awareness. And, since our bodies and minds are inextricably connected, this can also help get our organs moving and flowing in healthy and ideal ways. For this purpose, I suggest taking the flower essence regularly until your energy is moving in the way you desire.

Healing Depression

Depression is often the effect of blocked emotions and direction. As such, because of the energetic properties discussed in the “getting energy moving” section, lantana can help cure depression by getting you in touch with your feelings and ideal emotional flow. For this purpose, try taking the flower essence as recommended above or planting the flowers around your home and spending time in quiet contemplation with them. The smudging ritual from the “exorcism” section would also be a great option, so you might ask one of your especially magical friends to perform it on you.

Space Clearing

As mentioned, lantana can be a great space-clearing ally. Try smudging with a bundle of feather sage, sagebrush, or desert sage, then misting the space with the mist potion recipe in the “exorcism” section. Or add twelve drops of the flower essence and twenty drops clary sage essential oil to a mister of rose water to create a powerful, smokeless smudge spray.

Speaking Your Truth (and Coming Out of the Closet)

Lantana is sassy, saucy, and tells it like it is. Hence, if you’re looking for a truth-speaking booster shot or inspiration to come out of the closet in any area of your life, look no further than lantana. First, he’ll help you get clear on what your truth actually is. Then he’ll help you clear your throat and speak up. For this purpose, try taking the essence or inhaling the fragrance while holding your specific truth-speaking intention.

Strengthening Boundaries

When our energy is strong and clear, and when we’re in alignment with our feelings and inner dialogue, we naturally have good boundaries. In other words, we know who we are and who we aren’t. We know what feels right to us and what doesn’t. And we aren’t afraid to let any of it be known.

This naturally strengthens and protects our personal energy field from dangers in both physical and nonphysical realms. For this purpose, I suggest inhaling the scent daily with the intention to strengthen your boundaries or taking two drops of the essence under the tongue or in water twice per day.

Strengthening Will

Since lantana helps us get clear on who we are and gives us a motivational jumpstart, it follows that he helps strengthen our will. This can be helpful when we’re trying something new or moving through an especially challenging time. Lantana’s will-strengthening action can also be helpful when we have issues with our third (or solar plexus) chakra, as he helps balance this chakra with the heart chakra so that our relationship with our personal power is balanced with (and healed by) love.

Magical Correspondences

Element: Fire

Gender: Male

Planets: Sun, Mars