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

Alyssum
The Flowers

As a child, after reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, I asked my mom if I could have a little garden outside our apartment complex. When the apartment owner said yes, one of the first flowers I brought in was alyssum, both white (“Carpet of Snow”) and purple (“Violet Queen”). Her etheric, faerylike beauty and sugary scent, combined with her heartiness and ease of growth, made her a simultaneously practical and magical choice. Now when I see her growing, it’s like running into an indescribably dear old friend.

Magical Uses

Comfort

You’ll find that the energy and wisdom of alyssum is very similar to the sweet, cozy, nourishing feeling of being around the archetypal comforting grandmotherly figure. For example, imagine your heart is broken and you go to your (archetypal) grandmother’s house crying. (I say “archetypal” because obviously we don’t all have that type of grandma. But we can still imagine.) She gives you her shoulder to cry on until your sobs subside. Then she goes to the kitchen and makes you some chamomile tea. As you drink it, she places a homemade afghan around your shoulders. Even though your heart is aching, you suddenly feel so loved and cared for that it was almost worth the heartbreak.

This type of comfort can also be helpful in situations such as the following:

✵ staying in the hospital

✵ healing from a serious or long-term condition

✵ moving away to college

✵ moving to a new town or city

✵ long-term stress of any kind

✵ healing from abuse

✵ healing from low self-esteem or a lack of self-love

✵ major life changes

To receive alyssum’s comforting benefits, try imbibing the essence, planting alyssum near your home in pots or flowerbeds, or employing her in rituals and charms designed for the purpose.

Gentleness

Similarly, if you find that you’ve been experiencing harshness of any kind due to inner or outer situations, alyssum can help. This might include things like:

✵ harsh work environments

✵ feeling a lot of anger, violence, greed, or resentment or spending time with people who emanate those emotions

✵ city environments or places with a large concentration of people

✵ frequent loud or jarring noises

✵ being around people or animals in pain

✵ spending time near large freeways or wide roads with a lot of traffic

The suggestions in the “comfort” section will also work for this purpose.

Grounding

When we use words such as all over the place, overwhelmed, frazzled, spacey, or on edge to describe how we feel, it usually means we’re not grounded. In other words, our personal energy is not anchored in the earth in a healthy, safe, nourishing, and balanced way. Alyssum can help with this by bringing us down to earth, reminding us what’s really important (love and the present moment), and soothing our stress-abused nerves. In other words, she reminds us to send our roots into the nourishing sweetness of the now.

For this purpose, again, see the suggestions in the “comfort” section or create a charm such as the following.

ANCHORING CHARM

Place four fresh alyssum blossoms and an iron pyrite on a piece of green cotton fabric. Tie closed with hemp twine and anoint with patchouli and a little jasmine, neroli, or rose essential oils. Pin inside your clothes to keep you grounded in the sweetness of the here and now. Re-anoint as necessary to keep the scent fresh.

Healing and Immunity

Alyssum’s comforting and grounding abilities allow her to help soothe away the stress and worry that can keep our immune system from functioning at its best. In this way she can support healing and immunity. For this purpose, take the essence or add it to your bath water. Fresh blossoms in water next to the bed of a healing person can also confer these benefits.

Keeping the Peace

Traditionally, alyssum is perhaps most known for her magical ability to banish anger and help establish peace. If disputes or discord seem to be the norm, or if teamwork and group harmony are crucial, you might want to sneak a few drops of alyssum essence in everyone’s food, juice, water supply, etc. Alternatively, you might completely cover and surround a picture of the concerned parties with fresh alyssum blossoms, or you might make the following mist potion.

“KEEP THE PEACE” MIST POTION

Place nine drops alyssum essence into a mister of rose water, along with about five drops each patchouli and neroli essential oils. Close the lid and shake. Mist the space in which you’d like to establish peace. If they’ll let you, mist any parties that are especially beset by anger or discord.

Staying True to Oneself

In one way or another, we are all artists. And despite those who may try to convince us otherwise, it’s important for us to remain true to our personal vision, not only regarding our creative projects but also regarding our lives. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from other people or receive helpful feedback from them, but it does mean that we must be the ultimate decision makers when it comes to what we are going to say, be, do, decide, and create. Alyssum can help us to know the difference between false ideas of who we “should be” and who we really are.

This can help with things like:

✵ business meetings and dealings

✵ parties and networking events

✵ high school, junior high, college, and other situations involving

peer pressure

✵ times when we are trying to “find ourselves” or define ourselves

Try employing the essence before and during these types of situations.

Magical Correspondences

Element: Earth

Gender: Female

Planets: Venus, Saturn