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

Wisteria
The Flowers

While many flowers reach exclusively upward toward the sun, wisteria, after her vines spiral upward, falls gracefully downward like a fragrant waterfall. Although she’s technically named after the botanist Caspar Wistar, her name is evocative of her energetic nature, which is nothing if not wistful.

Magical Uses

Beauty That Increases with Age

Yoga teaches that we each possess a “radiant body,” which—as yoga teachers Ana Brett and Ravi Singh describe it—is “a level of beauty that increases with time.” In other words, it’s the divine light that shines from within, resulting in a potent spiritual power and graceful beauty. And it is this brand of beauty that wisteria magically supports.

This can be especially helpful for times when we might feel down on ourselves about our age or our changing appearance. For example, taking wisteria essence under the tongue first thing in the morning and last thing before bed can help us to love and approve of ourselves deeply, exactly as we are, while reminding us that divine beauty is infinite and that we are channels for that beauty.

You might also receive these benefits by placing wisteria essence in your beauty products or bath water, planting wisteria in your garden, spending time in quiet contemplation with blossoming wisteria, or employing wisteria blossoms in charms or rituals.

Divine Blessings, Comfort, and Love

Simply spending time with a blossoming wisteria gives you the feeling that divine blessings, comfort, and love are cascading down from above, surrounding you and swirling into your life—which, of course, they are.

This can be especially helpful if you seem to have found yourself in a negative holding pattern or if any of the following thoughts seem to be running through your inner dialogue or characterizing the narration of your life:

✵ “Everyone’s out to get me.”

✵ “Nothing seems to be working.”

✵ “No one’s on my side.”

✵ “Why do I have such bad luck?”

✵ “I’m stuck.”

✵ “Why can’t I get a break?”

✵ “Isn’t that always the way?”

To short-circuit these thoughts and disrupt the external conditions they’re holding in place, you might spend time with the blossom or work with the essence.

Healing Grief

While grief and other “negative” emotions often get a bad rap, the truth is that great amounts of grief have the potential to instill us with a great amount of inspiration. Why? Because nothing reminds us of the following things more than grief:

✵ the depth of our love

✵ the impermanence of the appearance of things

✵ the eternal, timeless nature of the Divine

And while there’s no cure for grief (whether it comes from a divorce, a death, or any other kind of loss), the secret to healing it is to go straight into it: to feel it fully and to give it all the time and space it needs. This takes the poison out while leaving our hearts wide open so our wounds can heal and our hearts can grow even stronger than they were before.

Like a gentle hand on our shoulder in our time of need, wisteria helps us do this by infusing us with the feeling that we are not alone; by softening the harsh energies of guilt, blame, anger, and remorse; and by giving our emotions the space they need to flow.

GRIEF TREATMENT

To support the grieving process and help transmute painful emotions into inspiration and love, put six drops wisteria essence in a sixty-four-ounce bottle of pure water and drink the entire bottle throughout the day. Additionally, put six drops wisteria essence in a mister of rose water and mist your entire body and aura before going to bed at night. Repeat every day for at least one month or until you intuitively feel like the treatment is complete. (Alternatively or additionally, spend at least a few moments in quiet contemplation with a blossoming wisteria daily for the same period of time.)

Softness, Soothing, and Stress Relief

Wisteria’s gentle and cloudlike energy soothes and softens harsh energies and instills a sense of luxurious calm. This can be especially useful for times when we feel all caught up in the hustle and bustle of things; when we work in environments beset by hostility, greed, or other poisonous vibes; when we’re too hard on ourselves; or when we’re just generally frazzled, overworked, or stressed out. For example, you might try:

FLORAL ARMOR

For isolated incursions into the realm of the harsh (such as jury duty, a trip to the DMV, or going to the pound to adopt an animal), or if you traverse harsh conditions on a regular basis (such as for a job), you might try surrounding yourself with this armor of softness before you leave the house and refreshing it as needed.

Add four drops wisteria essence to a mister of rose water, along with ten drops lavender essential oil and six drops ylang ylang or neroli essential oil. Shake well and mist your entire body and aura. (For situations where fragrance is not permitted, just add twelve drops wisteria essence to a mister of pure spring water instead.)

Wisdom

Wisteria possesses a quiet spiritual wisdom that she is happy to share with anyone who will quiet her mind and heart long enough to listen. This wisdom is beyond words and must be experienced firsthand to get the full effect. Still, if I were to attempt verbally relating it, I might include kernels such as:

✵ You are so much more than just a body: you are a soul,

and your soul is eternal.

✵ Nothing is as important as you think it is.

✵ There is no need to force anything to happen.

✵ Everything is occurring in perfect timing.

✵ The bitter comes along with the sweet, and it is better that way.

✵ There is a time for everything, though everything eventually dissolves into the nothing from which it came.

✵ Shh, shh, shh. There is nothing to worry about.

Magical Correspondences

Element: Water

Gender: Female

Planet: Saturn