Symbol Dictionary: Flowers
Flowers: Across all cultures, flowers are a symbol of love, appreciation and devotion to whom they are given. Flowers represent purity and sweetness.
Carnation: Carnations grew in the wake the the Virgin Mary’s tears on the way to Calvary and so they are a symbol of love. In China they are a symbol of Marriage. Rowena and Rupert Shepherd in their book 1000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean In Art And Myth (2002), states, “In the Victorian language of flowers, red carnations symbolize marital love; pink, compassionate, maternal love; white, pure spiritual love; and yellow, rejection.”
Cherry Blossoms: Significant in Japan, the Cherry Blossom symbolizes spring, purity, and short-lived beauty. Rowena and Rupert Shepherd in their book 1000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean In Art And Myth (2002), go on, “Because the blossom is in flower only briefly before dropping, the Cherry tree is a symbol of purity and short-lived beauty. The fallen blossom is sometimes used to symbolize warriors who have died young.” In China it can represent the fourth month of the year.
Chrysanthemum: The Chrysanthemum is a symbol of autumn and long life in China and Japan. Rowena and Rupert Shepherd in their book 1000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean In Art And Myth (2002), explain, “The Chinese name for this flower is almost a homonym with the word meaning ‘to remain;’ and it is linked to the number nine, which forms a homonym with the word meaning ‘long time.’ For this reason, the Chrysanthemum flower is a symbol of long life.” The Chrysanthemum, along with the plum, orchid, and bamboo, is one of the “Four Gentlemen,” who represent the virtues of a Confusian gentleman. In Japan it is the emblem for the imperial family.
Daisy: Another symbol of innocence, associated with the Virgin Mary and infant Christ. Daisies were also sacred to the Norse goddess Freya (Shepherd, 2002).
Iris: First associated with the Greek messenger goddess Iris, they are sometimes associated with the Virgin Mary (as a replacement of her lily). They also symbolize early summer in Japan, according to Rowena and Rupert Shepherd in their book 1000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean In Art And Myth (2002).
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Lily: The flower of the Sumero-Babylonian Goddess Lilith. Barbara Walker, in her book, The Woman’s Encyclopedia Of Myths And Secrets (1983), refers to it as the “lilu or ‘lotus’ of her genital magic. The lily often represented the virgin aspect of the Triple Goddess, while the rose represented her maternal aspect.” The lily also became associated with the virgin mother of God Mary and in the Symbols Of Church Seasons And Days (1997), John Bradner states, “As a symbol of purity this flower belongs particularly to the Virgin Mary.” Another Virgin Mother, Juno, also used a lily on her conception of her savior-son Mars. In general the Lily symbolizes the female reproductive capacity and, as Walker (1983) points out, “This myth reflected an early belief in the self-fertilizing power of the yoni (vulva), which the lily symbolized.” This myth was later assimilated into the Christian church by adopting the day of Juno’s virgin conception as the Festival of the Mother of God, in 656 C.E. at the 10th Council of Toledo. The Fleur-de-lis symbolizes the lily, the French royal family, and the Trinity, due to its three leaves (to the left) (Shepherd, 2002). See Lilith. |
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Lotus: A great white water lily, varieties of which grow from India to Australia. Earliest lotus art was found in 3000 B.C.E. in India on a fertility goddess. The Lotus or Cosmic Flower is the symbol for many Egyptian, Indian, and Oriental Goddesses including Padma, Cunti, Lakshmi, and Shakti, and is often paired with the male lingam. The Lotus physically represented the yoni or vulva and many myths of a Supreme Father-god who creates all, actually tell of their birth of a lotus (meaning a universal Goddess), including Brahma and Ra (the lotus also symbolized the sun due to its ray-like pedals). “In Hindu creation mythology the spirit of the Supreme Being was personified by a golden lotus on a great sea… In essence it signifies the female principle of life, from which stems fertility, prosperity, creation itself; and also enlightenment, immortality and resurrection,” according to Man, Myth And Magic: The Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Mythology, Religion And The Unknown (1995), edited by Richard Cavendish. From this belief of the yoni being the physical entrance to spiritual knowledge, arouse many spiritual sexual rituals, such as the sexual exercises of Oriental mystics and ritual cunnilingus of the east. |
Barbara Walker, in her book, The Woman’s Encyclopedia Of Myths And Secrets (1983), further asserts, “The central phrase of Tantrism, Om mani padme hum, meant the Jewel (male) in the Lotus (female), with interlocking connotations: the penis in the vagina, the fetus in the womb, the corpse in the earth, the God in the Goddess representing all of these.” The lotus is used in funeral rites, votive offerings, tomb paintings and it is part of social ceremony. “The association of the water-lily with the life-giving Nile made it one of Egypt’s many sacred objects, standing for fertility and resurrection… In Egyptian mythology the water-lily represented the newly-created earth, seen in the form of the flower floating on the water, enshrining the mysterious secrets of the gods,” (Cavendish, 1995). It is placed with the mummies of women. In Greece a multitude of patterns were developed from it, which are found also in India and in Etruscan and Roman art. See Lingam and Yoni.
Marigold: Associated with the dead by Mexicans, they are used as decoration during the Day of the Dead. They are associated with the sun god Apollo as the tale goes, “the Nereid Clytie who, having been spurned in love by the sun god, was transformed into a marigold and ever after turned her head to face the sun,” as interpreted by Rowena and Rupert Shepherd in their book 1000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean In Art And Myth (2002).
Narcissus: One of China’s “Four Nobilities” along with plum, cinnamon, and chrysanthemum, Narcissus are symbols of good fortune and the New Year. Part of the character for Narcissus means “Daoist Immortal,” so the flower can also stand for the Eight Immortals. In Greek legend, Narcissus was the beautiful youth who died looking at his own reflection, and eventually turned into the Narcissus flower. Rowena and Rupert Shepherd in their book 1000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean In Art And Myth (2002), explain, “He symbolizes the deadly cost of excessive self-absorption.”
Peony: Symbols of good fortune, riches, female beauty, the yoni, it is associated with erotic love. Rowena and Rupert Shepherd in their book 1000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean In Art And Myth (2002), states, “In Chinese the peony is called the King (or Queen) of flowers.” It is also represents spring as one of the four flowers representing the seasons along with the lotus, chrysanthemum, and plum.
Poppy: Poppies are symbols of sleep and death due to their medicinal qualities as sleep-aid. They are associated with winter and Demeter, who drank poppy juice in the fall and slept through winter. In the Greco-Roman pantheon, the poppy is the flower of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, Nyx, goddess of the Night, and Morpheus, God of sleep and dreams, according to Rowena and Rupert Shepherd in their book 1000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean In Art And Myth (2002).
Sunflower: Another flower that follows the sun, the Spanish called it girasol, “turn to the sun.” Rowena and Rupert Shepherd in their book 1000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean In Art And Myth (2002), state, “Hence it became associated with the faithful love of god and, in portraiture, with loyalty and devotion.”
Tulip: A symbol of the divine and paradise in the Ottoman Empire, the Tulip or lale uses the same letters as the word for Allah. In the Netherlands tulips became highly prized as symbols of wealth and beauty during the 16th century, according to Rowena and Rupert Shepherd in their book 1000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean In Art And Myth (2002).
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Rose: Symbols of beauty, fertility, and purity, roses were sacred to Aphrodite, the Muses, Aurora, and Dionysus (Shepherd, 2002). First associated as the Flower of Venus and her sacred prostitutes, the rose is a feminine symbol of sexuality and love for many traditions. A white rose, like the lily represented virginity and the red represented sexual maturity. The original five-petalled rose was sacred to witches and pagans along with the five-pointed pentacle and the apple blossom. Likewise, it was associated with the Egyptian five-pointed star of Ishtar and Aphrodite’s Mysteries of the Rose. In Marianism, the Christian Virgin Mary adopted the Holy Rose as her female symbol in conjunction with the masculine cross and during the Gothic period, Mary Magdalene was symbolized by the rose in the cathedrals built for her, namely the Notre Dames. |
In India the Great Mother is sometimes called the Holy Rose and in the east the Tree of Life and Immortality is a rose-tree. The Mongolian version of this tree is called Zambu and the Hindu’s recognized the cosmic Rose-Apple tree on the mythical paradise island Jambu. The number five was sacred to the Marians “because it was the number of petals in the rose, and also in the apple blossom—another virginity symbol—giving rise to the five lobes of the mature apple, the corresponding symbol of [virginity], motherhood, fruition, regeneration, and eternal life,” according to Barbara Walker in her book The Woman’s Encyclopedia Of Myths And Secrets (1983). In Zoroastrianism, the rose is associated with innocence, whose thorns are a result of the evil in the world; in Sufism, the rose flower is a symbol of life’s pleasure, the thorns, its pain; in Islam they are associated with paradise; In China they symbolize youth and the four seasons. The Rosette is a stylized rose from Mesopotamia that is connected to the Goddess Inanna, and in the Greco-Roman culture Aphrodite/Venus, as well as the Virgin Mary and with the cross is the symbol of Rosicrucianism (Shepherd, 2002). See Rosary.
Violet: A modern symbol of female modesty and frailty (for instance a ‘shrinking violet’), violets traditionally adorned the participants of Dionysian festivals (Shepherd, 2002).