This past full moon (Wednesday, May, 10th) I led a small ritual with a few friends. We were trying out a new space and just sort of getting a feel for the land spirits as well as trying to tame a bit of the magical chaos we had all been feeling lately. We celebrated the full flower moon with candles, sage, flowers, and a water centered magical activity. I had planned to write out a meditation to lead but as I began writing it felt off somehow. So, instead, I selected a Plant Ally Meditation from Youtube that I believed would encompass what I wanted to achieve with the meditative portion of the celebration. It probably would have. But it was recorded too softly for us to be able to utilize it during the ritual. I was faced with either improvising a meditation or scrapping it.
Thank the Goddess I chose to wing it. I did a Plant Ally Guided Meditation that took us into a dark and thriving forest to a small plant hidden within a rotting log. We each drew our respective plant-life from the decay and formed a bond with the spirit inhabiting the flower. After the meditation I asked everyone what their flower was and what the spirit looked like. It was really neat to hear everyone's experience. Magically I was able to relax enough, even while speaking, to find my own flower. At first I wasn't sure what it was but it was a red full bloom, thin, tissue-like petals. I realized it was a poppy. This surprised me as my favorite flowers are Bleeding Hearts, Tulips, and Fuchsia. So I tucked this away, planning to look into the symbolism and the 'why' later. Hannah's flower was a blue daisy. Again a bit of a surprise since she's an Orchid and Rose girl all the way.
Hannah learned later that the Daisy is Freyja's flower. It was sweet, like the goddess was waving to Hannah saying, "I'm still here with you!"
The fact that flower was blue in Hannah's meditation is also interesting. It's one of the most calming colors in chromotherapy. It is also healing and it is the leading favorite color of the human race. It is above us and below us and universal. When I think Daisy I automatically think white so the blue was very deliberate. To be honest I didn't think blue daisies actually existed outside Hannah's meditation. I was wrong. They are quite real and quite lovely.
Inspired by Hannah's flower Ally and symbolism, I did a little research into the meaning behind the Poppy flower. The Poppy, of course, produces the poppy seed which leads to opium and all sorts of sleep inducing highly addictive substances. But the archetypal correspondence for the flower is actually Morpheus, the Greek god of Dreams. Which is rather appropriate as my last name literally translates into: the dreamer.
I'm a huge fan of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series and of dream analysis/divination and mythology in general. One of my stories deals with a Baku which is benevolent creature from Japanese folklore that survives by eating dreams, specifically nightmares.
When I was younger I had vivid reoccurring dreams about an old robed woman who came down every night to make sure my family was asleep and if were caught awake, she would kill us presumably. It was a terrible dream, one which I had every night for months and months. Looking back on it now I wonder if it was my fear of mortality already creeping in at the tender young age of 6. Many of my dreams live on in story form or help me to create characters. So, long story short, the Poppy seems a very apropos Ally.
Here's where it gets really interesting though:
For about two weeks I've been working as a freelance transcriber through Rev.com. It's not a huge amount of pay but I figure I can bring in an extra $25 or so a week and get a few side bills paid down (or, more than likely, put it all toward wedding expenses). Well, the other night I had a job that gave me some pause. As a transcriber we are supposed to type what we hear and not correct things that are misspoken by the speakers. Well I had a speaker say an author's name but she said it way off. I discovered the correct name and was debating on whether or not to put the correct spelling in or try to phonetically tackle the speakers gross mispronunciation. So I went to the forums on the site to see if anyone else had asked a similar question.
I didn't find my question but I fell down an immediate rabbit hole. There were so many interesting topics and threads. After perusing for a few minutes I stumbled upon a thread of a transcriber asking for help listening to a 3 second sound bit to see if anyone could pick out a certain word. The content dealt the energy and balance and the goddess. So of course I was curious! I clicked on the link to the audio and found that it was actually a video recording. I saw a woman speaking to a camera and thought nothing much of it until I noticed what was behind her: poppies and blue daisies.
Until that moment I would never have thought that red poppies and blue daisies could be a thing. Hell, I didn't even know blue daisies were a thing until researching them after Hannah's meditation. Shocked and inspired by this, I went on a google search to see if I couldn't find a picture of the painting behind the woman (you know, on the off chance that it was a classic or well known painting). I didn't find the painting but what I did find was further evidence of the marriage between red poppies and blue daisies.
Apparently these two flowers pair up nicely on many fabrics and prints. Perhaps a more popular pairing is poppy with cornflower or poppy with white daisy, but there was enough red poppy and blue daisy to convince me that not only is this combination a thing, it must somehow stem from some kind of archetypal knowledge. How random for Hannah to see a blue daisy and how utterly strange for me to pick a poppy. And yet, maybe it wasn't random or strange at all. Maybe it was just what we needed. I'm not entirely certain yet what the synchronicities mean for me or Hannah, but I know there is meaning and I find deep comfort in that.
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