Had you thought of the Peony as a possible totem in your life? Remember that a Native American totem can come in the form of an animal, a mineral, or a plant. We sometimes forget about the lessons or medicine that we can learn from our friends the plants of Mother Earth.
I don’t know about where you live but in my part of the world, the peony is a most lovely flowering plant that blooms during May. Whenever I encounter a flowering peony, I am taken back to my Grandmother’s home in a memory that makes me smile. As a child I was so drawn to her peonies every spring. They were simply breathtaking and I did not realize at the time that they may have attracted me as a totem. After doing some research for this post, I do have to wonder. I seemed to be drawn to writing about them today so my inner voice is telling me to learn something from this wondrous plant.
In past times when the old ways were followed more closely, many times the seeds of the peony were dried and then carved with something meaningful and then worn around the neck to ward off evil spirits and to provide protection for traveling.
It is believed that when you have peonies planted around your home that they will offer protection and also good health to any of the people who live in the household.
Besides protection and good health, what other lessons does the peony as a plant totem teach us? Well, just as a peony plant starts out small and then has the ability to grow into a large plant…so do we as humans. We all have the potential to grow in our spirit and be a success at what we attempt.
We are reminded by the peony totem to nurture ourselves physically and emotionally along with nurturing our hopes and dreams. When we do, we allow ourselves to flourish and blossom in our day to day journey.
One way to remind ourselves about the lessons of the plant totem, Peony, is to keep a reminder for the times of the year that this lovely plant is not in our vision but can still teach us to bloom forth with the strong and positive energy of the Peony and allow ourselves to become what we are destined to be.
~Mitakuye Oyasin~ We are all related
I just so love peonies. As a child my mother would let me take them into school when we were asked to donate flowers to decorate the classroom for prizegiving.
Now I have them blooming under my home/office window, just a few feet from where I sit. They are finished now – I wish they bloomed for longer.
Now reading about the Peony totem… I had pink Peony in my old house garden, exactly like the one in your last picture, the plant grew very big, and each year she had so many huge flowers, which was so heavy, that finally they lay on the ground…
I think that Peony plant was trying to tell me something…
After my husband died I sold the house…
Thanks for making me think.