There is a precious magic to be found in calla lilies. If you haven’t experienced them growing before, it may be worth a trip to a local nursery to just vibe with them a little bit, as the pictures really don’t do them justice. There’s a lot of information here, but if you make it to the end, your sex life may become much more satisfying with a little work…
Before getting into the energetic impact of a calla lily, let’s talk about what they are! First off, calla lilies are not actually lilies, they are from the arum family. Arum flowers are actually not what we’re looking at when we see calla lilies, we are looking at the spathe, which is sort of sheath encircling the flowers to keep them protected. The flowers can be found along the spadix, or a type of fleshy stem, and is the yellow part sticking out of middle of a calla lily. The spadix contains both male and female flowers, the male flowers sitting closer to the top and the female flowers sitting closer to the bottom, spiraling around the fleshy stem. When insects are attracted to the flower, motion at the top will shake pollen down, and of course pollen is also taken to other neighboring flowers. Some species of the arum family create a sort of trap for insects so that as they’re trying to free themselves, more pollen is shaken atop the female flowers, and after pollination, the webbing/strings break apart and release the insects.
Energetically, there is much to be gained from spending time with calla lilies, as well as using calla lily flower essence. If you know me, you know I love my flower essences, and have quite the collection from a wide variety of sources. If you’re new to flower essences, here’s a simple breakdown: every plant species, and every plant really, has a distinct vibrational pattern it emits into the world around it. We also have our own unique pattern, and as a collective we humans have a distinct vibrational pattern. As individuals, our own heartbeat creates a vibrational pattern around us. There is plenty of information about this out there, and if you’d like to find out more, do a little reading about heart math. If you’d rather experience it yourself, take a relaxing bath in silence. Dip your ears under the water and breathe, and remain silent. You should be able to hear the pattern in the water created by your heartbeat. It’s pretty wonderful, honestly. Anyhoo…back in the day, and for some people to this day, water is imbued with a specific type of flower. This can be done in any number of ways, but it is not an extraction or infusion. It is just a transmission of a vibrational pattern. Water has vibrational memory, and so in doing this process, the water will retain the vibrational pattern of the flower species. Then, you take some of this water into your own body, and as you are made up primarily of water, the vibrational pattern courses through your cells and can help clear up energetic blockages. One thing I love about using flower essences is that because my body is highly sensitive, I often have reactions to pharmaceuticals and supplements. Taking a flower essence, even if I were to take way too much or the wrong one, will not do any harm, it just may not do the thing I want it to (imagine taking aspirin to try to fix a broken bone—it may help with a minor headache, but the bone will still be broken).
So what can calla lilies teach us energetically? Well, a lot actually. Calla lilies help us to balance the male and female energies within ourselves, with the specific help of bringing the sacred into our sexuality. As a society, we have a strange view of sexuality in many instances. I often deliver lengthy diatribes about how we teach that sexuality is less appropriate than violence in our society (just look at the rating system of films), and how this plays out in ripples across us all. Many of us have guilt and shame, even fear of our own or others’ sexuality. These base and primal issues around our own bodies, and our bodies’ derivation of pleasure, can really impact how much of life around us we can experience. If we are taught that our bodily sensations are inherently bad, or if sensuality is bad, we cannot fully experience the scent of jasmine flowers on the breeze. We are sensational creatures, and we deserve the space to experience all of our senses fully.
When we are energetically balanced, we have greater access to the fullness of our sensations. Yet we have a tendency, at least in terms of social construct, to separate the masculine from the feminine. This is continuously changing, thank goodness, but we still have a lot of it throughout layers of societal conditioning. In truth, energetically speaking, we are pretty androgynous over all, but we are expected to outwardly present something quite different. As with all things, there develops a microcosm and a macrocosm around this conditioning. The macrocosm can be seen in human patterning, exemplified greatly by the patriarchal authority that has reigned for millennia, keeping men afraid to appear “weak” and keeping women afraid to exist (that is hugely generalized, of course, but also not the point here). The microcosm is what I’d like to discuss.
On an individual level, we are conditioned day in and day out with a constant influx of messages which alter our perception of reality, which often then alters our perception of self. We all have within us masculine and feminine energies, and when these energies harmonize, we are magnificently beautiful creatures. But how can we harmonize these energies when there is so much messaging around us to separate the masculine and the feminine? We are expected to ignore a significant part of our core energy in order to outwardly portray one or the other. Once again, this is constantly changing, thank goodness. But within this programming, we must make a choice to harmonize these energies within us, which is often quite a radical act. Many of us live with extreme expectation of how we must present ourselves, and deviating from that can have dire consequences socially and even within family (side note, if you are in a situation like this, I love you and am proud of you for surviving. It will get better, and please feel free to reach out to me. I can be a mamma bear very quickly).
If balancing your masculine and feminine energies seems like a valuable endeavor, maybe try a meditative practice with calla lily flower essence (or if you’re lucky enough to have some growing nearby, sit with them in this practice as well). A general practice is to write out a sentence from your future self about how you are in that moment. For example, if I am in a place where my masculine and feminine sides are out of balance, and want to harmonize them, I would write:
My masculine and feminine energies dance together in infinite harmony.
This is how I would write it, but it’s a very personal journey, and it needs to come from you. It is important to keep things short and sweet, keep things positive (don’t use words like no/don’t/etc.), and don’t involve the struggle bus. Just write the sentence as if you are in the future after having done the work, in the knowledge that you have arrived.
Take time in your day where you can be in silence and thought, say your phrase to yourself as many times as you’d like, and take some of the flower essence. Allow yourself to contemplate and meditate, and make sure you’re comfortable. I find it very helpful to write in this time as well, so you may want to have a flower essence journal on hand. Take as much time as you need, and allow yourself to feel whatever comes up. This work can actually get very intense, so if you find yourself getting too tumultuous, give yourself the space to take a break as well. It’s better to do a little bit at a time so that you can fully integrate the processing, even if it feels like you’re moving slowly. If you do too much at once, it can actually backfire on you a bit.
Why do this work? Well, the long answer involves gradually shifting consciousness to dissolve dominance culture. But the shorter and more individually satisfying answer is that your sex life will just be better. Once you harmonize the energies within you, you will have access to a much wider range of pleasure that is free of shame and guilt and any other conditioned response you may have to corporeal sensation. Our bodies are magnificent and incredible works of divinity, and we have the ability to explore them sensationally. And this can occur in an infinitely vast array of possibilities, including but not limited to a fuller experience tasting a delicious meal, a more profound and full-body experience of smelling a flower, or simply opening up in fuller ways with a partner. We are constantly shifting and evolving, stepping into our new selves microsecond upon microsecond. Why not step into harmony and balance within yourself? Bring the numinous, the divine, the sacred, into your bodily sensations, to be shared or not, whatever is right for you.
Thank you for reading. I hope this has been informative and helpful!
As always…
May beauty surround you
before you and behind you
above you and about you
and may your journey home be on a trail of peace
happily may you return.