Greet the Spring with Violet

In the rising light, I awaken—entranced by imagination.

Sweet violet! Little pops of purple that, with close inspection, resolve into delicate, sweet smelling flowers. Here in the Pacific Northwest, they generally start to bloom around late February and continue into early April. 

You can find them on most neighborhood walks, tucked under mailboxes and on the edges of lawns. If you are wandering the woods, you might see a few native species in open meadows or along the forest edges.

Violet leaf and flower have long been used to soothe the respiratory and digestive systems. Violet is also a favorite for gently moving the fluids of the body throughout your lymphatics. 

Violet embodies the power in the small things.

This little plant supports us in the process of opening up to ourselves—the process of awakening. Violet assists in moving from inner turmoil or dissonance to inner peace. 

Think about using violets to assist as you start to rewrite your internal narratives, shift your self-talk, or expand into connection with more humans. Violet can be a helping companion if you want to build relationship with someone but are unsure or afraid of being hurt, rejected, or unseen. 

Through small acts of ritual, violet can help you expand your understandings of self, open up to others, and reach toward connection while staying grounded. These rituals might look like:

• Sitting in stillness and asking violet if they want to talk to you. Offer a question or turmoil and wait for an answer. It may come now, or it may come later. Be open to the possibilities. Repeat this ritual daily, or as often as feels good, and give time for violet to share how they are feeling, too—building relationship goes both ways.
  
  
• Taking a drop of violet flower essence and using an affirmation like, “I move from dissonance to peace,” or, “I awaken my imagination,” or, “ I imagine a new way.” Say this to yourself as if it were true. You can take more essence throughout the day as you encounter situations that are challenging or make it difficult to enact this way of being. Remember to give thanks as violet assists you in this remything practice.

Violet asks you to strengthen and expand through community. 

You can also use violet to shine a gentle morning light upon larger questions of community and safety. What would it be like to live in a world without having to constantly prove your worth? How would your life be if you regularly experienced safe relationships? 

Violet considers the smaller, specific versions of these questions that are relevant to just  you—like, how you can form stronger interpersonal connections or better support your friends and family. But it also assists in the personal unwinding from pervasive narratives of settler colonialism, white supremacy, cis-heteropatriarchy, and capitalism. 

This process of unwinding may start with noticing how white supremacy shows up in your life and taking steps to shift those patterns. Or maybe it looks like paying reparations, like Real Rent Duwamish. You can lean on violet to walk with you through this expansive process of shifting narratives and imagining a new future. 

Violet invites you to imagine a new way of being.

Call on violets as you greet the rising light of spring, and be entranced by imagining new ways of existing in your body, in the world, and in community. 

For spellcrafting, use violet in spells of homecoming (healing); in spells to soothe, calm, and defuse; in spells of remything and rewriting narratives; in spells to divest from kyriarchy; and in spells of remembrance of ancestors.

Welcome a new relationship with violets as you build new community support and to call on the magic of Spring.