Clematis Flowers Meaning & Symbolism

Flower names often don’t tell the whole story of the meanings of flowers. The climbing clematis flower has medicinal properties and is symbolic of healing. This treasured Victorian plant with its near-perfect flowers has uses that work on our states of mind. You’ll see there’s more about the significance of this flower than meets the eye.

Clematis comes from the Greek klema, twig, shoot, or branch and symbolizes mental prowess and beauty. The flower is from the buttercup or Ranunculaceae family. On a spiritual level, clematis flowers represent states of harmony. Clematis is used in anthroposophical medicine and chakra alignments.

The significance of clematis flowers is not blatantly evident but lies in holistic treatments and this flower’s therapeutic and symbolic qualities. Clematis flower petals are distilled and used in alternative medicine to promote emotional wellness and self-healing. Clematis flowers symbolize ingenuity problem solving, but there’s more.

Clematis Flowers’ Therapeutic Benefits Balance Energies

The botanical uses of clematis flowers are their medicinal benefits, and homeopaths, herbalists, and healers use clematis flower petals and remedies widely. The uses can’t just be written off as myths, primitive, or mumbo jumbo. The meanings of clematis flowers are their benefits in treating and balancing peoples’ emotional states of mind.

Chakra therapists recognize the benefits of clematis flowers as having meanings that bring about inner harmony and balance. Clematis flowers’ influence is on the heart chakra, one of seven chakras (from the Sanskrit wheel) located along the spine. Chakra therapy works on physical and emotional states with clematis symbolizing harmony.  

The heart chakra carries significance as a beholder of inner peace and self-acceptance. The symbolic value of clematis flowers represents states of letting go and forgiveness. The meaning of the clematis flower represents feelings of safety and connectedness. Clematis flowers used in chakra therapy and as an anthroposophical remedy aims to reconnect people with themselves.

The heart chakra stands out as a signifier of love, forgiveness, tolerance, and joy. These states of total connectedness, when in imbalance, are treated with clematis flowers as these are symbolic of remedying feelings of disconnection. These feelings or imbalances manifest as mental anguish and allow people to want to escape into fantasy.

Peoples’ feelings of loss and displacement are aided by clematis flowers as these symbolize a return to what lies deep within our hearts. Clematis flowers’ meanings are in the processes that ground our energies. These flowers’ roles are in alternative therapies that metaphorically bring us face to face with our true selves.

Clematis flowers are symbolic of grounded states, whether in chakra therapy or as a flower remedy. The essential qualities and the therapeutic and medicinal benefits of clematis flowers stretch over centuries. So too is the meaning and symbolism of these flowers in material culture and as body adornment, like tattoos.

Clematis Flowers’ Soft Tones On Fabrics And As Tattoos

Japanese textile artists have used clematis flowers as signature designs on fabrics for kimonos. These have gained worldwide appeal in fashion and apparel circles. The delicate tones of the flowers’ colors and the twisty-turning motif of its stems are expressions of Japanese culture and aesthetics.

Dress or apparel motifs mirror society and the clematis flowers are flower motifs that have reached near-immortality in their significance in design. The clematis flower, a nature motif, has embedded purity and beauty cultural meanings. The stylized beauty of the clematis flower on kimonos is traditional.

Clematis flowers are the symbolic birth flower for those born under the sign of Virgo. The spiritual value of the clematis flower makes these a sought-after tattoo too. The clematis plant has many names, like virgin’s bower, the old man’s beard, travelers’ joy, and even climbing queen and devil’s darning needle.

These colloquial names have symbolism through their connotations which, as ‘climbing queen’ represents breaking with stereotypical confinement and even meaning freedom. Whereas the meaning of the nickname ‘devil’s needle’ implies being mischievous.  

On the body, the simple beauty of the clematis flower is its shape and colors. As with many flower tattoos, these symbolize a connection with nature. The clematis flower is symbolic of high ideals. The white flowers symbolize purity and pink flowers femininity. The pink also signifies eternal life, and the red in clematis flowers symbolize rebirth.

Tattoo artists and wearers alike find meaning in the clematis flower and its rambling stems. The symbolism here is strength and beauty in simplicity. The literal expression of this flower’s symbolism is often seen through therapies like chakra balancing. Clematis flowers here carry meanings of spiritual strength.

Clematis Flowers As Remedy Stimulates Wellness

Clematis flowers are rooted in anthroposophical medicines as one of 38 flower essences used to ground or restore people’s interest in life. These therapeutic benefits treat emotional as well as physical health. Clematis flowers symbolize states of mind associated with intelligence, mental prowess, and ingenuity and are used to change and ground us.

For centuries herbalists have valued plants as healing, and one of the oldest works known is herbalist John Gerard’s The Herball or generall historie of plantes (1597). Much later, English physician Dr. Edward Bach (about 100years ago) experimented with the therapeutically beneficial clematis species.

Clematis is used in Bach’s holistic approach to medicine. Clematis flowers – with rock rose, star of Bethlehem, impatience, and cherry plum – treats trauma, terror, and panic. This first aid remedy is commercially available under the name: rescue remedy. This remedy is used widely even to treat children and animals with anxiety.

Botanical Beauty Of Clematis Equals Therapeutic Qualities

Clematis flowers are of the buttercup family, about 300 species. Clematis flowers are mainly of Chinese and Japanese origin but are cultivated and grown worldwide. Some of the curious nicknames of this plant have been that of ‘traveler’s joy’, and it is thought that this derivative resembles the random way the clematis plant grows on trellises.

Victorian favorites still available are ‘Beauty of Worcester’, ‘Belle of Working’, ‘Duchess of Edinburgh’, ‘Gipsy Queen’, ‘Jackmannii’, C. viticella, and C.lanuginosa (the parent of many modern cultivars).

Whether one sees the significance of the clematis flower as its botanical beauty or as this flower’s invisible therapeutic qualities, one can’t ignore the relation between these flowers and our emotional states of mind. Nor can we overlook clematis flowers’ importance in balancing states of mind or disharmonies within us.

Think again, and perhaps pin a note somewhere to remind you of the rich symbolic value of clematis flowers. Just write: Get balanced!

What Are The Symbolic States Clematis Flowers Treat?

Symbolically, clematis flowers are for people who say they feel outside of reality or in a state of ‘lost focus’. The clematis flowers’ profound meanings bring about ‘mental beauty’ or ‘mental prowess’. Clematis flower remedies (and chakra therapies) treat indecision.

People in need of the clematis flower remedy often appear detached from life. Perhaps you know someone who is like a wanderer between two worlds. It could be us! We stubbornly refuse to look at and into ourselves. Satirist Mokokoma Mokhonoana gives context to the plant world and what he sees as our response to life’s demands.

Mokhonoana writes on how courageous plants are to be just that. He says, ‘an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons’. On the other hand, humans often are someone they’re not and would even die. This illustration of how we work against ourselves is a backdrop to see the need for the inherent symbolism of clematis flowers to provide balance.  

Knowing the therapeutic and symbolic value and meanings of clematis flowers and their significance as prowess and ingenuity, we can look forward to being more of ourselves. We lose balance in the negative state as unfocused or excessively romantic and eccentric in personality. Clematis flowers have been used to balance such extremes.

Curiously, when we dream of clematis flowers, our unconscious might be at work to bring about mental acuity or even wisdom. The colors of clematis flowers also have a broad spectrum, with the blues symbolizing trust, faith, and serenity. The turquoise hues of clematis flowers correspond with the chakra that rules self-expression.

The meanings and symbolism of the colors of clematis flowers are layered. These correspond with the seven levels that chakras represent. The most profound aspect is that clematis flowers bloom in white, which symbolizes divine aspiration on a spiritual level.

Conclusion

Clematis flowers are possibly among the most intriguing flowers, as seen in their use as herbal tinctures and alternative chakra healing therapies. These flowers are associated with mental beauty and ingenuity. Clematis flowers’ exquisite beauty and decorative appeal are aesthetically replicated on fabrics and body art.

What’s self-evident is that one can’t tell a flower by its color or name only and that a flower like a clematis, which means twig or branch, has a significance that relates to our most profound sense of wellness and even divinity.