When Plants Become Oracles
In every culture I’ve studied, plants were never just plants—they were messengers, omens, and quiet interpreters of the unseen. I feel this deeply each time I paint botanicals that glow, fold inward or expand like small worlds in motion. Occult botany is the belief that nature can speak in signs, reading the future through petals, roots, and seeds. In my work, these forms echo the ancient idea that the natural world doesn’t merely decorate life; it reveals it. When I render a botanical form with symbolic tension or luminous detail, I’m drawing on this same divinatory lineage.
Folklore and the Oracular Power of Plants
Across Slavic, Baltic and Mediterranean traditions, the landscape functioned as a living oracle. A seed sprouting early could foretell marriage or prosperity. A flower that refused to open might signal misfortune or a delayed journey. Herbs thrown into water revealed emotional truth depending on how they floated or sank. These rituals weren’t superstition alone—they were ways of reading the emotional and environmental climate before language was available to describe it. In my art, the logic remains similar: each plant gesture becomes a form of emotional weather forecasting.
Flowers That Foretell Love, Loss and Continuity
Flowers have long carried symbolic messages. In Slavic folklore, night-blooming flowers predicted the return of love or the persistence of longing. Mediterranean flower rituals used petals to answer questions of fidelity and desire. Even today, when I paint mirrored petals or blooms that open unnaturally wide, I’m referring to this emotional divination. A wide bloom can feel like a heart ready for connection. A closed, shadowed flower can hold the tension of grief or waiting. Flowers become emotional storytellers, revealing what the heart knows before the mind can name it.
Seeds as Indicators of Fate and Inner Movement
Seeds were among the oldest divinatory tools. Their behaviour—floating, sinking, sprouting—was believed to mirror the path a person was about to take. A glowing seed in my symbolic universe carries a similar charge. It holds the beginning of a story, the first movement toward a new chapter. When I let a seed emit a soft aura or pulse with colour, I’m exploring the way potential feels before it becomes form. Seeds speak of destiny not as something fixed, but as something quietly organizing itself beneath the surface.
Roots That Map Emotional Pathways
Roots in folklore were prized for their ability to reveal hidden truths. Their twists, their directions, their unexpected forks were read like maps of fate. A root that divided evenly suggested harmony; a root tangled on one side predicted imbalance or conflict ahead. In my work, roots behave the same way. Their geometry becomes a portrait of emotional architecture—showing how feelings move, where they get caught, and where they begin to transform. When I paint root-systems that glow or shift direction, I’m thinking about how intuition travels through the body.
Herbs as Instruments of Prophecy and Protection
Herbs carried a dual role: they foretold the future and safeguarded it. Folk rituals used wormwood, mugwort, rosemary or juniper to read the seasons, warn of illness, attract love or protect the home. These plants acted like both shield and signal. When I incorporate herb-like forms—sharp leaves, thin silhouettes, or smoky botanical halos—I’m aligning myself with this ancient belief that some plants reveal and others defend. In symbolic art, herbs become talismanic elements that speak the language of foresight and safety.
Contemporary Art as a Revival of Botanical Divination
Though the rituals have changed, the instinct remains. We still look to the natural world for signs—weather shifts, moon phases, the timing of blossoms. In my contemporary art practice, occult botany becomes a way to translate these ancestral impulses into visual language. A glowing root-system might reveal emotional grounding. A mirrored bloom might express a choice. A seed surrounded by a soft aura might symbolize a threshold moment. The artwork becomes a field of divinatory symbols, inviting the viewer to listen the way our ancestors listened to the land.
Why Occult Botany Continues to Shape My Work
I return to occult botany because it allows me to speak about emotion without literal narrative. Plants become metaphors for intuition, fate and psychological change. They hold the tension between the visible and the invisible, the present moment and what is still becoming. Through glowing seeds, mirrored petals, botanical guardians and shifting roots, I explore how meaning grows inside us. Occult botany reminds me that intuition is not abstract—it moves with the same subtle logic as the natural world. It grows, coils, divides, blooms, and leaves traces we learn to read.
