The Lily card

[zadey]

This card always confuses me. 

As much as I have read in books and the internet, Lily is all about age, maturity, wisdom (which comes with experience as we age) but also sex, family, virtue, purification and celibacy (purity aspect). 

 

Now according to Andy's book, Tower is about old age & maturity while the rest of the books and sources consider lily as old age/maturity. 

 

What is your personal & real life experiences when it comes to Lily and which of meanings fits the most according to you? It will help me learn more about it and hopefully, clear out the confusion. 

 

Thank you. 😊

[joy]

Hey @zadey so for me the Tower is longevity in its core. And the lilies are harmony and success. I do not see lilies as the sex card, there would need to be other cards close by to say it is about sex. With Lenormand it is all about context and the surrounding cards. That makes it all a bit challenging.

[zadey]

10 hours ago, joy said:

Hey @zadey so for me the Tower is longevity in its core. And the lilies are harmony and success. I do not see lilies as the sex card, there would need to be other cards close by to say it is about sex. With Lenormand it is all about context and the surrounding cards. That makes it all a bit challenging.

 

Hello @joy

 

Tower is also about official building, authority (by position, as opposed to bear who has a personality of a leader) and isolation, putting up boundaries. These are the meanings for the tower that are like 'inked' in my mind. lol. For a long time, I used to associate Lily with maturity and old age. For e.g., in one reading, Lily talked about age gap/play between the couple. However, now whenever Lily comes in any reading mostly work and career related, my mind goes blank. 

[DanielJUK]

Lily is a really tricky card I think to work out, probably the most tricky of the 36. It has many different ideas which are not all related logically.

 

It symbolises sexuality, sex and family I think because the Lily flowers display their sexual organs quite urmm visibly.

 

The original instructions said they symbolised a happy life, so they can be a positive card in certain conditions. It represents Harmony.

 

Lilies are a symbolism as well of mourning. Here in the UK there is a tradition of buying them for people mourning after a death. There is an old tradition that people wouldn't have them in the house apart from for funerals because they were worried it would bring a bad omen. These days we have moved away from that association but I talked to an 80 year old woman recently here who would only have them in the house for funerals. So that is a negative.

 

I think they are associated with old age because their card insert is the King of Spades who is an old man.

 

Astrology also has sex and death linked with houses and Scorpio as a sign, so interesting this card also covers both areas

 

I could see how Tower could be an old tower, still in good condition. It's strong after a long time of standing there. Where as Lily could be an older person or maturity. I would see Lilies as retirement probably.

 

Treppner also sees it as a supporter, sponsor or patron of someone as well.

[joy]

4 hours ago, zadey said:

 

Hello @joy

 

Tower is also about official building, authority (by position, as opposed to bear who has a personality of a leader) and isolation, putting up boundaries. These are the meanings for the tower that are like 'inked' in my mind. lol. For a long time, I used to associate Lily with maturity and old age. For e.g., in one reading, Lily talked about age gap/play between the couple. However, now whenever Lily comes in any reading mostly work and career related, my mind goes blank. 

Yes agree with you. I only mentioned the core meaning. Lily is difficult. It is a variety of things, like: harmony, kindness, old, wise mature. Peace, calm, maturity. It really depends a lot about what cards are around it. It is difficult to discuss just one card in my opinion without a question.

[Renie]

Lilies are heraldic flowers associated with aristocracy and special privileges. And these are the flowers of the Virgin Mary. Therefore, in Lenormand Lilies are a symbol of purity, innocence, decency. Lilies can show a high social status of a person, respect, honor. Lilies also indicate older people, wise people with a lot of experience.
Lilies are also about various old objects, antiques

Lilies, Clouds - a dubious or damaged reputation.
Lilies, Coffin - loss of virginity, loss of status, loss of authority
Lilies, Cross - chastity.
Stars, Lilies - idealization
Pisces, Lilies - sponsorship,  purchase of antiques or art.

[joy]

4 hours ago, Renie said:

Lilies are heraldic flowers associated with aristocracy and special privileges. And these are the flowers of the Virgin Mary. Therefore, in Lenormand Lilies are a symbol of purity, innocence, decency. Lilies can show a high social status of a person, respect, honor. Lilies also indicate older people, wise people with a lot of experience.
Lilies are also about various old objects, antiques

Lilies, Clouds - a dubious or damaged reputation.
Lilies, Coffin - loss of virginity, loss of status, loss of authority
Lilies, Cross - chastity.
Stars, Lilies - idealization
Pisces, Lilies - sponsorship,  purchase of antiques or art.

Interesting, thanks for sharing. But how to get Lilies & Clouds to be damaged reputation? In my opinion Lilies are not the card for reputation, that is the mon? 🧐

[Renie]

One of the meanings of the card is purity (virtue).
Lilies-Clouds. The Clouds cover the Lilies. And Lilies seem to lose their white purity.
The combination of Lilies and Cloud was in the following situation.
It was important for the person to have a good reputation (media person). Some unseemly facts about his life became public. And this circumstance had the negative impact on many areas of life.

However, if you do not consider Lilies in this meaning, maybe this card just more often will work for you in other its aspects because any card has many meanings . Cards adjust to the reader.

It's like Lilies card, for example, quite often interpreted as sex and passion. But for me in my readings this card doesn't work that way.
Maybe it's just because there's no way I  can see the passion in the symbolism of this card.🙂

Only one of my decks shows me passion with the Lilies card. There are 2 Lilies cards (Red Lilies and White Lilies) in this deck.

Yes Red Lilies it is about passion, sensuality, sex.
And White Lilies card is about purity, chastity, innocence.
In general, I think it is also important to pay attention to how the picture looks in the deck.

 

Edited August 19, 2023 by Renie

[Renie]

12 hours ago, DanielJUK said:

It symbolises sexuality, sex and family I think because the Lily flowers display their sexual organs quite urmm visibly.

Thanks, very interesting idea👍🌸 For some reason it didn't occur to me😁. Probably now Lilies  will more often work in my readings and in this meaning too.

[zadey]

21 hours ago, DanielJUK said:

It symbolises sexuality, sex and family I think because the Lily flowers display their sexual organs quite urmm visibly.

Yes, I agree. 
Like you mentioned, it has many different ideas which seem unrelated logically, I second that. Sex is supposed to be a private affair not anything to do with family. The meanings are just... awkward! I read somewhere that Lenormand initially didn't have 'work' cards. Slowly, people started associating the Fox, the Anchor, the Moon, and the Ship with work. Similarly, maybe people thought there's a need for a card that represents sex because people became more open to it. But in my opinion, I don't think we need a separate card for that. The individual cards have some qualities that may be associated with sex.  

The second thing is family and for that we have the House. Why do we need family life with the Lily? Maybe they are talking about harmony in family life.

 

21 hours ago, DanielJUK said:

The original instructions said they symbolised a happy life, so they can be a positive card in certain conditions. It represents Harmony.

If the Lily comes in a reading related to work. What would you suggest? Uh harmony in workplace? success? or It will take a long time (old age and maturity) to be successful in one's career?!

 

22 hours ago, DanielJUK said:

Lilies are a symbolism as well of mourning. Here in the UK there is a tradition of buying them for people mourning after a death. There is an old tradition that people wouldn't have them in the house apart from for funerals because they were worried it would bring a bad omen. These days we have moved away from that association but I talked to an 80 year old woman recently here who would only have them in the house for funerals. So that is a negative.

This is interesting. 

 

 

[zadey]

15 hours ago, Renie said:

Lilies can show a high social status of a person, respect, honor.

Agreeing with @joy and from what I have read, the Moon is traditionally associated with glory, fame, rank, honor, recognition & status in public. And this is why, some people use the Moon as their work card because for many, fame and recognition are a part of career.

 

16 hours ago, Renie said:

Lilies are also about various old objects, antiques

This is quite interesting. I will take a note of it as it can be very using when we're doing a reading on locating lost objects. Thank you @Renie 

 

10 hours ago, Renie said:

Cards adjust to the reader.

Yes, maybe Lenormand works like that. I think, it depends on what the reader think [and/or feel] about the cards and their associated meanings. 

 

 

[DanielJUK]

I've rustled up an index for the top of this study area today, so we can find the threads about cards already posted and add new discussions to it.

Hopefully it will make it easier to find card discussions 🙂 . This Lily thread is already included

 

 

 

[Barleywine]

This is always a tough one for me. I generally follow Andy B: Lilies in general means family, (maybe) sex and (official) protection; above the Significator it implies enduring happiness and a virtuous character, while below it signifies unhappiness and an immoral nature. He only gets to sex through the concept of offspring; personally, I really don't think Lenormand needs a specific sex card, and there wasn't one in the PL Sheet. For the Lilies, those instructions only say " a happy life, but family grief if surrounded by Clouds" (in addition to the above-and-below duality). Other writers consider it to mean older relatives, which is where I think the ideas of age and maturity come from (for me the Tower represents longevity). Putting together family and maturity with the Lilies, I sometimes get the notion of "legacy" (not necessarily inheritance but family tradition passed down). The Lilies strikes me as an upright, honorable and even noble influence..