This gorgeous tree (officially known as Paulownia tomentosa) blossoms with an abundance of robust, foxglove-like, pale pink to lavender flowers that possess a powerful, sweet scent reminiscent of jasmine. Of course, there’s way more to love about the enchanting empress tree, but if you ask me, that alone is plenty.
Other names for the empress tree include princess tree and foxglove tree.
Magical Uses
Expansion
One of the fastest-growing trees in existence, and a tree that takes root and thrives almost anywhere, the empress tree can fuel our own desires for expansion in any life area. If you’re finished playing small and you want to expand your capacity to experience wealth and success, for example, the empress tree can help. She can also help with expanding your magical power or expertise, expanding your network of friends and allies, or really any other expansion-related magical intention.
For this purpose, spend time in quiet contemplation with an empress tree and request her support or try this:
Empress Tree Expansion Petition
When the moon is waxing or full, visit an empress tree and spread a white cloth or sheet on the ground beneath her. Take a moment to relax and tune in to the tree’s energy. Then hold a white pillar candle in your hands and visualize/imagine/sense experiencing expansion in precisely the way you want to experience it. Really feel as if it’s already happening. Place the candle on a holder and light it. For at least five minutes (and up to twenty), rest under the tree, breathing consciously and letting your mind relax. Allow any guidance or support to flow into your mind, body, energy field, and emotions. (This may happen above or below your conscious awareness.) When this feels complete, thank the tree and extinguish the candle. At home, place the candle on your altar and light it again at intervals until it’s burned all the way down.
Love
Inhale the scent of a blossoming empress tree and you will feel as if love is truly in the air. Indeed, if you want to irresistibly magnetize an exciting romance, it’s a good idea to spend time in quiet contemplation with an empress tree in spring, consciously absorbing her powers of sweetness and attraction. (Be sure to thank her afterward, inwardly or aloud, and perhaps even with a bit of red wine.)
In China, a picturesque historical custom involved planting an empress tree after the birth of a girl. Because the tree is so fast growing, the tree matured at the same rate as the girl, making it obvious to all who passed when the daughter of the house was ready for marriage. At that time, the tree would be cut down and carved into her wedding chest and other objects for her dowry.
Rebirth
The empress tree is associated with the phoenix in Chinese tradition, possibly because she survives fires by sending out new growth at the roots, and because she can be cut down to a stump and still burst forth with new shoots in the spring, again and again. As such, the empress tree can help when we have recently undergone what felt like total destruction in one or more life areas, and desire to be reborn into a stronger, more resilient, and more radiant form than ever before.
Plant or spend time with an empress tree to align yourself with her rebirthing wisdom and medicine, and allow yourself to ride the tide, surrender to the destruction of the past, and be reborn in a powerful and dynamic new form.
Magical Correspondences
Element: Fire
Gender: Feminine
Planet: Venus