Larkspur Tattoo Meaning

Open-heartedness, levity, joy, and the upward reach toward open sky.

The larkspur is the tall, airy flower of joy and open-heartedness — its spires of bright blooms reaching upward toward the open sky, its name evoking the soaring lark, an emblem of lightness, levity, ardent attachment, and the heart held open and unguarded. To carry the larkspur is to carry open-heartedness, levity, and joy — the upward-reaching flower of the open heart and the lighter spirit, the bloom that holds the world tenderly without taking it more gravely than it deserves, joy ascending toward the open sky.

In Greek myth the larkspur (in the related delphinium tradition) was said to have grown from the blood of the great hero Ajax. After the death of Achilles, when the fallen hero's divine armor was awarded not to Ajax — the mightiest of the remaining Greek warriors — but to the cunning Odysseus, Ajax was overcome with grief, rage, and shame, and took his own life. Where his blood fell upon the earth, the larkspur is said to have sprung up, and the Greeks read upon its petals the letters 'AI' — the sound of aiai, the Greek cry of grief and lamentation, inscribed by nature in the flower.

The larkspur thus bore, in its very markings, the mourning-cry for the noble dead, the flower that grew from a hero's tragic end and carried his lament in its petals. Yet in this the Greeks found a way to mark the boundary between grief and the honoring of a worthy life — the flower of lamentation that also commemorated and celebrated the greatness of the one who was mourned. The larkspur is the flower of the hero's blood, bearing the cry of grief and the memory of a worthy life. The Greek larkspur is the flower grown from the blood of Ajax — sprung up where the grief-stricken hero's blood fell after his death, bearing on its petals the letters 'AI' (aiai, the Greek cry of grief), the flower of lamentation for the noble dead that carried the mourning-cry in its very markings, marking for the Greeks the boundary between grief and the honoring of a worthy life.

Delphinium and larkspur are closely related (larkspur is Consolida, delphinium the perennial genus) and their symbolism is generally shared. The name larkspur references the long, curved spur at the back of each flower that resembles the hind claw of a lark. In Greek mythology the larkspur grew from the blood of Ajax after his suicide following the judgment of Achilles' armor — Ovid describes the letters AI (the sound of lamentation) marked on its petals, though modern larkspur petals do not clearly show this mark, suggesting the story attached to a different Hyacinthus-type flower first. Larkspur is the birth flower for July, associated with strong bonds of love and the quality of levity — the ability to hold feeling without being crushed by it.

Larkspur across cultures

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