The four-leaf clover attracts the hopes of many people in Cuzco where there is a culture of seeking to attract good luck. People often carry charms or have them on the walls of their homes. These are called augurios, auguries, and constitute not only hope but attempts to create the luck and fortune people want or to keep it, if they have it.
The four –leaf clover is an uncommon variation of the common clover. According to tradition, if you find one it foretells the coming of good luck, especially if you run across it accidentally. According to this idea the four leaves represent hope, faith, love, and luck. Some people also say that they represent the Christian cross because of the shape of the four leaves.
When I was little, I would spend long hours in fields and grassy lands looking for four- leaf clover in the company of my cousins and my brothers and sisters. I still remember how would search for hours. Some of my older cousins would delicately cut the leaves of the clover and they would make us believe that they had found one. “It brings luck,” they would say. And since I was a child I believed in all of that.
Once while I was in a park, watching my older brother play football, I found one. With great joy I put it in my pocket to be able to show it to my parents and my friends. But by the time I got home I had forgotten that I had found the clover. Some days later, when I remembered, I looked in the pockets of those pants, but the four-leaf clover was gone, unfortunately. I wondered if somehow it had fallen out or if maybe it had just disappeared like the magic it promised to bring.
When people find these clover leaves they keep them in little boxes or in their wallets. In some places they have types of four leaf clover they can grow in pots or in their gardens.
The curanderos (the healers) say that they four-leaf clover helps people who suffer from misfortune or bad predictions.
On the other hand clover is a wild plant that is edible. Because of its medicinal properties it is also used as an expectorant, as a regulator of feminine hormones, and as a diuretic.
As a result, whether in three or four leaves, clover is a good plant to have around.
