Seasonalight

Tag: Flowers

  • Bees to seed, and Black Lives Mattering.

    Image by me ©2020

    The nature of nature, is where blooms transform to seed. It’s not an ugly process, far from it. It’s life-process. Does it begin with the egg of the solitary bee who pollinated this flower?

    It’s not a catastrophe, but a sacred process. Look further to ecological death, and life. It’s love. We may look at our own bodies in the same way. Don’t fret about flowers ‘going over’. They are beautiful.

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    Anxiety grips me again, during just a handful of days this time. Matter builds as crystals from the process of evaporation, and all the little thoughts become sharp and transparent.

    I have been observing my balcony flowers going ‘over,’ their delicate petals beginning to wither and curl, as if kissed by poison. As the draw of their shapes and colours fade, it would be easy to cut them off to keep things in check. The beauty, or love, is ever more enduring than the colour or scent of the blooming flower. The work of the bee or the fly has set in motion deep changes within ancient organs that sustain life. Nothing is going over, moreover, everything is beginning.

    The fertilized seeds are beginning to swell, the baha sucked back through the veins of each petal, and up from the roots, to grow new seeds. This flow, this transfer of love in the form of metabolites from flower to ovary, is for-newal.

    When a flower is cut dead for the sake of what we humans deem tidy, or aesthetic, or out of place, what worth are we assigning to the plant and seed? Or the bee and her egg? Life is growing inside, at first shy, but then erupting to ripe moments of genetic and evolutionary potential.

    Black Lives Matter. Three black women founded this now global movement. Two identify as queer, and one has worked for a long time in the field of domestic abuse. Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi. Remember their names.

    Like bees, all three have set in motion a beautiful but painful blooming, of instilling the will of justice and love inside so many more. Ripe seeds of empathy are broadcast widely. With sunlight, good soils and pure water, these efforts are growing into powerful new relationships in the face of many wrongs.

    Every black life matters. The oppression endured over this last 400 years has forged survivors like diamonds. Their lives materially and spiritually matter to us all. George Floyd and hundreds, thousands, millions, of black lives have been cut dead, stolen from their loved ones and buried deep. Millions have lived in fear, incarcerated, and disenfranchised.

    I want to acknowledge that pain, and my white British ancestral role in its coming. It must now leave, as it should never have been. It’s a personal and public struggle in which we all need to be willing and able to participate, from bee to seed.

    I’ll end with Professor Cornel West’s words said in public discussion this last few days, still raw from the death of Breonna Taylor, a medical carer herself, who was shot to death by a militant police force, in what was supposed to be safe sanctuary ~ home.

    “We can’t bring her back, but the memory will empower all to keep fighting.”

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  • Britain’s native daffodil

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    Narcissus pseudo narcissus by Ginny Battson © 2016

    “It had been huddling like an old gray woman
    grabbing her shawl, in an underground house,
    stirring a promise to return.
    Soon its six petals harmonic sense will bring love”.

    (Daffodils by Martin Willitts Jr, Dylan Thomas International Poetry Award – Winning Poem 2014)

    Britain’s native daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp pseudonarcissus, the Lent Lily, is a tribute to the powers of early Spring. She brings light and gentle movement to the stiller, wetter soils, whilst also foretelling of community, gathering in ‘crowds’ as poet William Wordsworth also witnessed.

    The Victorian ‘Language of Flowers’ suggests a daffodil speaks of unrequited love, but I know this not to be true. I feel her generous love, despite other claims. There is a fullness and warmth to it, and I urge others to seek it out, at least once in a lifetime. Relish the glow, with each petal a ray of sun and easy intelligence. Her yellow sparkles will bring you a broad smile.

    Once so common, she now survives only in patchy corners of woods, paddocks and orchards, mostly to the West of Britain. Yet, exquisite in her survival of the ravages of modernity, she charges me with a sense of hope. We are far less without hope.

    There is a ‘crowd’ of native daffodils I know residing in the hillside hamlet where I grew up. Thankfully, there are still wilder corners of the hill spared from modern human drives for uniformity, though I do worry about the local ‘conservation’ group and their tendency for cutting back and burning. Regardless, the daffodils flower in between expensive properties that were once farm workers’ cottages, and hardcore tracks paving the way for Landrovers instead of work horses and carts. I could take you straight to the spot, under young trees, with enough light on a south facing slope, and enough moisture in short, mossy understory. Above a subterranean swell of bulbs and roots, the small, paler blooms glow to greet us. It’s hard not to lay down in the damp, and listen to their seemingly wide open mouths, corona painted a richer yellow than their petals.

    There’s a light breeze flowing through short stalks and grey-green leaves so you’ll have to listen closely….. “love you, love life.”

    I’ve stolen some photos, selfishly hoarding them as a reminder for a darker time, to bring me warmth when most needed. It won’t be the full effect, but enough to tip a balance.

    In exchange, I write this in honour of our native daffodil, so that we may preserve, cherish and encourage her to flourish in golden crowds. I ask you to rage against anyone trying to harm her. Enjoy her conversation. Most of all, accept her love and the love of her kind. And you might wish to return it, for it’s in giving that joy is really to be found.

    For more on UK’s native daffodil, do click through to Kew

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