Yesterday I went out for a stroll - it was Sunday, and the icy wind threw a fine drizzle of snow into my face. I hoped very much that it wouldn't get more: we have a rearrangement of our obligations in wintertime: now in my Bavarian domicile all 4 tenants have to do all snow shovelling in weekly turns (before after fulfilment on one day the next tenant had to shovel on the next snowy day).
In Berlin we have a kind (and paid) janitor to do that - sigh - so much better.
I try to gloss that tiring duty over as "fitness training" - but honestly I peer into the sky and try to conjure each potential threatening snow cloud away - abracadabra!
As always I am looking on my strolls for flowers - and yes: I found a few courageous daisies and some strawberry leaves, tinted red by frost.
Marianne Beuchert writes in her book: "Symbolik der Pflanzen", that daisies - bellis perennis - symbolise purity and modesty, and often are drawn on paintings of the Virgin Mary or Jesus.
But they are also dedicated to Frejya, the love goddess. On Botticellis "Birth of Venus" the goddess gets a coat embroidered over and over with bellis.
The Dutch proverb "Mate l´e`fte, lange l´e`fte" - "Temperated love - long life" I find a bit depressing. I love firework. I think I share that preference with Aphrodite/Venus, who also get daisies as attribute.
Daisies retain their shape and colour much longer than more expensive flowers. So even if their connection to modesty, purity and temporated love cannot be guaranteed, I still love them.
ReplyDeleteDear Helen, I love them too since my childhood - especially if I find those wild ones with magenta tips. The smell of daisies is not the most agreeable - but they are so tiny that one can over-sniff that (as far as I know there is only a word for overlooking :-)
DeleteI'm a friend of Geo's, the blog "Trainride...". I got an email from his son that Geo had passed away this last weekend. He was a friend. If you want to communicate, I'm at mm5.montana@gmail.
ReplyDeleteMy email is mm5.montana@gmail.com. I am sad too, so many will miss his wit and his empathy.
DeleteThank you, and I am with you. I hope that you got my mail now.
DeleteI appreciate the authenticity and sincerity that shine through in your writing.
ReplyDelete