Categoría: flowers and symbolism

Christ’s Passion Flower

Hi folks! I hope you’re keeping well…

I just wanted to share with you this photo of the beautiful Passion Flower I photographed when I was in England; it was just gracefully hanging over the neighbour’s fence, and the decorative, orange fruits languidly dripped from the verdant, intertwining branches.

The symbolic meaning of this flower is interesting and goes something like this:

The Passion flower (Passiflora) was named by Roman Catholic missionary priests who encountered the flower while on their journey in South America in the late 1500’s.  They named it after the Passion of Jesus Christ, believing that several parts of the plant symbolized features of His suffering and death.

The symbolic parts of the plant are:

  • the filaments that represent the crown of thorns that Jesus wore before His crucifixion,
  • the three stigmas on the passion flower which represent the three nails that held Jesus to the cross
  • the ten “petals”, His ten faithful apostles, and
  • the five anthers symbolise the five wounds that Jesus suffered when he was crucified.

The passion flower started to become widely known, and many used the flower to teach about the crucifixion.

The flower can also be used for medicinal purposes to treat such cases as: anxiety, insomnia, stress, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is also used for flavouring in foods.

To end this blog, here is a poem about the Passion Flower, written by Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo, a highly-acclaimed poet of Nigeria. He was also “a teacher, and librarian, who died fighting for the independence of Biafra. He is today widely acknowledged as an outstanding postcolonial English-language African poet and one of the major modernist writers of the 20th century… Despite his father’s devout Christianity (he was a teacher in Catholic missionary schools), Okigbo had an affinity, and came to believe later in his life, that in him was reincarnated  the soul of his maternal grandfather, a priest of Idoto, (the water goddess of the Idoto River in his hometown), an Igbo deity (Igbo, the people of south-east Nigeria). — Wikipedia

By Christopher Okigbo

Passion Flower  — Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo (British Nigeria, 16 August 1932 – 1967)  

And the flower weeps

unbruised,

Lacrimae Christi,

For him who was silenced;

whose advent

dumb bells1 in the dim light celebrate

with wine song;

Messiah2 will come again,

After the argument in heaven3;

Messiah will come again,

Lumen mundi4…

Fingers of penitence

bring

to a palm grove5

vegetable offering6

with five

fingers of chalk7.

Explanation of the poem:

1 — «dumb bell» referred to the practice in the Roman Catholic Church where bells are not rung between Maundy Thursday and the first Mass on Easter Sunday

2 — Messiah pointed at the expected King and Saviour (Jesus Christ).

3 —»after the argument in heaven» looks at the shaking of the powers of heaven referred to in The Gospel According to St. Luke, Chapter 21, verse 26, prior to the coming of the Son of Man, described in verse 27.

4 — “Lumen mundi”, the Light of the World (Jesus Christ)

5 — “Palm grove”, the place of sacrifice

6 — «vegetable offering», the fruits of the earth that are being sacrificed, that is, palm oil, kola nuts, alligator pepper and eggs of white hens

7 — «five fingers of chalk», the sacrificial chalk which is sold in «fingers».

(The explanation of the poem is taken from The Analysis of the poem Passion Flower by Christopher Okigbo)

Well, that’s all for now….

Thank you for visiting, your comments and/or questions are always welcome — take care! xxx

Foxgloves and Mary Webb

Hi folks! I hope this finds you well and not melting in the heat like me — (hence my sporadic posts during these sizzling days of summer…)

I just wanted to share my lovely photo of this beautiful foxglove…

The scientific name for this flower is the Latin digitalis, meaning ‘finger’. The old German vernacular name that harks back to the 16th century is Fingerhut, translating literally as ‘finger hat’, though actually meaning ‘thimble’. The Olde English name, foxes glofa/e echoes the folk myth that foxes actually wore gloves on their paws so they could move silently when hunting their prey! Another more intimidating name for this deadly flower was ‘witch’s glove’.

Later names that emerged in the 19th century name were ‘folks’ glove’, where ‘folk’ means fairy and ‘foxes-glew’, meaning ‘fairy music’.

Foxgloves were also grown in medieval gardens and the flowers were dedicated to the Virgin Mary — here they were called ‘Our Lady’s Gloves’.

Apart from being very pretty, the flowers are also used for drug preparations that contain cardiac glycosides. The plant is very toxic to humans and other animals, and consumption can even lead to death. (I think this was one of the favourite toxins that wives would use in the olden days, before the advent of forensic science, to gradually poison problematic husbands!)

As to the symbolism of the foxgloves, they represent a whole host of themes ranging from pride, energy, magic, ambition, insincerity, intuition and creativity, to productivity, communication, cooperation, and confidence too (so that’s quite a load, isn’t it?!)

And last but not least, here’s a poem written by Mary Webb about the Foxglove:-

Foxgloves

The foxglove bells, with lolling tongue,
Will not reveal what peals were rung
In Faery, in Faery,
A thousand ages gone.
All the golden clappers hang
As if but now the changes rang;
Only from the mottled throat
Never any echoes float.
Quite forgotten, in the wood,
Pale, crowded steeples rise;
All the time that they have stood
None has heard their melodies.
Deep, deep in wizardry
All the foxglove belfries stand.
Should they startle over the land,
None would know what bells they be.
Never any wind can ring them,
Nor the great black bees that swing them–
Every crimson bell, down-slanted,
Is so utterly enchanted

Mary Webb
(25 March 1881, Shropshire – 8 October 1927)

Mary Gladys Webb  was an English romantic novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people whom she knew. Many of her books were dramatised, including Precious Bane (one of my favourite books!). For a fuller biography, see this Mary Webb Society link

And to finish with, here’s another photo of my cat chilling out in the 43° C temperatures amidst the aloe vera plant.

Well, that’s all for now — thanks for visiting, take care! xxx