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Why do we give flowers to the dead?

Well, I think I know.

I used to work with a woman named Annie: tiny, nearing retirement but undiminished.

Croatian, born in the then-Yugoslavia, Annie fell in love with, and married, an American GI. Her family disowned her for it. Annie gave up much for love and America.

Not long after they married, her husband asked when her birthday was. She told him, surprised that he should want to know. In Croatia, no one celebrates birthdays. The day to celebrate is your Name Day, the feast day of the saint that you were named for.

So when, a few days before Samhain, her husband burst through the door with an armful of chrysanthemums and Happy Birthday on his lips, she was both dumbfounded and horrified.

Nine fruits and nine flavors to preserve my soul
in peace this day...

— Caitlín Matthews

I'm enjoying Joanna Powell Colbert's 30 Days of Harvest ecourse. This week, one of the photo prompts was about savoring autumn fruits. While thoughts of apples were also on my mind, I took the prompt metaphorically and went for  a walk with my baby to identify nine “flavors” of autumn in my own back yard.

Persimmon for patience,
raspberry for reflection,
dogwood for dreams,
rose for enchantment,
aster for starshine,
polk for color,
oak for mystery,
and cucumber for salad.

Happy Leo new moon! This three card reading (using images from my forthcoming Magic of Flowers Oracle) provides guidance for what to focus on for spiritual growth and positive personal unfolding during the brand new moon cycle ahead.

Card 1: Devotee of Beauty (Tulip)

  In her beautiful book Celtic Devotional, Caitlin Matthews suggests a Lunar Meditation on the scent of flowers, one I thought perfect for the new season Litha has brought us. All around us flowers are blooming, delighting the eye and perfuming the air with fragrance. What better analogy for summer, and life, really, than the scent of a flower?

  Is there anything that compares? Yes, I suppose so: fresh peaches, the scent of a baby's hair. But flowers have a scent unrivalled by anything else. Sweet, but strong, faint but carrying.

Who says humanity and the natural world can't get along? We talk a lot in our culture about "man vs. nature (sic)" but how true is that really? Today's stories for Earthy Thursday take a look at the ways in which humanity is either teaming up with nature or finding ways to welcome it into our backyards. Read about using plants to send messages, the surprising greenery of London, and giant rats who help save human lives. All this and more in the Pagan News Beagle!

the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding
all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again —
beauty the brave, the exemplary,
blazing open.
Do you love this world?

–excerpt “Peonies” by Mary Oliver*

Loving the world feels like a difficult topic to write about today when I see news coverage of the recent oil spill in Santa Barbara and read about the dolphins dying. It can be easy to start to feel discouraged and hopeless in the face of such destruction and lack of love for the earth, our precious, irreplaceable home.

    Tiny flowers know
    that hope blooms eternal
    pushing the way
    through cracked stone
    reclaiming
    repopulating
    rebirthing the Earth

    What is a seed
    but a miracle
    right in front of me

    What am I
    but a miracle
    to be seeing this right now…