Crocus on Turtle Island

      Greetings, folk.

Our individual life here together, on what all of us know, understand and love as turtle island, is a brief sojourn. Turtle Island as sacred geography, specific place revealing to person a detailed map of the place. We meet. Personally recall the exact birth moment of infancy and know precisely its denouemont. Recall the genesis. What we remember with, is itself, part of growing, becoming and developing. So the words to describe the it, of it was, have yet to be created for the memory telling story of experience.

Yet even though the wording is not there to explain, a memory exists. What is between the ears as a rationality starts out with the embrace of the loved mother taste, hearing the loved mother hearing, smelling the loved mother fragrance, not with words. Spirituality is the worship of the goddess all mother. Everything in the deepest layers of joy is of all mother. So it makes sense to dive deep into the icon imagery of goddess madonna. 

     The way of salvation is not with words and less with a between the ears thinking self-talk. Between the murky and the shadowy there is here among us light, Sol invictus, actual sun, unconquerable light and warmth of sun, the sun rising higher above the horizon awakening of spring occurring at the eventime days. At the Equinox we pray..."By a single name I have never been known since first I fared among the lands of men." - Grimnismál, Edda, give my tongue words, breath to praise the green. 

    It is ironic impossibility religion that quotes itself as a self contained loop exclusively pointing to a book where for many centuries few of its followers could read. Continuously asking, over and over, ‘what does the book say?’, ‘what does the book say?’. As if any book could answer all life’s questions.  The Sun is precisely what everyone could see. Birthing is exactly what everyone had done. Not birthing in a factory hospital lab, as in the cult of modernism but birth from the real cult of of an actual loved sacred mother person. What prayer is as it does by exercises. Not so much by belief or elaborate declarations but by faith as the observation in the intrinsic inner form. Declaring something is or is not does not necessarily make it so unless it accords with the inner forms of fate. Neither is prayer a wish want list of things to acquire. 

    Crocus spp vernus, growing as a Grammatica parda, tawny grammar, in the sense of Thoreau, not so much Snyder, knowing that dear Henry had barely 40 good years and soon after Walden was published he was gasping for breath, dying of tuberculosis and barely able to walk across the floor without collapsing into a feverish coughing wasted flesh. It was nothing he did or did not do, it was a curse passed from grandfather, to father to son, as curses are wont to do. 

     

Crocus, a perennial low to the ground greening in the Iridaceae or Iris family, Crocoideae tribe, the scientific binomial name Κρόκος, Krókos from the greek word referencing the perennial wildflower, and the spice saffron, Saffron comes from a related though different separate species, Crocus sativa, a fall blooming crocus. The spice saffron consisting of the male stamens of the related Crocus sativa. Vernus, refers to Latin vernalis, of the season spring in the northern hemisphere. Also vernus, the Old French word for green, vert comes from the Latin viridis – green, blooming – which derived from virere – to be green. All these words refer to the latin vernal and the return of greening at equinox. So crocus could be said to be the evidence of greening spring. 

    Crocus was first native to Mary Europa riding the bull. Probably the first memory we have is to resist with every fibre of our being that flag foul  tranformed. Our blue sky and white clouds astened into the wasted red blood of martyrs. Mary Europa told to us on our mother’s knee. We know from the earlier fossil record the people first came from the mountainous areas adjacent to the Mediterranean crescent of Greece, Italy, and Bosnia. Like other plants of the folk they were travelled with intentionally. The corms were planted and the plant grew. The early spring blooming crocus has self naturalized from escaped garden plantings. It is frequently fond of growing at the sites of old abandoned homesteads and woodlands. Crocus continues to grow after the ancestors moved on. Along with daffodils and narcissus and rusted hunks of metal, chimneys and foundation walls, stone fences and walls between this and that. The Crocus grows from an underground corm blooming in March close to the vernal equinox. The leaves are basal, thin, narrow lanceolate, pointed, grass like with a central white vein. It’s not unusual to see crocus blooming poking through a light dusting of spring snow.

    

 There are all sorts of wild stories on how we got here and what we’re supposed to be doing. At the beginning there was only water and a snapping turtle. Snapping turtle dove deep and eventually came up for air. When snapping turtle gradually came up for air, he raised his round turtle shell back up high, all the water ran off. Thus the earth we have today is the shell became dry of the turtle. 

     There soon came a big wind that blew and dried things out. Muskrat and beaver took turns adding more mud and roots on snapping turtles back making hills and mountains, where grew trees and forests. There grew on the turtle island a white oak tree in the middle of the earth on turtle island, and the root of this tree sent forth a sprout beside it, and from the sprout of the white oak grew first man, who was the first male. First man was then alone, and would have remained alone; For a while first man lived alone on turtle island. He ate acorns and talked now and then to muskrat and beaver. Muskrat and beaver told first man to talk in six directions: east, south, west, north above and below, then ask in those six directions.

He asked in six directions in a circle moving east, south, west and north in a circle like the sun moves across the sky. He asked oak tree for help. Oak tree told first man he wasn’t quite ready for help. He told first man to work and maybe later he would send help. He told first man first to build a house with poles and birch bark. He told him the door needed to face the east, and then he would check back later. Oak tree saw what first man had done and was satisfied. Then he told first man to find a spot for a garden. He sent red trillium to fly in the sky and red trillium became the red wake robin. Red wake robin brought first man seeds of bean, corn and squash. He showed him how to do it. First man planted corn, beans and squash in the garden. Oak tree saw what first man had done and was satisfied. He told first man to keep working. One day a great wind came with zig zag lightning, the white oak tree bent over in the wind until its top touched the pile of mud piled up by beaver and muskrat. Where the top came down there shot up another root, from inside the mud and root lodge piled up by beaver and muskrat, from which came forth another sprout, and there grew out the maple and from a shoot on the maple another person grew called first woman.

First woman saw the house made with birch bark and the door facing east. She saw the garden with corn, beans and squash. She saw the fire he had from zig zag lightning. She told first man she wanted to work with him. First woman took care of the house and placed the fire inside the house for cooking. She also took care of the squash, beans and corn. They lived together in the house and worked together. From these two all the people came. Eventually people moved here and there and settled all around turtle island.

   On another part of turtle island oak trees and olives grew. This was called the middle earth. Here lived Krokos. Krókos was a mortal youth from the kingdom of Sparta who one winter was on a hunting trip to bring back meat for his people. During the cold winter he was camped near a grove of oak trees. He stood watch over a water hole, waiting for deer to come and drink. So he could shoot them with his bow. While silently waiting for the deer, watching the water hole he fell asleep. When he awoke he saw the nymph Smilax who lived in the water at the spring in the sacred oak grove. Their eyes met and he immediately forgot hunting, deer, his people and became infatuated with the nymph.

Smilax with dazzling purple blue eyes and hair the color of sunrise, glowing golden. Krókos was enchanted by the power of her dazzling grey blue eyes and fell in love with Smilax, the nymph known as the "air garlanded girl".    

     Smilax's duty was to protect the spring, the deer who lived nearby and the tall oak trees. So she distracted Krókus and provided him with ambrosia and occupied his attention to protect the small deer who came to drink at the spring and eat the fallen acorns that dropped from the oak trees. Krókus misunderstood her intentions, mistaking her protection of the spring as love. Smilax at first enjoyed his company and the ardent attention as a pleasant innocent winter distraction. After a period of time though it became stale, predictable and she grew bored with the mortal whose ways and inclinations were so different than her own.  Krókos was internally conflicted and devastated with rejection. He became love sickened by the impossible relationship with the nymph Smilax, the "air garlanded girl". Krókos and the nymph Smilax had a final quarrel.

Smilax ordered him to leave her spring in the oak grove and return to Sparta. Krókus refused saying, "Smilax I can not leave you and your blue eyes and strawberry hair. If I leave you I will die," Smilax said, "Very well, it is your choice. Trouble me no longer. You will stay here forever. Not as man but as flower." With a wave of her hand she changed him immediately into a purple petaled flower, growing low to the ground with stamens the color of sunlight, the crocus vernus. 

    I will sing of well-founded Earth, mother of all, eldest of all beings. She feeds all creatures that are in the world, all that go upon the goodly land, and all that are in the paths of the seas, and all that fly: all these are fed of her store. Through you, O queen, men are blessed in their children and blessed in their harvests, and to you it belongs to give means of life to mortal men and to take it away. The goddess Demeter Chloê, the blooming, the protectress of the green fields was furious because someone had disturbed the divine order.  No flower could bloom until her daughter Persephone returned from the land of Hades in springtime. Demeter the protectress of green fields, immediately appeared in the oak grove near the spring to investigate.

She saw the nymph Smilax crouched on the ground near the purple petaled crocus. Demeter asked, "Who here defies the sister of Zeus? Who caused this flower to bloom?" She saw the nymph Smilax, the "air garlanded girl", kneeling near the blooming crocus. Demeter the protectress of greening fields, said to the nymph Smilax, "You seem enraptured with this purple flower. You two can remain together forever." She changed Smilax into a creeping vine, the thorny vine green briar. So the nymph known as the air garlanded girl became sarsaparilla or greenbrier plant, an aphrodisiac that bears her name, Smilax. 

     Crocus for us in the story narrative we are living in spring signals the return of Persephone, queen of the underworld, wife of Hades, the daughter of Demeter. Persephone's return is marked by the vital force which returns to roots. The thunderbolts and zig zag lightning of Zeus the cloud gatherer thrown towards earth announce to Hades to release his wife Persephone to do her work. It is by the goddess Persephone that she and the gifts of green may return to mortals trapped on this spinning ball.

     At the Equinox we pray..."By a single name I have never been known since first I fared among the lands of men." 

- Grimnismál, Edda, give my tongue words, breath to praise the green. 

I begin to sing of thick-haired Demeter, ruler goddess —of her and her dancing-ankled daughter whom Aidoneus rapt away, given to him by all-seeing, all-father Zeus the loud-thunderer.

Apart from Demeter, lady of the golden sword and glorious fruits, [5] she was playing with the deep-bosomed daughters of Oceanus and gathering flowers over a soft meadow, roses and crocuses and beautiful violets, irises also and hyacinths and the narcissus, which Earth mother made to grow at the will of sky-father Zeus and to please, to be a snare for the bloom-like girl — [10] a marvellous, radiant flower. It was a thing of awe whether for deathless gods or mortal men to see: from its root grew a hundred blooms and it smelled most sweetly, so that all wide heaven above and the whole earth and the sea's salt swell laughed for joy.(Homeric hymn to Demeter).

   Da-ma-te Demeter, The mother and her daughter Persephone who held below as the roots of the world tree, rises sweet as green of leaf. When at Equinox: despoina “mistress of the household”, thesmophoros “bringer of law”, sito “she of the grain”, and chthonia “she of the earth”, chloē “the green one”, kallistephanos and eustephanos “well-crowned”, semnē and hagnē “hallowed”, and eukompos “fair-haired”. We wash our face and hands, With thanks we offer you these offerings for the turning wheel of sun and season, hands raised All- Father invincible Sun, All-Mother bring the green.

     “Hail Mary, O author of life, Rebuilding salvation, You who confounded death And crushed the serpent Toward who Eve stretched forth Her neck outstretched… You trampled on him When you bore the Son of God from heaven…” –Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)

"Hymn to Persephone. Daughter of Zeus, Persephone divine, come, blessed queen, and to these rites incline: only-begotten, Plouton's [Haides'] honoured wife, O venerable Goddess, source of life: 'tis thine in earth's profundities to dwell, fast by the wide and dismal gates of hell. Zeus' holy offspring, of a beauteous mien, Praxidike (Avenging-Goddess), subterranean queen. The Eumenides' [Erinyes'] source, fair-haired, whose frame proceeds from Zeus' ineffable and secret seeds. Mother of Eubouleos [Dionysos-Zagreos], sonorous, divine, and many-formed, the parent of the vine. Associate of the Horai (Seasons), essence bright, all-ruling virgin, bearing heavenly light. With fruits abounding, of a bounteous mind, horned, and alone desired by those of mortal kind. O vernal queen, whom grassy plains delight, sweet to the smell, and pleasing to the sight : whose holy form in budding fruits we view, earth's vigorous offspring of a various hue : espoused in autumn, life and death alone to wretched mortals from thy power is known : for thine the task , according to thy will, life to produce, and all that lives to kill. Hear, blessed Goddess, send a rich increase of various fruits from earth, with lovely peace : send health with gentle hand, and crown my life with blest abundance, free from noisy strife; last in extreme old age the prey of death, dismiss me willing to the realms beneath, to thy fair palace and the blissful plains where happy spirits dwell, and Plouton [Haides] reigns."

      The Golden Legend, written by Blessed Jacopo de Voragine (A.D. 1230-1298), Archbishop of Genoa, gives the following as one of eight reasons for our Ember Day fasts:

The fifth reason, as saith John Damascenus: in March and in printemps the blood groweth and augmenteth, and in summer coler, in September melancholy, and in winter phlegm. Then we fast in March for to attemper and depress the blood of concupiscence disordinate, for sanguine of his nature is full of fleshly concupiscence. In summer we fast because that coler should be lessened and refrained, of which cometh wrath. And then is he full naturally of ire. In harvest we fast for to refrain melancholy. The melancholious man naturally is cold, covetous and heavy. In winter we fast for to daunt and to make feeble the phlegm of lightness and forgetting, for such is he that is phlegmatic.

Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, 1182-1226 lived in the mediterranean region and wrote the following, 

     Oh, Most High, Almighty, Good Lord God, to Thee belong praise, glory, honour and all blessing.

Praised be my Lord God, with all His creatures, and especially our brother the Sun, who brings us the day and who brings us the light: fair is he, and he shines with a very great splendour.

Oh Lord, he signifies us to Thee!

Praised be my Lord for our sister the Moon, and for the stars, the which He has set clear and lovely in the heaven.

Praised be my Lord for our brother the Wind, and for air and clouds, calms and all weather, by which Thou upholdest life and all creatures.

Praised be my Lord for our sister Water, who is very serviceable to us, and humble and precious and clean.

Praised be my Lord for our brother Fire, through whom Thou givest us light in the darkness; and he is bright and pleasant and very mighty and strong.

Praised be my Lord for our mother the Earth, the which doth sustain us and keep us, and bringeth forth divers fruits and flowers of many colours, and grass.

Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for love's sake, and who endure weakness and tribulation: blessed are they who peacefully shall endure, for Thou, Oh Most High, will give them a crown.

Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the body, from which no man escapeth. Woe to him who dieth in mortal sin. Blessed are those who die in Thy most holy will, for the second death shall have no power to do them harm.

Praise ye and bless the Lord, and give thanks to Him and serve Him with great humility.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) translation Canticle of Creatures