soul flowers

I am a few days back from Hawaii, where I went to spread my mother’s ashes and “get a trip out of it”, as she always wished. It will be a little while before I sift through the pictures and stories from there to share, so in the meantime, I want to tell you about our Queen Anne’s Lace…

As my deario and I were leaving for the airport, along the curve of our “hay way drive”, as we call our back drive, I saw a creamy burst or two of Queen Anne’s Lace and told him that I had finally realized that they were my “Anne” flower.

Do you remember this scene in the book?

“I wonder what a soul…a person’s soul…would look like,” said Priscilla dreamily.

“Like that, I should think,” answered Anne, pointing to a radiance of sifted sunlight streaming through a birch tree. “Only with shape and features of course. I like to fancy souls as being made of light. And some are all shot through with rosy stains and quivers…and some have a soft glitter like moonlight on the sea…and some are pale and transparent like mist at dawn.”

“I read somewhere once that souls were like flowers,” said Priscilla.

“Then your soul is a golden narcissus,” said Anne, “and Diana’s is like a red, red rose. Jane’s is an apple blossom, pink and wholesome and sweet.”

“And your own is a white violet, with purple streaks in its heart,” finished Priscilla.

Jane whispered to Diana that she really could not understand what they were talking about. Could she? ”

-L.M. Montgomery

Over the years, I forgot that they were talking about “soul flowers” and remembered it more as a sort of expression of personality…tho’ perhaps that comes back ’round to soul, too? So when I thought one day to bring it up with my closest friends at the time, they were so easy to peg…K. was a poppy and V. was a red rose. But we could never come up with mine. I thought something tendrily, like honeysuckle…but that is considered an invasive nuisance by many. Perhaps a wild rose? That was a better fit, but I think I didn’t want to be a rose like my friend, nor had I actually met any roses in the wild at that time, so it was hard to embrace the idea. I know we tried out many other flowers, but none fit, and I eventually gave it up.

I think that it took living in the countryside to give me more “scope for imagination”, as Anne would say, and the idea of deciding upon my flower came back to me this early summer, when a Q.A. plant as tall as me must have whispered something into my ear as she bent near me by the car-barn. Wild, serene, at home in a meadow, earthy-scented foliage…I love it before the clusters of flowers unfurl and then when the white parasols of tiny flowers are spread out in delicate circles. It, also, is considered an invasive weed by some…ah well…not by me.

When we returned from our trip a few days ago, we were surprised to find our front field absolutely full of nodding, dancing Birdsnests (my favorite common name for Daucus Carota) and I took that as a sign that it is, indeed, my flower…

If you are like and Anne and Priscilla and do understand what I am getting at…and if you can imagine your soul/spirit/wonderful you as a flower, please tell me…what yours would be?

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