Even though its healing properties were recognised by folk medicine a long time ago, modern medicine has also recognised them. Marigold is an annual plant with a potentially longest and most diverse application throughout history. This is how it gives us a lesson about both physical and mental vitality and reveals the secret of abundance, as if whispering to us that no matter what situation we find ourselves in, we should always flower, turn to the Sun and never give up. It grows in many types of soil, in different climates, it is self-pollinating and does not require much care.
#Womb magic flowers full#
No wonder this plant is woven into the mythology of many a nation: marigold is full of the magic of abundance, from the moment when it flowers in early spring, throughout the summer up to late autumn, remaining yellow and cheerful all this time. MARIGOLD, A FLOWER THAT TEACHES US TO BE PERSISTENT In olden times in England, marigold had another superstitious use – it was placed under the bed as protection against thieves if robbery still took place, marigold would give the victims visionary dreams to help them identify the miscreants. In Mexico, it is used on Day of the Dead, 1 November, in order to show the souls of the dead the way to the altar. The Aztecs regarded marigold as a sacred plant, and a legend has it that where innocent victims of the Spanish conquest fell marigold grew.
No wonder, as its healing properties are numerous. Its scientific name, Calendula officinalis, is associated with a heavenly remedy. Early Christians used marigold during celebrations dedicated to the Virgin Mary, hence its English name, marigold – Mary’s gold.
Since they were brought there by the Portuguese, people have worn those festive wreaths around the neck and have been decorating their houses to attract prosperity. Long wreaths of yellow marigold flowers can be seen all over the place during Indian holidays and at Indian weddings. Similar beliefs have existed all over the world since time immemorial. That is why it has been believed for a long time that marigold has the power to heal the pain of unrequited or lost love. The power of marigold to cure love pains can be traced to Ancient Greek mythology – a young girl falls in love with Apollo, the Sun god, but his rays burn her and what is left behind are only marigold flowers. Girls thus needed marigold to show them the way to the right partner. If the plant failed to grow in a girl’s garden that would mean that she would pine after someone. Since time immemorial, gils used to give this flower to their suitors not to pine after them. In the West, it was believed that marigold water rubbed into the eyes could make one see fairies. In our region, marigold water was used as a facial wash for Đurđevdan (Saint George’s Day). In a text titled ‘Am I a Surrealist?’ Agar wrote about the fine balance between abstraction and Surrealism that informed her practice as ‘a revelation of what is concealed in the hide-and-seek of life, a mixture of laughter, play and perseverance’.“The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun and with him rises weeping”, wrote Shakespeare. ‘Agar’s works were so unique that they didn’t fit into any specific movement,’ observes Christie’s specialist and head of First Open Stephanie Garcia.
She once said we all walk on two legs, ‘and for me, one is abstract, the other surreal’. That element of chance and discovery - how a leaf might form the outline of a woman’s body, or a rock look like a prehistoric monster - was countered by her firm devotion to abstraction. She would go on beachcombing adventures and use the marine life, seaweed and pebbles she collected to inform her dreamlike works. Nature was the starting point for her imagination. What made her work so fundamental to early Surrealism was her combination of the rational and the irrational. ‘When would I have had the time to paint?’ ‘The Surrealists were always supposed to be immoral monsters, but I for one did not go to bed with everybody who asked me,’ she said. Their vibrant social circle embraced émigrés and the avant-garde: besides Surrealist house parties with André Breton, Nusch and Paul Eluard, Dylan Thomas, Oskar Kokoschka and Ezra Pound, there were trips to Juan-les-Pins with Lee Miller, Roland Penrose, Picasso and Dora Maar. For the next few years Bard and Agar lived a charmed existence, flitting between Paris, London and Portofino.
0 kommentar(er)
