Lily of the Valley

Hitting the Saturday blog obliquely after all the tobacco related posts, this will be a little more challenging. It all concerns Lily of the Valley. This could, of course be a person but experience tells us that it is in fact a pale white perennial flower.

Metaphysics is an underlying aspect of philosophy through which we perceive ourselves in relation to our own being and the fundamentals of being in the world. That is one definition. It does not lend itself to definitions. It would be best if I referred you to the greatest of metaphysical philosophers: Emmanuel Kant who laid out his ideas in the monumental "Critique of Pure Reason".

Our relation to the world is analytic and synthetic. There is analysis where being is viewed in essence as of its constituent parts and in synthesis as a whole existing being, which we find ourself in relation to. As I understand it, " sisters are female" female is of the essence . "The bride wore white" . Female here is of the existence in place and time, in fact an event. Lily of the Valley, a factual plant, the lady in the vale a different existence.

It was this basic idea that made it possible for Kant to separate fact from belief. Facts demand to be grasped in one independent reality and belief is another, and more personal reality and the two are not on the same plane of being. To the individual they are both valid in their own way as an individual take on reality. Others may read Kant differently. Well that is their take on reality.

Here I am with Lily of the Valley, (a lady or a flower). Being a cradle catholic, taught by nuns, brothers and priests I have a particular take on reality. It could be called a belief, and it is this belief which colours my view, just like a rose coloured ophthalmic instrument. Spectacle would lead us in the wrong direction altogether or would it?

Let us take the spectacle of that springtime leaning of the Christian church, the May Procession. Many Catholics, even those long ago deserters from the fight, will remember the following verse.

"Oh Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,
Queen of the angels and queen of the May."

I can even hear the tune in my head, can you?

This ceremony was awash with lilies and among them Lily of the Valley with their heady, almost suffocating scent, when amassed in great banks around the statue of the Virgin Mary and of course in the posy of the chosen May Queen, a young girl, all clad in white, the existential femininity of the springtime festival.

In the Greek culture May was dedicated to Artemis goddess of growth. In Roman culture the festival of Flora the day of the blossoms, a welcoming ceremony after winter. We can see a syncretisation taking place here: a fusing of different belief systems and it is said this one was promulgated by the Jesuits in the Jesuit colleges. ( yet to be proved).

I have always looked upon it as a Christianisation of the changing seasons of the year and with Mary within the context of new life, it seems most appropriate after Easter.

This has come about because of my noticing some early Lily of the Valley, just coming into flower this week. It will always remain as one of my favourite spring flowers together with that wild hyacinth, the bluebell. The Lily of the Valley is symbolic of the return to happiness, and is much favoured in bridal posies. It has been called Eve's tears; the tears shed by Eve as she was banished from the garden of Eden.

"There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio".

Heaven scent.

JL April 14 10:14