Flower Pic-ing

Probably half of my phone's memory is filled with variations of my hand holding a flower in place while I snap a picture of it. I like to identify wild plants, especially flowers. How could I not? They're the epitome of the Divine Feminine as expressed in nature. After a decade and a half of hypermasculine Christianity with a fondness for giant new buildings, I need the sacred wildness of Mother Earth. So I store up pictures as references and learn what I can.

To the right is an Asiatic Dayflower I found while walking on the edge of the woods near me. It's said to bloom only one day out of the year. That may or may not be the case. What I can say about it for sure is that it's a member of the pea family. And sure enough, it has little legumes in pods that look like the seeds inside of a green bean,

They're edible, apparently, but I don't know of any medicinal or magical uses. When I found them last year, I pressed a few and offered the rest to the Goddess on my altar. (At that point, I didn't really have a patroness, so they were for the Earth Mother in all her aspects.)

This here on the left is a Muscari, or Grape Hyacinth. I used to think they were ugly until I heard someone compare them to Faberge's work. Sure enough, they are gorgeous up close. Do you see the little white edging on the fully-opened bell in the center? It looks like crochet lace.

Again, no idea of any medicinal or magical uses. I will point out, though, that Hyacinth was the curly-haired youth loved by Apollo, and thus the hyacinth is sacred to him. I don't know if the Grape Hyacinth is included, but I imagine that using these to honor Apollo would probably not hurt his feelings.

They're also a great decoration for an Ostara altar. If you find them growing wild, as I did, you can dig up the bulbs and transplant them to your garden. Just give them extra TLC so they aren't shocked beyond recovery.



And the little white bloom here is... something. It almost looks like a wild violet, but the way the petals behaved looked more like the Asiatic dayflower. It nestled in the grass like the niphredil of Lothlorien. While I was sitting down after getting tired out, I noticed this one beside me and picked it to get more familiar with it.

So what is this flower? I'm sure I'll sit down and do the research sooner or later, but I think that particular blossom had a much simpler purpose: to add a little beauty to a moment when I wasn't feeling very well. Sometimes a tincture or a salve or a spell isn't what you need. Sometimes you just need to sit a minute with the Divine and reawaken what's divine in you.