Orange Tip

The first warm and dry day in what was the wettest April on record gives the opportunity for butterflies to once more forage and fly. Two Orange Tips (male) spotted in garden this morning. 

Wiki-Link - Orange Tip

Robin

Enjoying the late return of Summer for several cloudless days now, with the temperature touching 27 degrees Celsius, I spotted a Robin in my garden. They really are exceptionally tame birds. For a full 20 minutes he hopped back and forth from fence to ground in search of food, occasionally singing, curious at my watching him. The secret to observing nature's wonders is quite simply stillness and silence, two commodities increasingly in short supply in the world today. 

Wild Strawberries

When I remember to tend a particular corner of my garden the results can be surprising. Apparently the phrase 'wild strawberries' in colloquial Swedish  alludes to an underrated gem of a place of personal or sentimental value.

Swedish film-director Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957) features Victor Sjöström in his last screen appearance as retired Doctor Izak Borg, who travels from Stockholm to Lund accompanied by his daughter-in-law Marianne, (Ingrid Thulin) to be awarded a life-time honorary doctorate. 

 In some ways Wild Strawberries is an early road movie, the story centring upon a journey both external and internal. En route Dr. Borg has experiences which remind him of his past. He offers a lift to three hitch-hikers, the pert and vivacious Sara, (Bibi Andersson) with her two competitive lovers, and to an argumentative married couple who he soons asks to get out of his car for the sake of the young people.  But by far the most memorable moments in the film occur when Bergman conjures up surreal settings and imagery to portray Dr. Borg's unsettling dream world. Reviewed by critics as one of Bergman's warmer and more accessible films, Wild Strawberries nevertheless hovers in the shadowy world of  life self-assessment with its regrets and past loves.  

Wikilink - Ingmar Bergman

Bee

He that would exactly discern the shop of a Bees mouth, need observing eyes, and good augmenting glasses; wherein is discoverable one of the neatest pieces in nature, and must have a more piercing eye then mine;  

 -Garden of Cyrus  chap. 3

There's a wealth of literature and religious symbolism  inspired by the  bee. The furry, flying insect is held in great esteem throughout the world despite its sting. Unlike the ant which invariably is likened to the robotic world of  automata, the bee has always been viewed as a hard-working  insect capable of altruism and self-sacrifice for the greater collective  good of the hive. Often used as a symbol of moral worth and integrity, the busy bee appeals greatly to the work-ethic of Protestantism.

The ancient Egyptians described   Pharaoh as He of  the Sedge  and Bee and  used honey as an effective contraceptive. In the Old Testament the story of Samson and the supernatural 'power' of honey can be found. (Judges 14:v.8). The Hebrew word for bee, dbure has the same root as  dbr meaning  'word'. 

In Classical antiquity bees were often depicted upon tombs as symbols of Resurrection; because the three month winter season when bees seemed to vanish was compared to the three days after the Crucifixion, only to reappear in Spring as if resurrected. In fact until the modern Industrial age, honey was  not only greatly valued as the only available source of sweetness but is also  the one and only food-stuff which  can never 'go off' and is incorruptible.

Bees have also symbolized eloquence, poetry and the mind. The Roman poet Virgil attributed the spark of divine intelligence to them. His fourth book of Georgics contains advice upon how to keep bees. Virgil's poem, over 500 lines long was for centuries one of the best-known works  of apiculture and how best care for  bees.

They alone hold children in common: own the roofs

of their city as one: and pass their life under the might of the law.

They alone know a country, and a settled home,

and in summer, remembering the winter to come,

undergo labour, storing their gains for all.
For some supervise the gathering of food, and work
in the fields to an agreed rule: some, walled in their homes,

lay the first foundations of the comb, with drops of gum

taken from narcissi, and sticky glue from tree-bark,

then hang the clinging wax: others lead the mature young,

their nation’s hope, others pack purest honey together,

and swell the cells with liquid nectar:
there are those whose lot is to guard the gates,

and in turn they watch out for rain and clouds in the sky,

or accept the incoming loads, or, forming ranks,

they keep the idle crowd of drones away from the hive. 

Bk 4 lines 153-169

Because the bee-hive has a radically different social organization to humankind's, bees and the hive have often been used as analogies to human society. Writers such as Shakespeare, Erasmus, Marx and Tolstoy each used the hive to describe human social organization. In his The Fable of the Bees (1714) the political thinker Bernard Mandeville argued that any distribution of wealth, even by theft, fraud and prostitution keeps the wheels of capital rolling and is thus legitimate. However his views were strongly condemned by  contemporaries as immoral.

Of all the varied literature relating to the bee that of the Belgian author and Nobel-prize winner, Maurice Maeterlinck's Life of the Bee (1901) is perhaps the most mystical. In Maeterlinck's work, contemplation of  the bee's life-cycle  and the hive rises to hymn-like heights of rapture. More recently the Swedish author Lars Gustafsson's novel The Death of a Beekeeper (1991) is a first person meditation by a Beekeeper suffering from advanced Cancer upon the imminent approach of death. 

Returning to bee-keeping itself,  'even though as early as the 1530s it was well known that the male drones were sometimes obstacles to honey production, most writers on bees for the purposes of their labor/religious/political metaphors kept the King a King.  However it was known that the queen bee was a female at least since the C17th century. Charles Butler's Feminine Monarchie popularized the notion, and was also the first work to stray from the usual methods towards bees and beekeeping of repeating ancient sources on the subject, and offer something like practical, even scientific treatment. Butler even scores the buzzing of the bees to music'.[1]

The buzzing sound of the bee, in effect its song, has fascinated musicians and composers. The bee is celebrated in Rimsky-Korsakov's The Flight of the Bumblebee, an interlude from his opera The Tale of Tsar Sultan. Its salutary to realise that although Rimsky-Korsakov wrote many operas often of  several hours length, his miniature tone-poem of seventy seconds is the work for which he is best remembered. More recently the British composer Michael Nyman wrote a short concerto for Saxophone and orchestra entitled  Where the Bee dances in which the  melodic line played by the Saxophone  imitates the joyous, zig-zagging flight of the bee.

Thomas Browne's Religio Medici includes a poem of highly original apian imagery; the poet imagining himself  a bee.

And then at last, when homeward I shall drive
Rich with the spoils of nature to my hive,
There will I sit, like that industrious fly,
Buzzing thy praises, which shall never die
Till death abrupts them, and succeeding glory
Bid me go on in a more lasting story.

- R.M. Part 1:13

In fact mention of bees occurs in each of Browne's major works. Abandoning poetry,  his Pseudodoxia Epidemica includes a lengthy digression upon why the bee produces a buzzing sound (Bk.3. chap.27). Browne, rather bravely writes of placing a finger upon a bee in order to determine its buzz. Elsewhere in his writing's there's a curious record, purely in the cause of scientific investigation, of Browne actually eating spiders and bees to determine their culinary and dietary effects, while in Urn-Burial he notes  bee's  funeral rites, ejecting its dead out of the hive.

Because scientific enquiry was invariably  patriarchal in its thinking, it was assumed  that the Hive was ruled by a male;  not until the nineteenth century was it finally accepted that a female Queen, not a male King rules the hive. The construction of the hive has been a source of wonderment to many, not least to  Sir T.B. who in  The Garden of Cyrus waxes lyrical upon its architecture thus-

The sexangular Cels in the Honeycombs of Bees, are disposeth after this order, much there is not of wonder in the confused Houses of Pismires, though much in their busy life and actions, more in the edificial Palaces of Bees and Monarchical spirits; who make their combs six-cornered, declining a circle, whereof many stand not close together, and completely fill the area of the place; But rather affecting a six-sided figure, whereby every cell affords a common side unto six more, and also a fit receptacle for the Bee it self, which gathering into a Cylindrical Figure, aptly enters its sexangular house, more nearly approaching a circular Figure, then either doth the Square or Triangle. And the Combs themselves so regularly contrived, that their mutual intersections make three Lozenges at the bottom of every Cell; which severally regarded make three Rows of neat Rhomboidal Figures, connected at the angles, and so continue three several chains throughout the whole comb.

The bee is an insect now included in the ever-growing inventory of endangered species upon planet Earth. It's recent decline is a matter of great concern. Without bee's ability to pollinate, crops would not grow. In fact humanity's fate is dependent upon the bee. The Varroa mite along with the phenomena known as 'Hive collapse disorder' in which swarms simply vanish, has decimated whole colonies. In recent decades pesticides, along with motor-car exhaust fumes and mobile phone signals have also been blamed for the bee's decline . In fact the plight of the modern-day bee wherever industrial-sized fruit-crop growing occurs, has been likened to  many working hives being over-crowded upon a budget air-line for a long over-night flight, only to be awakened upon arrival without any acclimatization, to a long day's labour immediately upon landing. Needless to say such treatment is motivated purely by economic factors.

The above photo is one of my best snaps. I particularly like how the  bee's furriness and  transparency of its wings is captured.

[1]  Info contribution by Brooke
Wiki-links
 Bee
 Fable of the Bees
Virgil's Georgics IV
Flight of the Bumblebee

Gnome in the Snow

  

Gnomes are hardy creatures and can endure the most severe conditions,  rarely grumbling at the weather no matter how adverse.

Plums

Plums are just about ripe now. They are another fond memory of childhood summers spent with my Grandmother.

My garden still has the statutory two fruit trees planted by a progressive City Council for every tenancy almost nearly 60 years ago. The pear-tree is a bit decrepit now, but one can't imagine social-housing planning planting fruit-trees for tenants anymore. However the Norwich Labour Party's fruit-tree scheme was more of a remedial measure to ease the malnutrition and poverty of the working population. For although the City of Norwich can boast of being England's second City circa 1400-1700, historically it has also for centuries been recorded as one of the lowest paid regions of the UK.

Peacock and Speckled Wood

After a month of overcast, rainy weather, summer and butterflies return! The gaudy and gorgeous peacock Inachis io loves to feed on buddleia.

In contrast to the peacock's bold markings the camouflage of the speckled wood Parage aegeria tircis, snapped in my garden today.

Sunflower

I'm not a very green-fingered person so I was well pleased that at least one seed from the packet flowered! 

Poets have often been inspired by Sunflowers, William Blake for example -

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,

Who countest the steps of the Sun:

Seeking after that sweet golden clime

Where the travellers journey is done. 

Where the Youth pined away with desire,

And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: 

Arise from their graves and aspire, 

Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

The American poet Allen Ginsburg (1926-97) in his 'Sunflower Sutra' (195) was inspired by the Sunflower to write-

Look up at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust....

A perfect beauty of a sunflower! A perfect excellent lovely sunflower existence!

The British Liverpudlian poet Brian Patten (b.1946) in a first-line entitled poem from the collection 'Vanishing Trick' (1976) wrote of sunflowers-

You missed the sunflowers at their height
Came back when they were bent and worn
And the gnats, half-froze, fell one by one...

Sir Thomas Browne in his Discourse 'The Garden of Cyrus' noted-

A like ordination there is in the favaginous Sockets, and Lozenge seeds of the noble flower of the Sunne. Wherein in Lozenge figured boxes nature shuts up the seeds, and balsame which is about them. 

- Chapter 3

It cannot be coincidental that the Sunflower is featured in the Discourse, 'The Garden of Cyrus',  symbolically it's the Solar half of the 1658 literary diptych. 

The pattern enclosed within the seed-structure of the Sunflower-head is a fine example of 'how nature geometrizeth' and exemplary of the 'Quincunciall Lozenge' pattern as illustrated in the Discourse's frontispiece.

1658 Frontispiece to The Garden of Cyrus

The pattern of seeds in the Sunflower are also a good example of the Fibonacci sequence of numbers in Nature. The Fibonacci number sequence, a mathematical progression can be detected in many works of nature. The spiral structure of the Pineapple and Pine-cone also have the Fibonacci numbers in their structure. They too are noted in 'Cyrus'. Browne's own highly symbolic number, the number five is included as part of the Fibonacci sequence -  1 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 8- 13 - 21 - 34 - 55

Fibonacci pattern in Sunflower head

There's a big difference between the top and bottom photo's posted. Taken withi minutes of each other, one is against a background of sky, the other in a dark corner, revealing the strong effect that bright light and shade has upon colours.

Pears

Ripening Pears first appear in late summer only to disappear early winter.

The current World recession has resulted in economic hardship and unemployment for many. However, the suffering engendered by natural disasters such as the Haiti earthquake earlier this year, the floods in Pakistan and China in which millions of people face enormous challenges of survival are quite simply beyond the imagination and endurance of much of Western society. Such natural disasters firmly place mere economic hardship into perspective.

One wonders how many individuals in Western society who continue to enjoy a comfortable life-style could ever begin to cope with the suffering faced by those experiencing natural disaster. And yet our comfortable life-styles are often maintained by exploitation, inflicting great suffering upon innocent fellow humans, even if geographically remote, in the form of Warfare, military occupation of land and unfair trading conditions.

The Renaissance physician and alchemist Paracelsus possessed a deep insight into human nature. He was not only a radical doctor but also a theologian as profound as Luther; even though much of his writings remain untranslated from an obsolete Middle German dialect; nevertheless Paracelsus made important observations upon human nature worthy of contemplation.

The following quotation is exemplary of Biblical and alchemical notions of the trial of metals being likened to the testing of the human soul.

It is in extremis, things reveal their nature and become visible; then we can say: he is an upright man, a steadfast man, he manifests his inner being.....One man reveals more traits of loyalty and less of disloyalty; one man is to a large extent this, another man that. Therefore we should keep an eye on the outward characteristics which nature gives a man by shaping him in a certain way. For nature shapes the anatomy of a pear in such a way that the pear develops into a pear tree; and she creates a medlar's anatomy, in such a way that it develops into a medlar bush; and the same is true of silver and of gold. Nature also forges man, now a gold man, now a silver man, now a fig man, now a bean man.



Quotation from -Parcelsus Selected Writings ed. Jolande Jacobi Princeton Uni. Press 1951

Hydrangea

Hydrangea thrive upon chalky soil of which there's plenty throughout the low-laying county of Norfolk.

The large hydrangea shrub in my garden is certainly over thirty years old, maybe as old as my plum and pear tree, planted when the houses and gardens of Woodlands Estate were first established early in the 1950's. I personally associate the large flowering heads with happy summer days spent with my grandmother as a child.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines hydrangea as - a shrub with flowering heads of white, blue or pink florets, native to Asia and America. Origin, mod. L. from Gk hudro -'water' + angeion 'vessel' (from the cup shape of its seed capsules).

Green Woodpecker

The green woodpecker is a relatively rare bird, at least in urban settings. One rested on a branch in the garden this morning, before zipping off.

Comma

Polygonia c-album or the Comma butterfly. One flitted through the garden this afternoon. So-named because of the distinctive C-shape on its ragged-edge wing. Although my photographic guide to Butterflies of Britain and Europe (1999) states that it is a fairly common species, all species of insect, in particular bee's and butterflies, have greatly reduced in number in the last five to ten years.

Postscript: 5 days after posting this, the Daily Mail has the headline 'Half of UK's butterfly species 'threatened with extinction,' and a national week of Butterfly counting July 24th -31 st is announced !

Vanessa Atalanta

The first Red Admiral (Vanessa Atalanta) spotted in the garden this morning. 

A little early in the season to arrive from their migration I would have thought, usually associating this butterfly with the month of September more than late June. However upon reference it is described as, 'a strong migrant, spreading northwards from the Mediterranean region each summer to breed. Adults hibernate and a few survive the winter in Britain'. It would have to be a strong insect to have survived last winter, the coldest for several decades!

Butterflies flit across the pages of 'The Garden of Cyrus', Browne, the keen lepidopterist observing, that the colour of the Caterpillar will shew again in the Butterfly, with some latitude is allowable. Nor can he omit the enquiry how Butterflies and breezes move their four wings from his speculations, even likening butterflies to flowers in the form of the Butterfly bloomes of leguminous plants.

It's also of interest to note that the Ancient Greek word for "butterfly" is ψυχή (psychē), which translates as 'soul', but also as 'mind'. There is of course a wealth of symbolism in literature throughout the world, both ancient and modern which alludes to the transitory, migratory nature of the butterfly, or as it was known as in the seventeenth century, the 'breeze-fly', being likened to the soul.

Honeysuckle

This posting seems an apt follow-up to the preceding one on smell and the nose. I'm fairly confident that Sir Thomas Browne would have delighted in the sweet aroma of honeysuckle currently saturating my garden and would have waxed lyrical upon its 'delectable odour' and 'noble scent'; something which as of yet a computer is unable to convey!

Gnomes

With the Royal Horticultural Society's Chelsea Flower show on at present, I thought it time to reveal my own installation for the Royal show. Here's an extremely rare photo of a quartet of gnome operators in participatione mystique, caught in celebratory mood having succeeded in performing the alchemical feat of palingenesis. From left to right their identities are believed to be -Arthur an English gardener, Christofini, an Italian shepherd, Ivor a Siberian woodsman and Albrecht an Austrian mountain-guide.

Gnomes have in fact been banned for 19 years from the Chelsea Flower Show, deemed as vulgar or unbecoming to gardens. A press clipping from the Times newspaper May 19th 2009 highlights the present controversy.

'They spoke of little else on the opening day of the 2009 Chelsea Flower Show. The issue? Is it time for the world's premier horticultural event to lift its 19-year ban on garden gnomes. The question has opened a schism in the high command of the gardening fraternity after one of the most respected exhibitors smuggled her “lucky” gnome into the central Grand Pavilion and put him on display. Officially Jekka McVicar, who is on the ruling council of the Royal Horticultural Society is in flagrant breach of the rules by placing her gnome called Borage amid her gorgeous array of organic medicinal and culinary herbs. They clearly state that any “brightly coloured creatures” are out of order and will result in disqualification.

The Royal Horticultural Society, which runs the Chelsea Flower Show, clearly states in its rules that gnomes or any "brightly coloured creatures" are out of bounds at the exhibition, as well as balloons, bunting and flags. The official explanation is that these items may "distract" from the garden designs, but critics suggest the real reason for the exclusion of gnomes is that they have been deemed too tacky for the illustrious flower show.

Dr Lane Fox supported the ban, calling the garden gnome a hideous creation that did not belong in the garden show. Ignoring an interjection by the Today presenter, saying: "That's snobbery", he added: "They [garden gnomes] are kitsch... There's no way we want mass produced gnomes or toadstools." But Mr Rumball objected to the ban, claiming it was sheer snobbery that kept gnomes out. He pointed out that garden gnomes were the pride of 19th-century aristocratic gardens before they fell from grace, and that high-quality antique gnomes were sold for substantial sums to collectors around the world. He said he feared the Chelsea Flower Show was limiting creativity through banning what it deemed to be in bad taste. "Chelsea is all about class. That's why it has banned them. The show is terrific and great fun but one of the reasons why people aspire to Chelsea's pinnacle of gardening is because everyone talks with plums in their mouths, ladies wear lovely clothes and the Queen goes along. All of these things make Chelsea something to aspire to. I'm a great believer in letting people do what they want with their gardens. I would not want gnomes in my garden, but everyone to their own. I don't think what they are putting on at the moment is significantly different from gnomes".

I wonders if all of this really is snobbery. After all snobbery is not a very British trait is it ?If Damien Hurst were to create a diamond-encrusted gnome I bet it would be allowed pride of place at the Chelsea Flower Show! Perhaps the organizers merely object to the commercial success of companies such as Zeho of Coburg, Austria, exporter of millions of mass-made plastic gnomes.

Whether one considers Gnomes to be vulgar, kitsch or merely harmless fun, they were in fact introduced into modern consciousness by the Renaissance physician-alchemist Paracelsus who proposed that a particular spirit resided over each element. Nymphs to rule the water, the Salamander fire, Sylphides the air and Gnomes the earth. Citing Germanic folk-lore Paracelsus claimed that deep in the earth there exists a race of dwarf- like Earth-spirits which he named Gnomes. Ever fond of word-play Paracelsus may have named them from the Greek of genomus or 'earth-dweller'. Alternatively the word Gnome may have originated from the Greek word gnome meaning knowledge and intelligence. According to Paracelsus these little people were the guardians of the earth who knew where precious metals and hidden treasure were buried. He describes them thus-

The gnomes have minds, but no souls, and so are incapable of spiritual development. They stand about two feet tall, but can expand themselves to huge size at will, and live in underground houses and palaces. Adapted to their element, they can breathe, see and move as easily underground as fish do in water. Gnomes have bodies of flesh and blood, they speak and reason, they eat and sleep and propagate their species, fall ill and die. They sometimes take a liking to a human being and enter his service, but are generally hostile to humans.

As ever there is a Sir Thomas Browne connection here. In his vast encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica which sets out to refute popular misconceptions and errors, Browne wrangles with the idea as to whether pygmies actually exist (Book 4 chapter 11). He concludes thus-

and wise men may think there is as much reality in the Pigmies of Paracelsus; that is, his non-Adamical men, or middle natures betwixt men and spirits.

The footnote to this chapter reveals Browne as one well-acquainted with the writings of the Swiss alchemist-physician-

By Pigmies intending Fairies and other spirits about the earth, as by Nymphs and Salamanders, spirits of fire and water. Lib. de Pigmæis, Nymphis, etc.

The first time the actual word 'gnome' occurs in English literature is in Alexander Pope's poem, The Rape of the Lock (1712). An aural depiction of a gnome can be heard in the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky's Piano suite, Pictures at an Exhibition a musical work better-known through Ravel's imaginative orchestration of 1922.

Balloon

A certain sign that the weather's fine. While in the garden the first hot-air balloon of the season floated overhead. I seem to be living on some kind of flight-path for balloons with prevailing wind. I've always been fascinated by hot-air balloons, great symbols of independence and the Aquarian spirit that they are. It's a real Vulcan at his forge sound hearing the roar of the burner flame ignited to increase altitude. Really pleased with this shot, but that's part of taking a good photo, being lucky at the right time and place with camera ready.

Frog

With the Vernal Equinox just past, spawn is in the water. Ever curious of the natural world Sir Thomas Browne took a zoological interest in frogs, his introduction of the word 'amphibious' into English. may originate from his interest in the amphibious creature. His notebooks record in meticulous detail-

Froggs taken in the first season of coition containe in their bellies spawne of the same figure and connexure as it appeareth in the water, as may bee discovered in the bellies of the female, which are the greater sex; observable it is how large a proportion the seminary vessels & parts of generation doe make unto other parts, and seemes to occupie the cavity of the lower belly, wherein the testicles are also very conspicuous & turgid in the male.

2 froggs coupled wee put in a cistern of water at the first promising dayes of the spring: wherein they continued just about twentie days, nor did they seperate although in divers dayes the water froze them over, at length the female dyed, the male notwithstanding an hard complexure at least 3 dayes after. In the cisterne more spawne was found then both their bodies wayghed, beside some part remaining in the body of the female, whereof some hanging out discovered manifestly that passage which at other times is very obscure, some remaining in the body more black stiff & clamie.

2 lived coupled the yeare succeeding, 3 weekes, & though frozen mayntained copulation. Remarkable it is with strong complication the male fastneth unto the female belowe the forleggs, & unto what largeness & under a downy black colour like catstayles of the water the thumbs of male froggs doe swell, which wee have not observed in the complexure of the male toade out of the water.

Of this spawne singular uses may bee made in physick, & though for the preservation thereof it may bee only distilled, yet may it bee kept fresh all the yeare under oyle, making choyce of fresh spawne, which will either hold its proper figure or else the black specks subsiding and separating will leave the white & aqueous part entire; the whole masse of spawne may also bee imbibed by bole or frankincense or minium or cerusse incorporated by agitation or subaction.

 

Source: British Museum Sloane 1875 reproduced in Miscellaneous writings edited Keynes, Faber and Faber 1946