Spring Flower 2000

Women's Council

The 22nd Annual Women's Council will be held June 9th-11th. A weekend focusing on the teachings handed down by Grandmother Twylah Nitsche, Seneca Elder.

Spring Planting Schedule

A useful graphic schedule backyard gardens in this climate.

Gardening with a French Touch

Technique for growing and cooking with sorrel, flageolet and mache.

Spring Fever

What is it about this time of year?

Gift of the Fairies:

a circle of bright Blue Flags

wave in the warm breeze.

Linda Pascatore - Spring Flower 2000

Warm balmy evening,

Flirting fireflies light our way...

a magical journey.

 by Linda Pascatore - Spring Flower 1999

The forested earth

warming in the morning spring

whispers trillium.

by Judy Long - Spring Flower 1998

The Phase Named Flower

This period of Flower begins on May 5th, the midpoint between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It starts just after May Day, and is the height of Spring; with flowers blooming, birds nesting, and warm days.

In Old England, Beltane was celebrated at this time. It was a spring ritual where fires were lit and herbs burned. Livestock were driven near the fires to be healed and protected by the smoke before they were driven out to summer pastures. It was also traditional for woodland marriages to take place on this day. Couples would seal their bond by jumping over the bonfires together. For more on traditional spring celebrations, see our "Spring Fever" article in the Index under Spring Flower in the Seasonal articles, or click on the Flower icon below.

Spring has sprung here in Western New York. During this period the trees will leaf out and green will finally return to our landscape. Right now there are small patches of color in the woods: tiny pink spring beauties, red and white trillium, Yellow cowslips, violets, and trout lilies. Before Summer Solstice, we'll see white mayflowers, Jack in the Pulpit, daisies, orange and yellow indian paintbrushes, blue flag irises, and pink musk mallow.

In the sky this period you'll see both Jupiter and Saturn just before sunrise low in the east sky in early June. In the evening Mercury will be visible low in the western sky at twilight from June 3rd through 10th. There are two full moons this period. The first is on May 18th and we have named it Firefly Moon after the magical creatures who light the spring evenings. The second is on June 16th, and is called Strawberry Moon in honor of the wild strawberry festival of the local Senecas (see "Strawberry Festival" article under Native American in the Index). The Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, occurs on June 20th at 9:48 P.M.

Wildflowers
by John Clare

 

Beautiful mortals of the glowing earth

And children of the season crowd together

In showers and sunny weather

Ye beautiful spring hours

Sunshine and all together

I love wild flowers

 

The rain drops lodge on the swallow's wing

Then fall on the meadow flowers

Cowslips and enemonies all come with spring

Beaded with first showers

The skylarks in the cowslips sing

I love wild flowers

 

Blue-bells and cuckoo's in the wood

And pasture cuckoo's too

Red yellow white and blue

Growing where herd cows meet the showers

And lick the morning dew

I love wild flowers

 

The lakes and rivers--summer hours

All have their bloom as well

But few of these are children's flowers

They grow where dangers dwell

In sun and shade and showers

I love wild flowers

 

They are such lovely things

And make the very seaasons where they come

The nightingale is smothered where she sings

Above their scented bloom

O what delight the cuckoo music brings

I love wild flowers

The First of May

by Anne Porter

 

Now the smallest creatures, who do not know they have names,

In fields of pure sunshine open themselves and sing.

All over the marshes and in the wet meadows,

Wherever there is water, the companies of peepers

Who cannot count their members, gather with sweet shouting.

And the flowers of the woods who cannot see each other

Appear in perfect likeness of one another

Among the weak new shadows on the mossy places.

Now the smallest creatures, who know themselves by heart,

With all their tender might and roundness of delight

Spending their colors, their myriads and their voices

Praise the moist ground and every winking leaf,

And the new sun that smells of the new streams.

 
 
spring omnipotent goddess
by e e cummings
 
spring omnipotent goddess thou dost

inveigle into crossing sidewalks the

unwary june-bug and the frivolous angleworm

thou dost persuade to serenade his

lady the musical tom-cat, thou stuffest

the parks with overgrown pimply

cavaliers and gumchewing giggly

girls and not content

Spring, with this

thou hangest canary-birds in parlor windows

 

 

spring slattern of seasons you

have dirty legs and a muddy

petticoat, drowsy is your

mouth your eyes are sticky

with dreams and you have

a sloppy body

from being brought to bed of crocuses

 

When you sing in your whiskey-voice

the grass

rises on the head of the earth

and all the trees are put on edge

 

spring,

of the jostle of

thy breasts and the slobber

of your thighs

i am so very

glad that the soul inside me Hollers

for thou comest and your hands

are the snow

 

and thy fingers are the rain,

and i hear

the screech of dissonant

flowers, and most of all

 

i hear your stepping

freakish feet

feet incorrigible

ragging the world

 
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