Human Flower Project

Religious Rituals

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Faith, Realism, Enterprise: All in a Mustard Seed

A talisman from the 1960s reaches back two centuries and forward, to this very spring in California.

Sunset on mustard-covered hills, Tepusquet Canyon, California
Photo: Caroline Joyes Woods

“It is so completely covering our hills right now,” writes Caroline Joyes Woods, “that you can smell its honey-with-a-dash-of-fetid (the fetid being just a tiny after-smell) fragrance in the morning when you first come out and the air is still and the moisture still in the air...nice!”

“It” is mustard, and “our hills” are Tepusquet Canyon, near Santa Maria, California, where Caroline and her husband have been ranching for many years. “Nice” and a lot more than that is Caroline herself, a childhood friend, apple tree climber, and moss garden maker.

We contacted her this spring having dimly remembered a human flower project from back in the early 1960s. When we were still in elementary school, Caroline used to wear around her neck a silver chain and glass amulet with a mustard seed encased inside. We went treasure hunting and were thrilled to find one several weeks ago at Uncommon Objects here in Austin. But aside from, now, being souvenirs of childhood, what were these charms all about?

Caroline reminded us that Christ told his disciples “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed-nothing shall be impossible unto you.” (Matthew 17:20) In several of the gospels Jesus also compares the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed “which a man took, and sowed in his field:
 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.” (Matthew 13:31-2)

Mustard seed “Remembrancer” and prairie phlox (Phlox pilosa)
Photo: Human Flower Project

Someone turned the parable into a trinket that caught on. A few clicks through ebay (and the trip to Uncommon Objects, too) proved how popular these items once were—though somehow we can’t imagine preteens of today much going for them. It turns out they were manufactured by the Flint Company, a mom and pop operation in Kansas City.  In Richard Weiss’s book The American Myth of Success, we learn about Maurice and Alice Flint, a Missouri couple who had fallen on hard times after World War II. They consulted Norman Vincent Peale, a leading pop-religious figure of the time (Dr. Phil, Billy Graham, and Donald Trump rolled into one).

Weiss writes that it was Peale “who advised them to repeat the following New Testament injunction whenever they felt despondent: ‘If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed…nothing shall be impossible unto you.’ Flint asked his wife for a mustard seed to carry as a reminder, and she obliged with one from the family pickle jar. One day, feeling low, he reached into his pocket for the seed, but it was gone.” He then struck on the idea of capturing a mustard seed in a protective container and started making costume jewelry. “The Remembrancer,” as he dubbed it, “was advertised a ‘Symbol of faith – a genuine mustard seed enclosed in sparkling glass, makes a bracelet with real meaning.’”

Remembrancer pin and cards from the Flint Co.
Photo: Collectible Jewels

The Flints opened a charm factory and did very well, it appears; according to Peale, “These articles sold like hot cakes.") “The Remembrancer” was being marketed at least by 1951, and Caroline was wearing hers in 1964. A good streak.

The mustard seed also makes an appearance in Buddhist legend, and, as you might guess, conveys a very different message.

A woman named Kisa Gotami was wandering in grief, after the death of her only child. “Her sorrow was so great that many thought she had already lost her mind.” Pleading for help, she went to the Buddha, who promised to bring her son back to life—if she could gather “white mustard seeds from a family where no-one had died. She desperately went from house to house, but to her disappointment, every house had someone who had died. Finally the realization struck her that there is no house free from death.” She was renewed, and comforted, and continued on the path toward enlightenment. (We don’t know if the Remembrancer ever caught on among Buddhists.)

Are these the same story or contradictory stories? Can “When you wish upon a star” be the same as “Wake up and smell the mustard”? We’re not sure, but Caroline seems to have found faith and truth in bloom together—“honey-with-a-dash-of-fetid.” Nice going, old friend!

Monday, April 14, 2008

Mullickghat Rises from Its Ashes

Sandy Ao takes us to Kolkata’s huge flower market, destroyed by fire Friday night, back in business by Saturday.

The shops of more than two hundred flower sellers
burned Friday night in Kolkata, India
Photo: Sandy Ao

Fire broke out Friday night, April 11, at the immense Mullickghat flower market in Kolkata, India.  Eighteen fire engines were called to the scene along the Hoogly River, as blazes swept down Strand Road, charring more than 200 – nearly all – of the market’s flowers stalls.

The fire destroyed the 125-year Mullickghat just before the Bengali New Year, a huge floral occasion. For decades the largest flower market in all Asia (though now surpassed by the sales center in Delhi ), Mullickghat both served local customers in this city of 13 million people and exported the region’s tuberoses, marigolds, gladioli and scores more varieties to Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Boys survey the remains of the market on April 12
Photo: Sandy Ao

Merinews reported Saturday, “About 2,000 flower growers from the districts visited the market daily to sell their produce”—a number that doubled around major festivals and during India’s wedding season, which is now beginning.  “The livelihood of 25,000 people has been affected.”

The Thai Indian interviewed Ramesh Kundu, a flower seller whose place of business was wiped out. “Each one of us has suffered a loss of minimum Rs.80,000 (roughly $2000 USD). With Bengali New Year on April 14 we had stocked four times more flowers than usual. Now this fire has turned us into beggars.”

Sandy Ao, who alerted us to the tragedy, has posted an amazing album of her photographs and a moving account of many experiences in the market on her weblog. She also generously shared many photographs and thoughts with us.

“The fire was around the Lady’s bathing ghat,” Sandy writes. “One cannot stop imagining that it is a case of arson; that’s what I heard people in the market hissing about.” Newspaper accounts confirm that many in Kolkata suspect the fire was set intentionally. The Statesman reports charges that the ruling party may have arranged to have Mullickghat destroyed to make way for an immense, modern (and expensive) structure that’s been on the drawing board for years.

Sudhangshu Sil, the local member of Parliament, was quick to announce: “The greatest consolation is (that) in February the Calcutta Municipal Corporation sanctioned the plan for a three-storey building with basement here, which will rehabilitate the 5,000 flower traders and be India’s first flower auction centre.”

Flower vendors make do after Friday’s fire in Kolkata
Photo: Sandy Ao

Sandy Ao says that arson fires tend to be Kolkata’s prelude to “improvement” projects; considering the horrors undertaken in the U.S., the razing of whole downtown neighborhoods, in the name of “urban renewal,” why should we be surprised?

Planners of the new flower complex say that it will include cold storage, facilities for sorting, grading and packaging flowers, laboratories for extracting flower oil, and lodgings. As proposed, the air-conditioned complex would be a far cry from the century-old street market. Centered around the Lady Ghat near the river’s Howrah Bridge, Mullickghat has been a traditional open-air venue. Before the fire there were more than two hundred small structures for vendors, but according to Sandy, many hundreds more flower sellers strung garlands and sold their calotropis and roses from bags and baskets below the bridge, along Strand Road and all around the edges.

“The official report was that Mullickghat had been completely gutted,” Sandy writes.  “Actually there are 265 odd shops/stalls as recorded in the Mullickghat Society book, each paying Rs.130/-per month as rent to be recorded as legal flower dealers here,
 whereas the other groups of flower dealers who do not own any stalls/shops pay Rs.7/- each per day to the society. 
And these groups are the backbone of Mullickghat.
 I should say 95% of the thousand flower sellers are made up of these groups.”

Is affection for the old open-air market and grief at the idea its replacement by modern facilities all stupid romanticism? It’s easy to relish the excitement of this place at a remove, through Sandy’s images, but what about withstanding the rainy season here, or enduring summer days, as roses wilt through the afternoon? Maybe the new flower complex would be better for everyone.

One of the Mullickghat flower shop owners who lost his business in the fire
Photo: Sandy Ao


“I got some feedback from some of the young Kolkatans,” Sandy writes, “They too express their skepticism about this new modern flower market in Mullickghat. You know, we have had so many such plans and projects. All took off the ground with grandeur, but all resulted in flop projects. In our point of view, this has become a golden opportunity for the greedy officials/politicians to dig their fingers into this goldmine.” She asks, 
“Who will rent the shops in this new facility?  Who will need such facility?
 Who will manage it?”

Even if public funds really are all diverted to the new building, Sandy offers some reasons why it isn’t needed – or even wanted – here.

“Most of the flowers they deal in at this market are related to some religious purposes.
 (Remember, each of the gods/goddesses has no less than 108 names!  In fact, with only 365 days a year, it’s hard to hold all the pujas and the rituals!) The flowers required for all these gods/goddesses are local products. Who will need cold storage for marigolds, tuberoses, tulsi, hibiscus, bael leaves, roses, sunflowers, cockscomb, daisies, jasmine, magnolia, lotus… all of which are hardy?” she asks. “Besides, most of these flowers get sold off within 24 hours!”

Doling out marigold and jasmine flowers after the fire
Photo: Sandy Ao

Exports from Mullickghat have been suspended for the next week, but there does appear to be a heavy trade in exported flowers, in addition to the strong local market Sandy describes. Perhaps it’s this more international end of the Kolkata flower trade that the new building is designed to serve.

Sandy raises questions about the operation of such a facility, if plans move ahead. “How will it be managed? as we are incapable of managing anything where strict discipline is required!
 We must remember, the Bengalis believe they are the image of Lord Shiva, who is the creator and the destroyer… But never the preserver!!!

 We have had many projects which ended being some monsters/eye-sores of Kolkata.”

If it is ultimately built, will the new market be a success? Our friend doubts it.

“At this moment we are having daily power-cuts —that, too, in 38.8C weather conditions. The real summer is yet to come. Where will the electricity come from to facilitate the cold storage?
 Nuclear energy? Not a chance, for our Left Party is not going to accept the Central Government’s signing the Nuclear Treaty.
 I can already see how this modern flower market is going to take shape in this summer heat: Then we’ll see the magic of Mullickghat’s flower power!”


The morning after the fire, Sandy took her camera to the market she’s photographed many times before. 
“A few of the stall owners simply sat there speechless. One of them, the supplier, told me his loss is unaccountable. Above all they lost the good season to do business within these two days; for Monday is the Bengali New Year. I too became speechless. I smelled burnt wood in the midst of the roses. I guess this smell will stay with me for a long time.

“Nothing seemed to be right, for the weather was very humid, dull and hot. 
But I was having hope in my heart that Mullickghat is not completely destroyed.
 And when I saw the crowd near the footbridge, my spirit lifted up!” Sandy said there were even more shoppers than on an ordinary Saturday. 
”I told myself ‘Good!  Mullickghat is still standing strong. I guess we Indian are the survivors.’”

Back in the business of lotus buds and marigolds, April 12, 2008
Photo: Sandy Ao

The Kolkata newspaper also reported that by Saturday, scores of the vendors were doing buisiness, their fresh marigolds and tuberoses arrayed on the ashes.

“People of this country have seen how many civilizations come and go,” Sandy writes. “Everything has its present, future and its past. In due course, Mullickghat will have a modern building for selling flowers, but the people will still put up their usual stalls around the building and sell their fresh marigolds, roses, calotropis, tuberoses, magnolia, bael leaves...like what they have been doing for the last 125 years.
 Those who want to rent a shop in the modern market can go ahead and rent a shop there. The other 95% of flower sellers will carry on doing their flower business in the normal way that they are doing now. It may not be exactly same like before, but it will not vanish either. If the government tries to stop them, they will use the mass-power to fight for their right. After all, in Kolkata we are very much aware of the effects of the mass-power! Otherwise Kolkata would not be known as the city of bandhs/strikes!!”


Religious observances go on Saturday, April 12, in Kolkata
with floral offerings to Shiva at the temple by the Mullickghat market
Photo: Sandy Ao


The city’s forensic experts have concluded that Mullickghat’s fire began when a fuel canister ignited at the Lady Ghat. Local officials say that the flower sellers – those with shops, anyway --will be compensated for their losses, and promise that the modern Mullickghat building, long delayed, will proceed.

But Sandy writes about the present:
”I see devotees still crowding the nearby temple offering the flowers to the gods with the same faith in their faces....And today I saw how they made beautiful calotropis garlands for Shiva to welcome the New Year.”


Thursday, March 20, 2008

East of Easter - Zoroastrian

One of the oldest New Year celebrations on earth takes place today—the Navrooz—marked with flowers and fire.

Zoroastrian priests perform a Jashan/rite to induct a young new member into the faith
Photo: Tim Page

Today, March 20 (or yesterday, the 19th, depending on your continent) marks the Spring Equinox. For Zoroastrians around the globe, it is also the New Year, or Navrooz. We send special greetings to Ketty Wadia and the Zoroastrian community here in Austin, Texas, who back in 2003 kindly invited us to participate in their beautiful New Year’s celebration.

We were, of course, especially enthralled with the priest’s use of flowers in the Jashan/ceremony. As guests, young and old, all dressed in finery, sat around the edges of a North Austin livingroom, priest Khurshed Katki carried out the New Year’s ritual. It involved many set prayers, fire, and the gathering and placing of specific numbers of flowers in an array of bowls and dishes. This website offers some explicit directions for carrying out the “Parsi Version” of Jashan (the Parsis being those Zoroastrians who centuries ago fled Iran and settled in southwestern India).

The Norooz is celebrated today in Iran also - by Zoroastrians as well as other ethnic Persians. “Why has this festival survived? There have been major attempts by the Muslim rulers over the centuries to minimize it, ban it or get rid of it once and for all. The reasons for their failure should be sought in the spirit of this festival. Contrary to the Islamic traditions where death and martyrdom mark all the major rituals, No Ruz is a celebration of life.”

The presence of flowers confirms that.

Zoroastrian priest Khurshed Khatki performs the New Year’s Jashan
Austin, Texas, 2003
Photo: Human Flower Project

For those who would like to learn more of Zoroastrianism, called the world’s first “revealed religion,” there’s plenty to read. Having been around since 3000 B.C., this religious tradition—also strong on cosmology—has a rich history. Many religious historians contend that the Magi ("Three Wise Men") who followed “the star” to discover the Christ Child were Zoroastrian astronomers.

Though the Zoroastrians comprise a tiny minority in India, they have made their mark, primarily in service to the poor. And they are making their beneficent mark here in Texas, too.

After the Jashan ceremony five years ago, we spun around asking questions about the types of flowers used, the meaning of fire, the reason for the priest’s white mask, the names of all the dishes about to be served… One dignified lady gently called us aside.

She said, gazing at us quite directly: “Paying attention to all of the things—how we use flowers, our food, our dress, our burial customs, you have failed to learn anything. Our religion is not in any of these things. We believe in good thought, good speech, good action. That’s it!”

So came a stiff spring wind, blowing off our little journalistic toupee. How embarrassing, and bracing. What a high standard to live by. 

Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Awakening

Cattle ranchers, church-goers, writers—those who look for signs will see them, especially in early spring. A yearning for fresh collards leads Jill Nokes to revelations in the fields of Granger and on the street in Houston. Thank you, Jill!

Testimony from the yard of Erma Lee, Houston, TX
Photo (detail): Jill Nokes

By Jill Nokes

At the end of February, I came across a recipe for minestrone soup that called for collard greens to be used in place of kale.  Collard or turnip greens are typically not part of my cooking repertoire, as my mother was from New England and we never had that kind of food.  But as I pondered over the selection of the large, coarse, bundled collard leaves in the grocery store, I held in my mind the many memories of driving past “truck” gardens in the country in late winter.  I recalled endless versions of the same dirt plots, bare of everything except a few new onion sets and these tattered clumps of greens, waiting for spring.  Old tin cans and wire cages would be hanging on the fence posts, ready for the tomatoes and purple-hull peas.

Spring in Texas is all about pure potential.  Our short winters have usually brought us enough cold blasts to make people eager for the warm, soft nights of late March and April, and for a while we enjoy being in denial about the inevitable brutal heat and drought that waits on the other side of Easter. 

Texas redbud (Cercis canadensis var. texensis)
March 15, 2008, Austin, TX
Photo: Human Flower Project

I always want to slow down the last days of winter and the earliest signs of spring. I don’t want my redbud to fade in eight days, and I don’t want the temperature to jump up to 85 degrees so soon after being in the comfortable upper 60’s.  But signs of “The Awakening” appear more vividly with each day, even in between the last cold fronts.

I first heard the term “the awakening” from my friend Betsy Ross, who, with her son J.R. Builta, operate a grass-fed organic beef operation in the blackland prairies near Granger, Texas.  After years of struggling to support their farm using conventional herbicide and fertilizer treatments for their land and feedlot finishing for their cattle, they discovered that only if they focussed on restoring the depleted soil biology in their pastures could their herds and planted forage crops thrive. To acquire the knowledge of just what their different pastures were missing, Betsy had to learn to be a keen observer of the signals Mother Nature was sending.  And one of the most important things to watch for were the mystical signs that spring was on its way.

“What I heard from the Oregon Tilth folks a couple of years ago was that the earth begins to awaken slowly and, then one day everything pops up at once,” Betsy explained to me. “It is that ‘awakening’ that appealed to me, as for several years I could pick up a slow rise of upward energy out in the pastures. One can almost feel it beginning throughout 2-3 week period. When one is grazing intensively as we do, ‘catching this wave’ means we can begin grazing aggressively - because we know old winter is about over with and wonderful spring is about to explode and every green plant jumps up out of the ground. We can feed out the last of the hay with confidence, and let the cattle graze the grass a little shorter.”

Betsy’s description revives all kinds of notions of the romantic pastoralists: farmers who get intoxicated by the smell of warm, moist, living earth, the sounds of animals lowing in the evening, and the satisfaction of collaborating with Mother Nature to make things grow.  The best thing about it is that they are actually succeeding in this holistic method of farming, and inspiring others to join them.

The Gathering Area, behind Erma Lee’s house in the Heights, Houston
Photo: Jill Nokes

Inspiration and awakening were also on my mind when I recently met Ms. Erma Lee, resident of Houston, in her amazing garden.  On the way to meet a friend of my daughter’s soon-to-be new mother-in-law, we stopped off in the Heights neighborhood to meet Erma.

Erma’s “Inspirational Art Garden” is completely preposterous. Facing a busy street, the whole thing is made up of glass jars and vases, balls and vessels of all kinds, filled with colored water.  Her special front bed is actually enclosed in store-front glass.  It is ridiculously generous and fragile.  Everything could be destroyed instantly by someone chunking a brick into the yard from a passing car. To Erma, this is not a concern, because God directed her efforts after she had “an awakening.”

Lee explains the biblical messages in “The Inspirational Art Garden”
Photo: Jill Nokes

As a member of Joel Osteen’s huge Lakewood Church (the 16,000 seat “worship facility” is located in the former Houston Rockets sports area), Erma was taught to make herself ready at any moment for a personal epiphany.  So when it came about three years ago, she went into a whirlwind of activity, changing everything inside and out of her house, and began incorporating messages from biblical scripture into decorative arrangements on view for all to see.  In the rear “gathering area,” she has constructed colorful backdrops using a signature style of figures made from old patio furniture and decorative fans from the Dollar Store.  When giving tours of her place, she explains the meaning behind her decorations with the fervent zeal of a performance artist, and as someone who has been “awakened” to a higher purpose.  For us lucky visitors, whether we are there because we are attracted to all the shiny glass like magpies, or because we yearn to be changed by a holy touch, we all benefit from Erma’s ardent creation.

Friday, February 29, 2008

Pencils Down for Saraswati

Young learners (and old), wearing mustard yellow, bring the palash flower and open minds before Hinduism’s goddess of learning.

Palash flower (Butea frondosa) sacred to Saraswati,
Hinduism’s goddess of wisdom
Photo: Sandy Ao

“It’s almost like we keep the best for the last!” Sandy Ao writes. Thus our friend in Kolkata, India, describes the final ritual of the Hindu calendar year: Saraswati Puja. The celebration honors the goddess of wisdom (something we may hope to have gained a bit of over the past twelve months). Its purpose is mainly to nourish the seed of brilliance inside young minds, but it’s an inspiration for less young thinkers also—the only floral custom we know of that acknowledges, in Sandy’s words, “books and pencils are holy.” (We think so whenever in the presence of a well sharpened No. 2.)

Offerings to Saraswati, Feb. 11, 2008
include a chalkboard with flowers
Photo: Sandy Ao

Sandy attended several pujas around Kolkata, at her son’s apartment complex, in a private home, and on the outskirts of the city. She also passes along her neighbor Mr. Pradip Kr Pal Choudhuri’s Sanskrit greeting:

Saraswati
Mahavage (highly revered)
Bidye (educated)
Kamala Lochone (lotus eyed)

Biswarupe (reflecting Universe)
Bishalakshmi (hugely good)
Bidyang Dehi (bestowing education)
Namastute (bowing down to you)

“As Saraswati is the goddess of knowledge and wisdom,” Sandy writes, “I guess we are free to chant the above mantra within our own understanding of her deep mystery.”

On the day of Saraswati’s puja, February 11th this year, students “visit the pandals (temporary shrines) and avoid touching books or pencils, “ except as part of ritual. A ceremony called Hathe Khori (literally “hand” and “twig quill") is when many children first learn to write.  Sandy informs us, “The pandit will write the first three letters of the alphabet on the slate with the chalk, including the English ABC and 123 with the Bengali alphabet’s ABC and 123. English is an important language nowadays, so both languages are being taught on this day!

First alphabet with the pandit’s help
at Saraswati puja in Kasba, Kolkata
Photo: Sandy Ao

“There will be two ladies to help the pandits while this ritual takes place. First one lady will blow the sound from the shell, and then another one will sound the gong. I guess it’s to wake up the sense from the child… to become alert. After all these rituals, the priest will place some flowers on top of the written slate and show that to the goddess for the blessing.” Could composition classes world wide—journalism, too, for that matter—be improved with Saraswati’s favored palash flowers (Butea frondosa) sprinkled over binders, keyboards, reporters’ notebooks? Undoubtedly.

Many of the children come to the ritual wearing bright yellow garments, color of the mustard flower which is India’s harbinger of spring. “First the pandit will take the child on his lap and then arrange a brass spoon - in fish shape - filled with holy water from the Hoogly River, and place some marigold and bael leaf in it, and offer it to the goddess. While doing that he will tell the goddess the name of the child.”

Sometimes the tiny scholars resist. “This particular 5 year old girl needed 3 - 4 times of pushing and pulling to make her sit on the lap of the pandit to complete this ritual.” Sandy photographed the Saraswati puja in “the village,” actually Bosepokur Lane, Kasba, which is now part of sprawling Kolkata. She was pleased to see how gently all the adults urged the youngsters on. “Everyone around will help the child to learn the first word on this Saraswati puja day. How good it is to feel there is no ugly competition among the parents and children while prompting the children to learn wisdom/knowledge from the goddess.”

Sandy especially was grateful to be invited to a private ceremony in a Kolkata home. Twelve year old Dabu Mukharjee enjoyed his first Saraswati puja, organized in his honor by his older brother. “Maybe the elder brother did not have the opportunity to study himself,” Sandy explains, “so he paid all the expenses of the puja from his earnings and offered a puja for Dabu this year at their home.” The Mukharjee family rose and bathed before 5 am Feb. 11 to be ready for the pandit’s arrival. Hindu priests are, of course, enormously busy on these holy days. “There are thousands of puja to be taken care of within a few hours time. All the pujas have to be done before noon,” and, Sandy writes, the priests usually visit poorer families of the community earliest in the morning.

Saraswati puja at the Mukharjee home in Kolkata, with 12 year old Dabu, his
mother and older brother. Dabu wears a sandalwood tikka on his forehead to
symbolize the rite has taken place and “indicate a third eye, that’s wisdom.”
Photo: Sandy Ao

Sandy noted that the Mukharjee family’s statue of the goddess—as all others she saw—has only two arms (two limbs less than the four-armed statues of past generations) and learned that the change came about at least 70 years ago. But why? She was told, “We want the goddess more like us, human, and not some one from imagination.”

At Neelachal Housing Complex, more well-to-do children came wearing grown up attire, little girls in bright saris, the boys in Kurta and Dhoti. A lawyer friend told Sandy that the adult clothing symbolizes “though the children physically are still young, mentally they are matured like the grown-ups,” or soon will be, as they learn to write and gain the blessing of wisdom’s divinity. Here many children laid their books and pencils before the idol. “I overheard a few children exchange notes of which books they brought along to be kept with the goddess,” she writes. Most brought the textbooks in their weakest subject at school, to be blessed by Saraswati and returned to them as classes resumed the next day.

Saraswati holds the pens at the observance of her puja, Feb. 11
Photo: Sandy Ao

The Saraswati puja offers humility as mental refreshment. School’s out. Kolkata’s major newspaper, The Telegraph, serves a free meal to the city. Except for those tiny ones seated in the pandit’s lap and writing out their first letters, it’s time to put pencils down. “Before goddess Saraswati, we are forever ignorant,” writes Sandy “and we should go to her with an empty page (open mind).”

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Wedding Flowers for Two Grooms

When the couple about to be married are both men, will there be bouquets? Maybe. But consider a cascade.

Andrew Solomon and John Habich at their wedding dinner
Northampton, England, June 30, 2007
Photo: Jonathan Player, for the New York Times

It was a June wedding. Last summer, writer Andrew Solomon and editor John Habich celebrated their civil union before about 300 guests. The two men were married in England (Solomon has dual US/UK citizenship) where, as of 2005, civil unions between same-sex couples have been legal.

The New York Times published a gorgeous set of photographs by Jonathan Player. What an event! The ceremony took place on a broad staircase at Althorp, the estate of the Spencer family, below portraits of the late Princess Diana and her ancestors. At the reception and party afterwards, the newlyweds radiated happiness. Guests sat down to dinner in a “marquee” on the Althorp grounds, decorated in black and white, with lots of mirrored tabletops and waves of pink roses.

Solomon and Habich exchange vows amid floral drifts and tapestries
Photo: Jonathan Player, for the New York Times

But what about flowers at the service? Do grooms carry bouquets? No reason they shouldn’t. But Solomon and Habich chose not to. Instead wide swaths of hydrangeas stepped all the way down the staircase. And roses (we think that’s what these blooms are) hung from the upstairs balustrade, like fluffy pink tapestries. (Habich also wore a small pink flower on his lapel.)

Erin and Chloe
at their civil union in Vermont
September 2000
Photo: Erin and Chloe

From what we’ve seen and learned, lesbian weddings tend to double up with bouquets. Sometimes both brides wear floral head crowns as well. (Yet another reason to legalize same-sex marriage, we say!)

Several years back, we ran a piece about Flowers from the Heartland. This 2004 film documented a small movement of Midwesterners who sent flowers to the weddings of gay and lesbian couples in the U.S. as tokens of solidarity. Same-sex marriage is still controversial here. Twenty-six states (most of them in the Heartland) have passed laws against it. Only in Massachusetts is same-sex marriage legal; New Jersey, Vermont, Connecticut, and New Hampshire permit civil unions. Most recently, New Jersey’s governor has indicated he will sign a bill legalizing same sex marriage (after the November elections); California’s state Supreme Court will be taking up the matter next month.

What about the rest of the world? The map below, from wiki, offers about as vivid a picture of cultural differences as one could imagine. In the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada and South Africa (in dark green) same sex marriage is now legal. In Iran, Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Mauritania homosexuality (not same-sex marriage, just being homosexual) is punishable by death.

Map of the World’s laws on homosexuality, via Wiki

Two bouquets? One world? We’ve got a long way to go.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Sheep, Sex, Shipping: Valentine’s ‘08

Consumer frenzy, love policing, and labor rights hug the headlines February 14th.

A shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, sets the mood for sweethearts
Photo: Chaiwat Subprasom, for Reuters

Hallmark holiday? We prefer to think of Valentine’s as comic, an invitation to lighten up on everybody and see the redbud on bare February branches.
Here’s some floral news confetti.

NEW ZEALAND: Tessa Laird writes that a florist in Wellington is boycotting red roses this Valentine’s Day. Jeanie McCafferty, owner of Next Stop Earth, contends that demand for red roses in February drives prices six times higher than normal—or even tolerable. On an average day in Wellington, a dozen red roses sells for about $10, but with demand so high at Valentine’s, they go for about $65. “You can get a fantastic bunch of flowers from us for that price,” McCafferty says. McCafferty also refuses to deliver flowers to workplaces on Valentines “as it put pressure on her staff and couriers.” She recommends that everybody postpone their flower-buying till March.

Tessa’s reaction: “I like it!” But Tessa, Jeanie, we don’t understand. Without excess, without irrationality, without “stress,” where’s the magic juju? We and hundreds of frantic florists will be interested to hear how Next Stop Earth fares.

At Maridadi flower company in Naivasha, Kenya, a worker loads red
roses from a greenhouse, February 9
Photo: Simon Maina, for AFP

KENYA: Widespread violence after national elections here disrupted flower production—and a whole lot more. In Naivasha, where most of the Kenya’s flower farms are concentrated, homes were burned and people were massacred last month. The “flower farms were relatively untouched but no one showed up to pick the roses and hypericum at Wildfire Flowers the next day, or the day after.” Flower companies hustled to get back in operation, phoning workers to reassure them that the factories were safe, then sending “runners out to homes” to convince workers to return. It appears that long days of flower production and shipping resumed in time to meet heavy demand in Europe. Kenyan companies “have flown flowers to Nairobi or directly to Europe rather than risk impromptu roadblocks. Those that go by road move in daily truck convoys protected by police.”

Sting Ray, be mine!
A special Valentine’s treat at Tokyo’s Sunshine Aquarium
Photo: Itsuo Inouye, for AP

JAPAN: The Sunshine International Aquarium celebrates Valentines all month long. Throughout February, there are special events with a Valentine’s theme.  At left, an aquarium staffer brings an underwater yummy to a ray on February 2 (maybe Ground Hog Day needs renaming).

COLOMBIA: Some 60% of cut flowers sold in the U.S. are imported from Colombia. Just two days ago, eleven religious leaders from the U.S. signed and sent a letter to the president of Dole Fresh Flowers, the largest flower company in Colombia, asking that the corporation permit workers to unionize.

“These workers report that they organized independent unions in order to address concerns about low wages, long hours, high productivity quotas, humiliation by management, and health problems associated with repetitive motion and over-exposure to pesticides,” reads in part the letter to David DeLorenzo, Dole Flowers’ CEO. The religious leaders, brought together by U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project, urge Dole to permit the latest union effort at its La Fragancia plantation to move forward (Dole closed its Splendor operation last year, where flower workers had been successful in building a union).

INDIA: Fundamentalists, both Hindu and Muslim, have tried to suppress romantic tokens at Valentine’s Day here, but in Bangalore, street vendors of roses have been doing brisk business. A flower seller in Raipur, though, says sales of flowers and cards, too, are just one quarter of what they were in 2007. Religious ethics aren’t to blame.  “Today’s youth, armed with a high disposable income, is buying the most expensive cards and gifts in addition to spending it on eating out,” said an executive of Archies, a card and gift company.

TAIWAN: A survey of women in Taipei, published this week, showed that 70% of Taiwanese men thought their lady friends wanted flowers for Valentine’s Day. However, 92%of the women surveyed “said they would prefer other gifts, such as chocolates or even a marriage proposal.” The research was conducted by an environmental group called Green Sense, which urges the public to buy potted plants instead of cut flowers (marriage offers being out of most people’s price range.)

Sheep nosh on red carnations, flowers that an Israeli embargo
prevented from leaving Gaza
Photo: Reuters

PALESTINE: Flower growers in Gaza have resorted to feeding their carnations to livestock. An Israeli “lockdown” in the area ruled by Hamas has meant that farmers have been stuck with their harvest, unable to export this Valentine’s season. “I apologise to the lovers on the day of their love because I cannot bring flowers to them,” Ziad Hejazi says. “Our flowers have become food for the sheep.”

THAILAND: A poll in Thailand revealed that 1 in four teenagers celebrates Valentine’s Day by having sex (without indicating what rates on an ordinary Thursday might be.) “Police plan to swoop on motels, malls and parks to ensure youths behave themselves on the ‘Day of Love.’”

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Extraordinary Fashion Pipal

A young designer, a craftsman of New Market, and an ancient holy leaf: Sandy Ao skips along with Kolkata’s latest foot fashion.

Dried leaves of pipal (Ficus religiosa)
100 sell for 25 Rupees at New Market in Kolkata
Photo: Sandy Ao

Last night in the classroom of a Catholic church here in Austin, TX, we spotted an interesting calendar. It was round, and divided the year into liturgical slices: the sacred seasons—like Lent, Easter, and Advent—and big chunks of ”Ordinary Time.” Western culture seems especially prone to demarcations like this. We apply the psychic Marks-A-Lot—a lot! Let’s draw a thick line between what’s sacred and what’s profane, between the “work week” devoted to money-grubbing and the “Sabbath” for piety and giving back.

Perhaps the same thing goes on in India. We’re quite ignorant about Indian culture, have never even had the pleasure of visiting. But from what we’re learning thanks to our friend Sandy Ao in Kolkata, India seems to reach for the Marks-A-Lot a whole lot less. Instead, the primary cultural tool there seems to be the spoon. Sacred and secular, ancient and modern, commercial and religious get stirred together. There’s less of a gap between holy festivals, next to no “ordinary time.”

Anupam Chatterjee of Kolkata,
a young Indian designer
using an ancient plant
Photo: Sandy Ao

Sandy Ao set us off on this train of thought with some pictures she took recently at Kolkata’s huge New Market, formally known as the Hogg Bazaar. The shopping area was built in the mid-19th century so that English colonials wouldn’t have to rub shoulders with Kolkata natives. (Talk about Marks-a-Lot!) Today, though, and for many decades, the New Market has been everybody’s favorite place to shop. “In recent years we have many malls in Kolkata,” Sandy writes, “but New Market is still everyone’s choice.” Not only are prices better, she says, “It’s a paradise for the shoppers! You can get everything under the sky”

Even a pair of winged sandals. Sandy found ethereal footwear in the making during a recent visit to New Market. “It’s the idea of this young fashion designer from Kolkata. He is hardly 23 years old. His name is Anupam Chatterjee, a young man full of imagination and working hard towards his dream career - fashion designing.”

Anupam told Sandy he uses fresh flowers often, and even made a gown “fully covered with fresh jasmine.” For the sandals he chose pipal leaf, which dried looks like a swatch of white tulle. Years ago, Sandy tried her hand at creating this beautiful filigree. “When we were young in the school we used to pick up those fallen pipal leaves and would soak them in the water, excitedly changing the water daily and waiting for the green pigments of the leaves to fall off till the leaves turned to this beautiful fibre structure. Most of the time we would end seeing our pipal leaves letting us down.” The dried pipal leaves at New Market are processed locally, she says.  “For 100 perfect pieces of these leaves they charge Rs. 25/- only!!!  It’s like my dream come true.”

Imtiaz deftly folds pipal leaves into ‘flowers’
Photo: Sandy Ao

Anupam Chatterjee has been collaborating for two years with a New Market craftsman named Imtiaz. Buying pipal right there at the market, Imtiaz has learned how to fold the leaves into airy flowers by watching others in the stalls close by. He earns Rs. 100 apiece for each pair of fancy slippers, spooning the pipal flowers together, Sandy explains, with “duck feather, dried arecanut fibres and flowers made of reeds.” We’re not sure how Anupam prices the finished footwear, but he’s already received enthusiastic response. Liking the look of pipal leaf, Chatterjee used it in a recent fashion show. “And the show was a great success,” Sandy writes. “Who knows? He may be another Sabyasachi Mukherjee in the making!”

Pipal Tree, terracotta tile
Mohenjodaro, 2500 B.C.
in current day Pakistan
Photo: Iowa State Univ.

We don’t ordinarily mention shoe fashion and religion in the same breath, but, pipal (Ficus religiosa) is not ordinary. “The peepal is the first-known depicted tree in India: a seal discovered at Mohenjodaro, one of the cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation (c. 3000 BC - 1700 BC), shows the peepal being worshipped.” In the Vedic period, people used this wood as a firestarter, with the old rubbing method.

It is a deeply sacred plant for both Hindus and Buddhists.  According to legend, the Buddha received Enlightenment under the Bo (or pipal) tree. And here are several Hindu spoonfuls: Vishnu was believed to have been born under the pipal tree and Krishna to have died beneath it. “Some believe that the tree houses the Trimurti, the roots being Brahma, the trunk Vishnu and the leaves Shiva. The gods are said to hold their councils under this tree and so it is associated with spiritual understanding.”

How about a few dollops of science and manufacturing, too?: Ayurvedic medicine uses all parts of Ficus religiosa, and tannin from the bark works its way into Indian leather. Sandy relates also that in Bodh Gaya, folk artists paint on that region’s tougher pipal leaves: landscapes, portraits, and images of the Buddha.

Sandals with sacred pipal leaf and duck feathers
in Kolkata’s New Market
Photo: Sandy Ao

We asked Sandy if anyone would take offense at artists, designers and producers tinkering so freely with a plant holy as pipal.

“We are a country that loves arts and crafts, and always have an open mindedness for any creative work with a good sense,” she replied. “I am sure there will never be any objection coming from any side about this young designer using dry pipal leaf for his sandals. After all, these leaves do look like wings on feet, so unreal and so out of this world.”

Ordinary? What’s that?

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Myrrh: Wisely Given for Epiphany

The Gospel of Matthew records that the kings who came to Bethlehem to honor the birth the Jesus brought myrrh. What made the resin of an East African shrub a good baby gift?

Adoration of the Magi (detail)
by Pieter Bruegel (1564)
National Gallery of London

According to Christian tradition, a group of powerful and scholarly men arrived in Bethlehem January 6th to pay their respects to the tiny Messiah. They brought presents. In lieu of flowers—roses wouldn’t have fared well on the long trip—they offered gold and two aromatic plant products, frankincence and myrrh.

Myrrh (excellent SCRABBLE word for the vowelless) is actually resin from Commiphora myrrha, a plant native to Somalia (though the secretions of other varieties of Commiphora apparently go under this name, too). Ducts and cavities in the plant’s bark become filed with ”a granular secretion which is freely discharged” either from natural fissures or “when the bark is wounded.... It flows as a pale yellow liquid, but hardens to a reddish-brown mass.” Unsavory as all this sounds, the gummy result is myrrh, a substance prized since 2000 B.C.. Being exotic, it made a fitting gift for a god, but not for its rarity alone....

Commiphora myrrha
Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen
Image: Caliban

It is hard for most of us to imagine how stinky ancient times were. Personal hygiene was rudimentary; as for Christ’s nursery, there were no mobiles or changing tables—Mary and Joseph were camping out in a barn. Anything that could overpower stench would have been precious. And myrrh can do that. Its fragrance is strong, and as the Christmas carol says, ”bitter." The ancient Egyptians used the resin in embalming; Jewish communities used it to anoint corpses.

Because of its association with death, myrrh was also a symbolic gift, an intimation of the Christ child’s destiny at the cross. Likewise, the plant’s thorns and slashes made in Commiphora’s bark to extract myrrh point to the Passion story. Myrrh granules are even referred to as “tears.” This may be the saddest present ever opened at a baby shower.

In addition to its honorific and symbolic character, myrrh also possessed practical value. It has long been used medicinally—to treat wounds, aid digestion, cure infections of syphilis and leprosy, and even promote menstruation. Hmm, maybe myrrh wasn’t for Jesus after all, but Mary.

Though the market for Baby Savior gifts is small today (also, the number of Magi consumers), Ethiopia exports over 70 tons of myrrh annually. “Tears” of Commiphora myrrh are used in perfumes, food flavorings, mouthwash, and adhesives. And its flowers? Here’s a lovely photo, not taken in January we’d presume, of Commiphora abyssinica as it blossoms.

Monday, December 31, 2007

Benazir Bhutto - Amid Flowers

The former prime minister and leader of the Pakistan People’s Party was killed December 27th at a rally in Rawalpindi. There, at her burial place in Garhi Khuda Baksh and across the nation, flowers fell in her honor.

A mourner lights a candle during prayers for Benazir Bhutto in Lahore, Pakistan, December 29, 2007.
Photo: Mohsin Raza, for Reuters

Bhutto’s daughters Asifa (at left) and Bakhtawar pray beside the funeral bier covered with rose petals and marigolds. The former prime minister was buried Dec. 28 at the family mausoleum in Garhi Khuda, next to her father and two brothers.
Photo: Aamir Qureshi, for AFP

Photo: David Guttenfelder, for AP

Bhutto had returned to Pakistan in October after eight years of self-imposed exile. On October 18, another assassination attempt failed, but killed 130 her supporters, wounding many more. She prayed with the widows of those who died.

Photo: Mian Khursheed, for Reuters

In floral regalia, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto waved to crowds at the election rally in Rawalpindi December 27, just before a gunman and suicide bomber killed her and many of her supporters. Bhutto had served two terms as prime minister but been forced out of office on charges of corruption, charges she always denied.

“In our part of the world, politicians have to take their campaigns to the street,” Pakistani political analyst Nusrat Javed told TIME. “Bhutto’s base doesn’t watch TV. They need rallies, cavalcades. Unless you do it this way, you cannot survive as a populist party.”

At least 31 of her supporters also died in the attack. There are conflicting reports as to the cause of her death—whether by a gunshot or from the impact of the bomb blast. Thus far the family has not called for an autopsy, a practice that is considered desecration in most of the Muslim world.

Bhutto’s friends and political supporters mourned over her grave at the Bhutto family mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Baksh. The Pakistan People’s Party named her 19-year-old son as its new leader Dec. 30 and announced it would contest the upcoming general elections.
Photo: Asif Hassan, for AFP

Bhutto’s supporters lay flowers in front of the leader’s portrait during a ceremony, Saturday, Dec. 29, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The service marked the third day of her death (known as Soyem).
Photo: Mohammad Zubair, for AP