Human Flower Project

Secular Customs

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Mothering Sunday

Though observed much like American Mother’s Day now, Mothering Sunday in the United Kingdom and Ireland originally paid tribute to an ecclesiastical, not biological, “mum.”

“Every Midlent Sunday is a great day at Worcester, when all the children and god-children meet at the head and cheife of the family and have a feast. They call it the Mothering-day.”
Diary of Richard Symonds (1644)

Mothering Sunday
at East Garston Parish, U.K.
Photo: Peter R. Cook

Mothering Sunday as it’s now called, is perhaps the biggest floral holiday in England, with all the cards, florists’ bouquets and other gifty fol-de-rol of Mothers Day in the US. Originally, it was the occasion for parishoners to head back to their “mother churches”—the cathedrals of their youth or churches where they were baptized.

And how wise that someone chose the fourth Sunday in Lent, giving everyone a respite from its austerity, a social event. “Inevitably the return to the “mother” church became an occasion for family reunions when children who were working away returned home.” Consider that the working life often began as early as age 10.

“Most historians think that it was the return to the “Mother” church which led to the tradition of children, particularly those working as domestic servants, or as apprentices, being given the day off to visit their mother and family. As they walked along the country lanes, children would pick wild flowers or violets to take to church or give to their mother as a small gift.”

This year, in Ireland and the U.K., March 6th will be both a sacred and a secular holiday. “In a revival of a ceremony dating from Tudor times, young people still receive flowers and Simnel cakes at a service in the Chapel Royal at the Tower of London. These cakes were once baked by daughters throughout England… who would also decorate their mother’s homes with violets, primroses, daffodils and other spring flowers. They would often prepare egg custard, comfits, lambs’ tails, white sugar sweets, fig pies and wafers , and give their mothers nosegays of wild flowers that had been blessed in church.”

When’s the last time you gave or received a nosegay? Have you tried baking a Simnel cake?

Welcome home, to all who are partaking of family reunions today. And happy Mothering Sunday.

For a Simnel Cake recipe….

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Saturday, March 05, 2005

Flesh Steals Flowers’ Thunder

Celebrities pop from buds at Filipinos’ grand floral parade.

Float at the Panagbenga parade
Baguio, Philippines
Photo: Baguio city government

They’re all over the TV, newspapers, radiowaves, and screens, both big and little. But that’s not enough for the movie actors of the Philippines. They want to “star” in the Panagbenga, too,  the nation’s prime flower festival.

Celebrities were banned from the flower parade after an incident last year. Panagbenga organizers said that in 2004 actor Cesar Montano was riding on a float “but alighted at one point to mingle with the crowd, disrupting the parade.” Festival officials hoped to keep the focus on flowers this year.

But at the 2005 parade, Eddie Gil hid with “actress Alma Moreno and her son, actor Mark Anthony Fernandez, as well as former action star Ramon Zamora and the vaudeville team of the Big Three Sullivans inside a float that was part of the parade….  The float was promoting Gil’s movie,” which just for spite I won’t name for you.

“By the time crowd-control officials saw the actors and actresses emerging, it was too late.”

A Filipino filmmaker, presumably not the director of Gil’s new flick, complained, “We wanted to see flowers, not bodies.” The designer of one of the other floats remarked, “The presence of movie stars in ‘Panagbenga’ makes people forget the essence of this cultural festival.”
Eddie Gil is described as a “presidentiable-turned-singer/actor,” i.e. a world unto himself so long as the public is watching. Is there a way to protect our beloved floral customs from popular culture’s glare? I don’t see how, since popularity keeps flower customs alive. But I think I’ll skip Eddie’s new movie. I’d rather be weeding.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Bad Flowers

Tennessee’s state watchdogs bark over flower expenditures.

Two recent U.S. newspaper stories prove once again the moral ambiguity of flowers, the central theme of Jack Goody’s sweeping study The Culture of Flowers. Goody examined how throughout Islamic, Judaic and much Christian history, flowers have been associated with carnality, materialism, and worldly extravagance. Oh by the way, those things are bad.

Image: Live Evil

Before condescending to our ancestors, consider this 2005 controversy:

The Ethics Committee of Tennessee’s state senate is investigating how one of its members used campaign monies. In response the Tennessean, Nashville’s newspaper, has looked into the campaign records of the Ethics Committee members themselves, taking special note of flower purchases as possible violations of state campaign finance laws.

According to the Tennessean, two of the ethics committee members bought “hundreds of dollars worth of flowers” with campaign money. Defending his floral purchases, one senator said that “the flowers go to, sometimes, the families of Senate members who have sick family members or who have lost a loved one” or to constituents “in similar situations.”

Leonard Bradley, a public policy instructor from Vanderbilt University, told the Tennessean that “items such as gifts and flowers could cross into that gray area.” Gray flowers?

Bradley’s referring to the rules set down in Tennessee’s Registry of Election Finance handbook:

“Whether an expenditure of campaign funds by a candidate is made for a political purpose depends upon all the facts and circumstances surrounding the expenditure.

“An activity engaged in between elections by a candidate which is directly related to and supports the selection, nomination or elections of that individual to public office is considered a political activity. “

‘An expense which would be incurred by an individual regardless of that person’s candidacy for public office is considered an expenditure for a nonpolitical purpose and may not be made from the individual’s campaign funds.”

From my limited association with politics, it seems that such activities as talking on the telephone, laughing and breathing in and out become “directly related to…” elections. Everything that politicians do “supports” their winning or hanging onto office. So why focus on flowers?

In part, it’s because, as Goody has tracked down for us, flowers have a long history of moral suspiciousness. The other part, of course, is that we’d all like flowers—and any other gift—to be free of ulterior motives. Which would you rather receive, a bouquet bought with your congressman’s campaign funds or flowers she/he paid for out of pocket?

One question more: Would you rather receive the “tainted” flowers or none at all?

I thought so.

(For another “bad flowers” tale, see this story about an endowment to Iowa State University.)

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

San Diego Will Demolish Its Flower Center

Downtown San Diego property is expensive terrain, too precious, city councilors have decided, for a flower market.

Marian Imber, owner VEA Growers
a tenant at San Diego’s Floral Trade Center

Against the recommendation of city planners, the San Diego City Council voted last night to demolish its floral trade center and build an office complex on the land. Representatives of Carltas, a branch of the Ecke Poinsettia Ranch that owns the property, said “the 13-acre site is too valuable for its present use.”

The San Diego International Floral Trade Center has been a bustling wholesale market for 15 years, one of only three such flower markets in California. The city council vote will displace 39 current tenants and, trade-center proponents say, will do away with 250 jobs. “Last night, Albert Sweet, a Sorrento Valley florist, said the trade center is vital to the entire floral industry.”

A spokesman for Carltas says the proposed office complex will eventually attract 1000 jobs to the area.

One has to consider, though, the character of jobs as well as their number. With the vitality of San Diego their first obligation, how could city leaders do away with a commercial center this vibrant, beautiful and unique? Recently in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, the old Haymarket was likewise closed recently. I believe that spot, where we used to buy daisies, local tomatoes,  and Halloween pumpkins, will turn into a parking lot. It was an enduring piece of local history, replete with current-day shoppers and fresh vegetables as well as the ghosts of mule-drawn farm wagons from centuries past. What new building can replace that?

Across the wiser world, flower markets are opening in inner cities, both to support area farmers and to ensure that downtowns possess the variety and freshness that makes them lively. I believe San Diego would have been savvy to supplement its successful floral trade center with a retail wing—a gorgeous destination for downtown residents and tourists alike.

It looks too late for Louisville and San Diego. City councilpeople elsewhere, wise up. A flower market will do wonders for your downtown.