If you’re the kind of person with “unfollowing anxiety” I want you to know it’s okay to unfollow me
I don’t care if we’re mutuals, friends in real life, family, whatever
You aren’t obligated to follow me, I don’t keep track of followers/unfollowers, I don’t “do inventory” and see if my mutuals are still following me, and I definitely don’t ever “call out” someone for unfollowing me
I like to call my chickens “beasties” or “fat little monster trucks” and other such affectionate terms, but dad seems to take offence whenever I do and always gently refers to them as “the girls,” “the ladies” and sometimes “the dames” when he’s putting them away, like he’s a butler shepherding a group of well-bred country lasses into the parlour for tea
this post evokes such a pleasing mental image that my depression was completely cured for 5 and a half minutes
(Assuming you mean Ancient Rome) This is a complicated question because of the way Rome absorbed the cultures and religions of the peoples it conquered. They shared beliefs from Egypt to England and things like the symbolism of different flowers went along with that. The most famous of Roman symbols were laurels for victory, power, and honor; and violets for being from the Isle of Sapphos.
(Violets were also stretched to also symbolize those in the Isle of Man as well and so would sometimes show up in relation to Ares and military men.)
I promise no more puns. Below is a list of some flowers I had a hard time finding in one place that are still good to know. (I promise I’ll try to limit the puns and the gifs.)
Lots of Roman foliage had ties to various gods and spirits. Like the rose was attached to Aphrodite and Cupid in the most fitting symbolism ever. Keeping with that theme, it was also the symbol for death and appeared on graves and in funerary art. Parsley was also considered a funerary herb and they never would have put it on a plate unless they were trying to clearly communicate they were planning on killing someone.
Bunches of flowers symbolised the goddess Flora who had her own national holiday and even appears on Roman currency, but she didn’t fit into European Imperialist ideas, so she isn’t well known today.
The lotus and lily, both imported from Egypt, was a symbol of female power and was associated with just about any goddess who stood still long enough.
Oaks were attached to Zeus and great military victories, oak wreathes were often awarded with military medals.
Ivy was the symbol of intellectualism and poetry, which is one of the reasons the best universities are Ivy League.
Marjoram was a wedding flower, and the branches of a tree on a groom’s property held by a bride symbolized becoming part of a new household.
Peony was the flower of both medicine and a happy marriage.
Olives symbolize peace which is why we say extend the olive branch. In a lot of ancient cultures, ceremonies were an important way to very publically declare things.
The majority of other flower symbolism just had to do with the various gods and their symbol of choice: wheat for Demeter, grapes for Dyonysis, etc.
If you’re looking for something specific and can’t find it feel free to ask.
If I could be a better poet, if I could be a real poet and make people feel the tug of the stitch my words might make out of chaos I would do it for Judith. Shout out to Judith and this mood lighting, look at her standing there. All my words are regurgitation of the boxes women have had built around them, climbed out and then back in when those walls became the small-big of safety and self and surety. Judith dwells delineated by lines, but not behind them. She cuts through and shines through and is the sort of strong that people are afraid of. Some might call her a goddess because that’s what strong women must be, an allegory for something. She is not an allegory, not a story, not some warning tale that doesn’t age well. She is a person and she is strong. She is strong like death and time and that feeling when you’re done. You can’t barter those things, can’t scare them, they are kind and cruel and patient. Shout out to Judith and that face that peers out from behind and peers into you.
Artemisia Gentileschi
was peered into and stood in her shadow like some might stand in the shadow of death or time or the feeling of being done and some might fear it because they cannot control it but Artemisia returned to it and homesteaded there. Here is the truth of Judith I cannot say because I am not the poet I should be and the English language fails: Inside every woman is a country of houses and those around her explore their grounds and look in their windows. In that country there are houses in far corners with no roads and painted over windows to shield the light from the eyes of men too weak to understand and too frail to bear their frailness. In those houses is where the woman dwells and in those houses is Judith and in her hands is a head and on her face is time and death and being done. So shout out to Judith.
Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.
Arepo built a temple in his field, a humble thing, some stones stacked up to make a cairn, and two days later a god moved in.
“Hope you’re a harvest god,” Arepo said, and set up an altar and burnt two stalks of wheat. “It’d be nice, you know.” He looked down at the ash smeared on the stone, the rocks all laid askew, and coughed and scratched his head. “I know it’s not much,” he said, his straw hat in his hands. “But – I’ll do what I can. It’d be nice to think there’s a god looking after me.”
The next day he left a pair of figs, the day after that he spent ten minutes of his morning seated by the temple in prayer. On the third day, the god spoke up.
“You should go to a temple in the city,” the god said. Its voice was like the rustling of the wheat, like the squeaks of fieldmice running through the grass. “A real temple. A good one. Get some real gods to bless you. I’m no one much myself, but I might be able to put in a good word?” It plucked a leaf from a tree and sighed. “I mean, not to be rude. I like this temple. It’s cozy enough. The worship’s been nice. But you can’t honestly believe that any of this is going to bring you anything.”
“This is more than I was expecting when I built it,” Arepo said, laying down his scythe and lowering himself to the ground. “Tell me, what sort of god are you anyway?”
“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth. I’m a god of a dozen different nothings, scraps that lead to rot, momentary glimpses. A change in the air, and then it’s gone.”
The god heaved another sigh. “There’s no point in worship in that, not like War, or the Harvest, or the Storm. Save your prayers for the things beyond your control, good farmer. You’re so tiny in the world. So vulnerable. Best to pray to a greater thing than me.”
Arepo plucked a stalk of wheat and flattened it between his teeth. “I like this sort of worship fine,” he said. “So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll continue.”
“Do what you will,” said the god, and withdrew deeper into the stones. “But don’t say I never warned you otherwise.”
Arepo would say a prayer before the morning’s work, and he and the god contemplated the trees in silence. Days passed like that, and weeks, and then the Storm rolled in, black and bold and blustering. It flooded Arepo’s fields, shook the tiles from his roof, smote his olive tree and set it to cinder. The next day, Arepo and his sons walked among the wheat, salvaging what they could. The little temple had been strewn across the field, and so when the work was done for the day, Arepo gathered the stones and pieced them back together.
“Useless work,” the god whispered, but came creeping back inside the temple regardless. “There wasn’t a thing I could do to spare you this.”
“We’ll be fine,” Arepo said. “The storm’s blown over. We’ll rebuild. Don’t have much of an offering for today,” he said, and laid down some ruined wheat, “but I think I’ll shore up this thing’s foundations tomorrow, how about that?”
The god rattled around in the temple and sighed.
A year passed, and then another. The temple had layered walls of stones, a roof of woven twigs. Arepo’s neighbors chuckled as they passed it. Some of their children left fruit and flowers. And then the Harvest failed, the gods withdrew their bounty. In Arepo’s field the wheat sprouted thin and brittle. People wailed and tore their robes, slaughtered lambs and spilled their blood, looked upon the ground with haunted eyes and went to bed hungry. Arepo came and sat by the temple, the flowers wilted now, the fruit shriveled nubs, Arepo’s ribs showing through his chest, his hands still shaking, and murmured out a prayer.
“There is nothing here for you,” said the god, hudding in the dark. “There is nothing I can do. There is nothing to be done.” It shivered, and spat out its words. “What is this temple but another burden to you?”
“We -” Arepo said, and his voice wavered. “So it’s a lean year,” he said. “We’ve gone through this before, we’ll get through this again. So we’re hungry,” he said. “We’ve still got each other, don’t we? And a lot of people prayed to other gods, but it didn’t protect them from this. No,” he said, and shook his head, and laid down some shriveled weeds on the altar. “No, I think I like our arrangement fine.”
“There will come worse,” said the god, from the hollows of the stone. “And there will be nothing I can do to save you.”
The years passed. Arepo rested a wrinkled hand upon the temple of stone and some days spent an hour there, lost in contemplation with the god.
And one fateful day, from across the wine-dark seas, came War.
Arepo came stumbling to his temple now, his hand pressed against his gut, anointing the holy site with his blood. Behind him, his wheat fields burned, and the bones burned black in them. He came crawling on his knees to a temple of hewed stone, and the god rushed out to meet him.
“I could not save them,” said the god, its voice a low wail. “I am sorry. I am sorry. I am so so sorry.” The leaves fell burning from the trees, a soft slow rain of ash. “I have done nothing! All these years, and I have done nothing for you!”
“Shush,” Arepo said, tasting his own blood, his vision blurring. He propped himself up against the temple, forehead pressed against the stone in prayer. “Tell me,” he mumbled. “Tell me again. What sort of god are you?”
“I -” said the god, and reached out, cradling Arepo’s head, and closed its eyes and spoke.
“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said, and conjured up the image of them. “The worms that churn beneath the
earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost
before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath
your teeth.” Arepo’s lips parted in a smile.
“I am the god of a dozen different nothings,” it said. “The petals in bloom that lead to
rot, the momentary glimpses. A change in the air -” Its voice broke, and it wept. “Before it’s gone.”
“Beautiful,” Arepo said, his blood staining the stones, seeping into the earth. “All of them. They were all so beautiful.”
And as the fields burned and the smoke blotted out the sun, as men were trodden in the press and bloody War raged on, as the heavens let loose their wrath upon the earth, Arepo the sower lay down in his humble temple, his head sheltered by the stones, and returned home to his god.
Sora found the temple with the bones within it, the roof falling in upon them.
“Oh, poor god,” she said, “With no-one to bury your last priest.” Then she paused, because she was from far away. “Or is this how the dead are honored here?” The god roused from its contemplation.
“His name was Arepo,” it said, “He was a sower.”
Sora startled, a little, because she had never before heard the voice of a god. “How can I honor him?” She asked.
“Bury him,” the god said, “Beneath my altar.”
“All right,” Sora said, and went to fetch her shovel.
“Wait,” the god said when she got back and began collecting the bones from among the broken twigs and fallen leaves. She laid them out on a roll of undyed wool, the only cloth she had. “Wait,” the god said, “I cannot do anything for you. I am not a god of anything useful.”
Sora sat back on her heels and looked at the altar to listen to the god.
“When the Storm came and destroyed his wheat, I could not save it,” the god said, “When the Harvest failed and he was hungry, I could not feed him. When War came,” the god’s voice faltered. “When War came, I could not protect him. He came bleeding from the battle to die in my arms.” Sora looked down again at the bones.
“I think you are the god of something very useful,” she said.
“What?” the god asked.
Sora carefully lifted the skull onto the cloth. “You are the god of Arepo.”
Speak with Tenderness 