Pink Saturday - Anemones, rebirth and spring

Pink Saturday - Beverly at the blog "How Sweet the Sound" hosts Pink Saturday. Let the color pink inspire you! This Saturday, we celebrate Spring and Easter.

One of my favorite flowers of spring is the Anemone coronaria, or the poppy windflower. I first learned of these pretty flowers living in Manhattan, where they appeared in spring as cut flowers, displayed in sidewalk stalls at small stores and markets in Greenwich Village. They were simple - a flower like a child would draw - brightly colored, and best of all for me they were cheap enough to buy a dozen for a few dollars.

The common name refers to its close resemblance to the poppy, but its botanical name means "crown anemone."

The anemone is native to the Eastern Mediterranean, and there it is associated with Adonis in Greek mythology. The beautiful youth Adonis was beloved of Aphrodite, goddess of love, who competed with Persephone - the goddess of the underworld - for his attentions. One day while hunting in the woods, Adonis was attacked and gored by a wild boar. As the beautiful youth died, drops of his blood fell to the ground.

"The Awakening of Adonis" - John William Waterhouse, 1900. Click to "embiggen"

As Ovid told it, Aphrodite, grieving for her mortally wounded love:

Then on the blood sweet nectar she bestows,
The scented blood in little bubbles rose:
Little as rainy drops, which flutt'ring fly,
Born by the winds, along a low'ring sky.
Short time ensu'd, 'till where the blood was shed,
A flow'r began to rear its purple head...
Still here the Fate of lovely forms we see,
So sudden fades the sweet Anemonie.
The feeble stems, to stormy blasts a prey,
Their sickly beauties droop, and pine away.
The winds forbid the flow'rs to flourish long,
Which owe to winds their names in Grecian song.

- Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book X

The Adonis myth is a complicated one, gathering threads and bits and pieces from Greek, Roman, Semite and Babylonian lore, and even evokes the theme of resurrection from death that Christians celebrate at Easter. The name of Adonis comes from the Semitic word "Adonai" meaning "Lord."In Christian symbolism, the anemone of Adonis is associated with the Crucifixion. In folklore, the anemone grows at the foot of the cross, and its blossoms are stained with the blood of Christ.

To settle the argument between Aphrodite and Persephone, Zeus decreed that Adonis would spend one third of the year with each lady, and choose with whom he'd spend the remaining third. So Adonis spends two-thirds of the year with the goddess of love, dies and spends his time in the Underworld, then arises in spring and rejoins Aphrodite.

In spring, the women of Ancient Greece mourned the death of Adonis and celebrated his resurrection by sowing the seeds of quick-growing grasses, wheat, fennel or lettuce in pots or baskets of earth they carried to the rooftops - the place where this women-only ritual took place.

Up on the rooftops, women would weep and beat their breasts and rend their garments, but as the shoots of green sprouted from the pots of soil, they rejoiced at his rebirth.

The Adonis myth is mirrored in the Semitic myth of Tammuz, the vegetation god, who sprouts in spring and dies in the drought of summer, only to rise again after the winter rains.

For the women of Ancient Greece, the shallow roots of their "Adonis gardens" and the heat of the spring sun on the rooftops cause the fragile plants to wither and die - making this fertility ritual a peculiar one, very different from other, more optimistic celebrations of harvest and abundance.

It celebrates life as vivid yet fleeting, that all too quickly succcumbs to harsh death.


Just as the fragile petals of the anemone are soon torn away by the wind - "Windflower" being another common name of the anemone.

We await its return.