A Brief History of Flowers
By Cassia Bobby
Translated by Yang Chunli
Bay page | Published by Wenhui Publishing House
From the meaning of carnations in Sex and the City to the use of sunflowers in the Chernobyl cleanup, from Henry VIII's ban on saffron dyes in Ireland to the modernist reinvention of the rose, it is an artistic feast on flowers that brings together myths, religions, literature, history, natural history, and paintings, exploring the centuries of 16 flowers in the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter: flowers, flowers, and flower history. With a long "flower stem" like a thinking tentacle, the author travels through ancient Greek mythology, Victorian horticultural era, medieval and Renaissance flower art to modern garden paths, exploring the rise and decline of 16 kinds of flowers in the four seasons in human civilization, conveying affection and expression, interpretation and change.
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If the jewel in the lotus directly evokes fertility and gives birth to the gods, it also symbolizes the consummation of spiritual awakening in a figurative sense. This theme is particularly important in Buddhism. Buddhism originated in eastern India in the 6th century BC and has since spread to China, Japan, and other countries in Southeast Asia where lotus flowers are everywhere. The lotus flower also has two universally recognized qualities: First, the thorny stem protrudes more than a meter above the surface of the water, which is believed to symbolize the spiritual sublimation of man and can go far beyond earthly origin. Of course, all plants, rooted in the soil and then growing into the air, represent this theme. The lotus flower has its own extraordinary features, it is "cleansed" out of the mud but is silted. This idea first appeared in the Bhagavad Gita to express the philosophical idea of "nonattachment." Buddha Siddhartha Gautama explained to his disciples this way:
A lotus flower, whether blue, red or white, is born in water, and when it comes out, the water has cleansed it; Similarly...... An enlightened person (Tathāgata), though born in the world, has overcome the world and has been cleansed by the world.
The idea that "the lotus flower comes out of the mud and is not stained" spread to distant countries in the passage of time. In Concord, Massachusetts, in 1854, Henry David Thoreau, a well-read reader of Hinduism and Buddhism, used this idea to describe the Nymphaea odorata he found in a shallow pond near Walden Lake. He loved this plant so much that every year he saw the "Queen of the Waters" and "Our Lotus" for the first time, and he gleefully recorded it in his diary. On July 4, 1854, he took to the podium and addressed the members of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, clearly expressing the virtues of the white-flowered water lily.
It was a day of anger and despair. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison burned a document bearing the Constitution of the United States on the spot; Another abolitionist, Sorgenna Truss, reminded the crowd: "White people who brutally oppress blacks will eventually be judged by God." Thoreau made it clear that his mind "involuntarily wants to fight against the state and is therefore not welcomed by the state." Instead of pointing to the cruelty of slavery, their rhetoric slammed how the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 brought these cruelties back to Massachusetts. The bill allowed slave owners to arrest suspicious fugitives without a warrant, and fugitive slaves had no right to apply for jury trial or even to present evidence on their own behalf. Anyone who helped slaves escape (as Thoreau did) would also face severe punishment. In June 1854, fugitive slave Anthony Burns was taken back to Virginia from a Boston courthouse in shackles and resealed as a slave. This has had an irreparable impact.
Thoreau was filled with indignation and anguish: "I can't convince myself that I'm not living in hell. Toward the end of his speech, he described that he had smelled the aroma of a white water lily while walking by a local lake. The water lily of the United States, like the lotus of India, gives hope to people, "pure and sweet in the sludge of the earth, but also out of the sludge without staining." Thoreau insisted that every individual, if he had "known the laws higher than the Constitution," might have risen from the "stinking dung" of slavery and politics.
50 years later, the novelist Joseph Conrad used this imagery to expose the filthy nature of European colonialism in Africa. Heart of Darkness is Conrad's 1899 novel in which Marlowe experiences the worst "sludge" of human nature. Marlowe's story begins on a sailing ship moored at the mouth of the Thames. Marlowe "has a yellow face" and "looks like an ascetic". When he slightly raises his hands and palms are turned outward, he is like "a Buddha in a suit preaching, but he lacks a lotus platform." In many ways, the image is mysterious, but what is even more fascinating is Conrad's insistence on the lotus flower's absence. Marlowe may be reminiscent of Padmapani, a bodhisattva of compassion who holds a lotus flower in his hand and pursues wisdom and purifies all beings. However, Marlowe was one step behind on the road to Nirvana. Although his posture (the lotus posture) resembles that of a meditative Buddha, his voyage from congo to the River Thames is a journey from "a place of extreme darkness in the world to another." Marlowe's earthly experiences did not "cleanse" him.
Early 20th century Tiffany Studio (New York) designed and made "water lily table lamp" made of leaded glass and copper
The mystery of how the lotus flower cleanses itself has lasted for thousands of years. In the 1970s, the German scientist Wilhelm Batlot made the "lotus effect" come to light. Bartlott compared how the leaves of 340 different plants were hydrophobic and resistant to dust particles and pathogens such as fungal spores. In many cases, dust from the leaves still adheres to the leaves after being washed away by water, but in some cases, water can take away dust particles from the surface of the leaves. Soft-haired kale, golden lotus and fairy fruit perform well in this regard, but the best self-cleansers are the lotus leaves. Bartlot believes that this is because the surface of the lotus leaf is covered with miniature papillae, and there are many waxy protrusions on the mastoids, which make the surface of the lotus leaf repulsive. In 1998, he patented the term "lotus effect" and began working with manufacturers to develop paints, fibers and glass with lotus leaf properties.
Author: Cassia Bobby
Edit: Jin Jiuchao