mambo
(Congo)
Today is Water Lily Day!
No, not official....but everything else seems to have a holiday....
so why not have Water Lily Day today?
There are two flowers for the month of July.
The first is delphinium, or larkspur.
Check my older blogs in July for that feature.
The second flower is the water lily.
The water lily's 'discovery' by a white man
in the lagoons of South American jungles
made this beautiful flower known to the European world.
a pink water lily
Remains of tropical water lilies have been found in
European pre-Ice Age (according to Darwin fans) stratas.
Just a side note here:
Did you know that all the carbon testing, dating of ancient bones and objects, etc. is all based on Darwin's theories?
Very little of it can be proven as fact.
Mainstream scientists have started with a presumption,
and then made the data fit.
As anyone who has taken basic science classes,
we know that true scientific research starts
with no pre-conceived idea of an outcome.
A scientist needs to be non-biased to achieve true results.
oops.
That's not what happened with all this 'dating' of our history.
I LOVE God's sense of humor.
How He must chuckle when He reveals an archeologist's site,
and there is proof that Darwin got it all wrong!!
We can be so silly.
And so stubborn.
The South American natives had many names for this
water lily.
One of them is "Yrupe", which literally means
water platter.
A giant water lily, victorian amazonica, at Kew.
When the bushmen collected and opened the fruit of the water lily, it broke open with a cluster of hard, shiny seeds,
and a soft mealy flesh surrounding them within.
They called the seeds (which are considered a great delicacy)
water corn, or water maize.
a blue water lily
In the language of flowers,
Water Lily
means Eloquence
and
Purity of heart.
c.1902
Other plants in the Water Lily Family
Nymphaeaceae
(and no, don't ask be how to pronounce it!)
include Buttercups and Magnolias
and the Lotus Blossom.
"What loved little islands,
twice seen in their lakes,
Can the wild water-lily restore."
- Thomas Campbell
"When you have only two pennies left in the world,
Buy a loaf of bread with one,
and a lily with the other."
- Chinese proverb
painting by a Chinese artist
Water lily flowers can be up to 15 inches wide,
opened at dusk,remain open all the night
and close after sunrise.
Grumpy: "A fine bunch of water lilies you turned out to be.
I'd like to see anybody make me wash,
if I didn't wanna."
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, c.1937
"The slender water-lily
Peeps dreamingly out of the lake;
The moon, oppress'd with love's sorrow,
Looks tenderly down for her sake."
by Heinrich Heine, Book of Songs-New Spring
The fragrance of a water lily
is somewhat like that of crushed pineapple.
'waterlilies' by Claude Monet, 1916
I just can't have a blog about water lilies
without mentioning Monet's series of
water lily paintings.
There are many.
Claude Monet, 83 years old, after his cataract surgery
c.1918
As someone who has had cataracts myself,
I find this very interesting in viewing Monet's work.
It is noted that his eyesight had been deteriorating for a long time.
Yes, he was considered the Founder of Impressionist Painting.
Yet,
his paintings look very much
like what 'I saw' when my cataracts were so bad.
'water lilies' by Claude Monet, 1906
'Nympheas' by Claude Monet, c.1914 - 1917
Just having fun speculation- draw your own conclusions.
This is definitely NOT an art history class!!
purple water lilies
"Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake;
So fold thyself, my dearest thou, and slip
Into my bosom, and be lost in me."
Lord Alfred Tennyson, 'The Princess'
"The knowledge of the world
can only to be acquired
in the world,
and not in a closet."
- Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield
lived 1694 - 1773
I bet he hated his parents when he went to school,
and had to fill out all those papers with his name!
Well, I think that covers water lilies pretty well!
I hope you enjoyed this little piece from the complex picture of
The Language of Flowers,
and
Flowers of the Month.
flower mandala
water lilies
'The Water Lily Pond 4' by Claude Monet
inkspired
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