Flower Power - Never Underestimate the Power of Beauty! Vol.

Preface / Introduction
Flower Power - Never Underestimate the Power of Beauty or the power of these prose to delight and ad some pleasure to your day! Three articles included: On dandelions. Their splendor in the grass. Where the Iris grows That is where I want to be. The flower at the end of the rainbow. Green grow the lilacs, all sparkling with dew. Haunting, evocative, elegiac, the lilacs return to Brattle St.., Cambridge, May 7, 2011. Enjoy!

Flower Power - Never Underestimate the Power of Beauty! Vol.2

Flower Power - Never Underestimate the Power of Beauty! Vol.2

On dandelions. Their splendor in the grass. Authors program note. I had been up all night working on an article on global warming. The subject, serious, is draining, demanding, necessarily thought provoking, disturbing. As the sun began to rise, showing its intentions by the first light of a brandnew day, I wrote the last word and went immediately into the Cambridge Common for air, for light, to be freed from the sobering realities of my midnight researches. At this early hour, where the vestiges of night still prevailed, as if unwilling to leave, there was no one present and this distressed me, for I was in need of a smile, a word or two of greeting, and (were I fortunate) a friend. For my nights work had been long and distressful, spent considering the vulnerabilities of Earth and the growing likelihood that our species, having had our way with this planet, was unwilling, perhaps unable, to do what is necessary to save our only, our collective home. Yes, I needed a friend and solace. Then there it was a sight I had seen for every one of my 65 years and which was there for me now in the full vibrancy of its joyous yellow. The dandelion. And as if it knew my need, it took me back at once to the springtime of my life when my thoughts were not cosmic or burdensome but soaring, unfettered, generous, happy. All this one single dandelion, radiant in the mud, delivered to me, glad to be of service. And I smiled, gloom lightened by the dandelions undoubted splendor in the grass, gracious gift to me so many times before; gracious gift to me again now bidding me face the world and its daunting troubles with more cheer and even hope Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, more sensitive than they might like to show, knew the friendship and power of the dandelion. In 1967 their Rolling Stones sang this: Dandelion dont tell no lies Dandelion will make you wise Tell me if she laughs or cries Blow away dandelion. Youll find this song in any search engine. Go now and listen carefully, to both the version by the Rolling Stones and the unexpected beauty of the one played by the London Symphony Orchestra. And understand this: a plant that can inspire such sentiments can surely be no weed but must be instead a thing of joy and beneficence. Facts about the dandelion. Taraxacum is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. They are native to Eurasia and North Africa, and two species, T. officinale and T. erythrospermum are found as weeds worldwide. The common name dandelion comes from the French, dent-de-lion, meaning lions tooth. Like other members of the Asteraceae family, they have very small flowers collected together into a composite flower head. Each single flower is called a floret. Many Taraxacum species produce seeds asexually by apomixis, where the seeds are produced without pollination, resulting in offspring that are genetically identical to the parent plant. These are the facts and as such are important but no where near as important as what follows, for the dandelion, remembering me from a lifetime of visits with its ancestors, was candid about its situation and how little the people passing by know of it and its myriad services to our kind. I listened in the pristine dawn to what he told me for he needed to tell and I needed to hear Poets and dandelions. Most of the many poets who have written about dandelions are women. and whilst they undoubtedly mean well they have grossly misunderstand the dandelion. And here he offered one cogent example after another, starting with these words from Helen Barron Bostwicks no doubt unintentionally condescending poem Little dandelion, irritating the dandelion right from its title and irritating it throughout with its ill-considered aggravating descriptions: Bright little Dandelion Wise little Dandelion True little dandelion and many similar misunderstandings and provocations. Dandelions, he told me, are resolute, bold, tenacious, determined pathfinders. How else had they covered the known world in an imperium greater than all the captains general of

human history combined? But there was more, much more to come as the eloquent dandelion warmed to his subject In her poem To a Dandelion Helen Gray Cone wrote of the Humble Dandelion while an equally uncomprehending Hilda Conkling said Little soldier with the golden helmet. As he rattled off the evidence so long accumulated and http://www.20WaystoProfit.com Copyright Patrice Porter - 2014 3 of 9 earnestly considered, his dew touched leaves quivered, for this dandelion spoke for all his aggrieved species.

Flower Power - Never Underestimate the Power of Beauty! Vol.2 But here I, who had needed comfort just a moment ago, was able to give it, the truest measure of empathy and satisfaction. I did not merely regard but fully perceived this agitated friend. So I whispered these words, to be carried and delivered by the lightest of breezes There is more knowledge of you than you may know, more reasons to be of the good cheer you have shared with me than you may have ever known or considered. And here I recited the always insightful and soothing words of a man who had, like me, truly perceived more in the dandelion than their littleness This man was the Great Republics great poet Walt Whitman. These were his simple, evocative words from his masterpiece Leaves of Grass (1855): Simple and fresh and fair from winters close emerging/ As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been/ Forth from its sunny nook of shelterd grass innocent, golden, calm as the dawn/ the springs first dandelion shows its trustful face. I remember yes, I remember. And tears of remembrance mixed with the dew.. for these generous sentiments, celestial, obliterated an ocean of misstatements and misunderstandings, a single word of generosity and genius providing an infinity of bliss. And so we understood each other, this bright yellow dandelion accoutered in radiance and I. We had both found a friend and been refreshed, each giving the other what he most needed then, all that was necessary to trek our laborious path. Thus we parted, happy with our chance encounter, our lives enhanced, our burden bearable again: Little girls and boys come out to play/ Bring your dandelions to blow away/ Dandelion dont tell no lies/ Dandelion will make you wise. And no one knows it better than I By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Where the Iris grows That is where I want to be. The flower at the end of the rainbow. Authors program note. To put yourself in the right mood for this article, go to any search engine and find one of Tennessees four Official State Songs, When Its Iris Time In Tennessee, words and music by Willa Mae Waid. Its a lovely, lilting tune, wistful as all songs are which are sung by those far away from home remembering. It is early June, and the irises are now to be found in profusion around the City of Cambridge in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I saw the first one the other day in front of my favorite Chinese restaurant Chang Sho. And though I was busy with one of the necessary errands which constitute too great a part of human life I stopped. The beauty of this ecstasy in the mud insisted. There before me was a dazzling thing dressed in cloth of gold, the exact shade of the cream soda I drank too often as a boy fifty summers ago on the humid prairies of Illinois; the cream soda you craved, you gulped, which gave you sticky fingers, but never quenched your thirst; (so clever were its makers). In an instant omnipotent memory was present, the way unstoppable memory will do. This time it reminded me of something I had read in the memoirs of Sir Henry Channon, the man who had deserted his Chicago roots to find his proper perch in life in London as a Member of Parliament and collector of royalties. He was a boulevardier, a word for which we have no good English equivalent a thing which tells us much about the French who do. and the English. who dont. Sir Henry, universally known as Chips, was a boulevardier, man about town, about London town. As such he attended the first Garden Party at Buckingham Palace after World War II. He happened to be gossiping with one of Queen Marys relations when this very symbol of Theyll always be an England arrived, blinding in cloth of gold. Cousin May, he said, is rather overdressed, to Chips scandalized amusement. And so was the golden iris in front of me, as if some careless maharajah, rushing, had dropped this most expensive of materials in the mud, later to fulminate against the loss, blaming his chauffeur. But just as Queen Mary had calculated her breathtaking appearance to touch drab lives with grandeur so did the flower in front of me, largesse for a drab world, overburdened, as I was myself, with the littlest and most nagging things. The flowers unexpected appearance was lavish, excessive, a sharp pronunciamento, Good people, it boldly proclaimed. I have come amongst you to cheer you, to uplift your spirits, to give you the gift of exuberance and excess of profusion and prodigality. Seize them now for they are yours for just a moment. Here was the true work of the iris, the flower that takes its name from the Greek word for a rainbow and not just any rainbow either but the rainbow which at its end http://www.20WaystoProfit.com Copyright Patrice Porter - 2014 6 of 10

Flower Power - Never Underestimate the Power of Beauty! Vol.2 delivers the treasure you seek at such a place a treasure of unceasing magnificence without end. At rainbows end, you find irises of every color a gift of superabundance, without limits, where too rainbows end, you find irises of every color a gift of superabundance, without limits, where too much and even more is your birth right. This is the place you have sought your entire life and which the open sesame of the iris delivers with only one command, Find bliss here. Facts about iris. Iris is a genus of 260 species of flowering plants with showy flowers. As well as being the scientific name, iris is also very widely used as a common name for all Iris species. The genus is widely distributed throughout the north temperate zone. Their habitats are considerably varied, ranging from cold and montane regions to the grassy slopes, meadowlands and riverbanks of Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa, Asia and across North America. Irises are perennial herbs, growing from creeping rhizomes, or, in drier climates, from bulbs (bulbous irises). They have long, erect flowering stems, which may be simple or branched, solid or hollow, and flattened or have a circular cross-section. The rhizomatous species usually have 3-10 basal, sword-shaped leaves growing in dense clumps. The bulbous species have cylindrical, basal leaves. Iris is for show. Other flowering plants have many uses culinary, medical, as balms, salves, to clear the mind and the heart. Not the iris. Iris is designed for show not merely to brighten space but to change the entire orientation of a place, from mundane to brilliant. This is no trivial thing when you think of the unending multitudes striving to find both meaning and escape from their burdensome, colorless lives. For these people, and they are everywhere on earth, the iris is a plant of resolute optimism. Where there is a single iris, there is hope. And where any iris has once lived there hope lingers, insistent that things can be better, beauty can be achieved and circumstances entirely altered for the better, one militant iris flower at a time. The revolutionary iris shouts, Beauty here, beauty now, beauty forever! It is insistent that you, if you but take the time to stop and perceive, shall derive full measure of this beauty, for a life without such beauty is no life at all. Poets and iris All poets have not understood the imperial function of the iris, with its life-changing mission but poet Chris Lane does. In his poem Purple Irises with hues of gold and fragility, he writes Oh, this beauty with for my eyes to see I cannot keep them for only me with friends true I shall share and next year bring to them the joy I find in a purple world with hues of gold and fragile love. Lane knows that the iris turns him and every one perceiving it into a devoted zealot, one who must proselytize with so much beauty, earnest in spreading its unbounded joy to friends and total strangers, too. Iris has a mission and when it seizes your attention, you will have that mission, too. The role of the adamant iris is clear: it beautifies now and finds dedicated adherents to beautify later. Iris exist in a realm of beauty, beauty today, more beauty tomorrow, cycle after cycle of beauty for all who see it, the task to enlighten those who suffer because they have not. As such the iris reject literary renderings which turn them from their great mission into mere flowers. They reject Georgia Gudykunst who writes May your blooms be floriferous and in good form. They reject Edith Buckner Edwards Iris, most beautiful flower, Symbol of life, love and light. They reject the celebrated D.H. Lawrence, in his poem Scent of Irises. A faint, sickening scent of irises Persists all morning. These poems do not have and therefore cannot convey and assist the unending work of iris and its significance for improving the lot of people worldwide and enriching their lives. This needs constancy, consistently and profound belief. And it requires the unceasing ability to touch wounded lives and make them bold advocates of universal beauty. There is a hint of this in Willa Mae Waids heartfelt song When Its Iris Time in Tennessee. For she senses the deep power of iris its ability to revive us and uplift our spirits. This is the magic of iris. and it was all present, every bit of it, in the iris dressed in cloth of gold which had my full attention just the other day as it kept steady watch for people like me who required its succor and were the better for it. By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Green grow the lilacs, all sparkling with dew. Haunting, evocative, elegiac, the lilacs return to Brattle St.., Cambridge, May 7, 2011. I was out early today. Even before dawns first light, I was up and about and soon on my mission to find the first bunches of lilac, and drink in their http://www.20WaystoProfit.com Copyright Patrice Porter - 2014 7 of 10

Flower Power - Never Underestimate the Power of Beauty! Vol.2 unmistakable scent with the pristine dew. What passersby (not too numerous so early) must have thought to see the flowers held against my face, though gently so as not to crush them, I cannot say. I did not care. The lilacs that I love to excess have returned to Cambridge and with them every memory of this most evocative of flowers and their flagrant, haunting fragrance. Beloved of Russian memory of this most evocative of flowers and their flagrant, haunting fragrance. Beloved of Russian empresses One day the great Empress Catherine of all the Russias (1762-1796) went walking in her garden of Tsarskoe Selo and found a branch of lilacs, so perfect she was sure it would be picked to amplify the bouquet of some lovelorn lad to his much desired lady so she stationed a soldier next to this lovely branch. In 1917, a soldier was still stationed where the plant no longer flowered or even existed. But then Tsar Nicholas II wasnt surprised for his wife Alexandra, called Sunny, loved lilacs to distraction, too and created a room in the most palatial of palaces where everything was in a shade of lilac. It became, in due course, the most famous room of the empire My grandmother Victoria had this same tendresse for her much loved and coddled lilacs. She craved their scent and their colors, too, in every shade of purple heliotrope, mauve, violet, lavender, puce, and all the other variations. Even my grandmothers perfume, Muguet de Bois by Coty (launched 1941) featured lilac and lily-of-the valley. Proust-like, that scent brings her back as does my mothers Chanel. Lilac is like that. It will not be denied and can never be resisted. And now the lilacs are in rampant bloom along Tory Row on Brattle Street, breathtaking, sensual, glorious. The Loyalists would have remembered them for all the rest of their long lives; the merest hint of their scent would trigger the painful memories that come with unending exile. A few facts about lilacs. You may be surprised to learn (I was) that syringa (lilac) is a genus of about 20 to 25 species of flowering woody plants in the olive family (Oleaceae) native to woodland and scrub from southeastern Europe to eastern Asia. They are deciduous shrubs or small trees, ranging in size from 2 to 10 meters (6 feet 7 inches to 32 feet 10 inches) tall, with stems up to 20 to 30 centimeters (7.9 to 12 inches) in diameter. The leaves are opposite (occasionally in whorls of three) in arrangement, and their shape is simple and heart-shaped. The flowers are produced in spring and are bisexual, with fertile stamens and stigma in each flower. The usual flower color is a shade of purple (generally a light purple or lilac), but white, pale yellow and pink, even a dark burgundy color are known. Flowering varies between mid spring to early summer, depending on the species. The fruit is a dry, brown capsule, splitting in two at maturity to release the two winged seeds that have within them everything that produces the lustrous magnanimity of the lilac and commands your eye and reverence. The poets irresistible attraction to and understanding of lilacs. Poets, including many notable poets, saw lilacs and wished, in words, to produce the lyric quality of their scent. The scent, the unforgettable scent, swept them away. It was exuberant, excessive, a warning to the dangers of immersion in a thing so powerful, so rich, so cloying; a thing that draws you away from the little duties and miseries of life and whispers of pleasures you want beyond reason. Too much of this unalloyed richness gives way to madness and exultation. Amy Lowell (1874-1925) knew the potency of lilacs. She wrote Your great puffs of flowers Are everywhere in this my New England Lilacs in dooryards Holding quiet conversations with an early moon; Lilacs watching a deserted house Settling sideways into the grass of an old road; Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom. And then. You are everywhere. You were everywhere. Lilacs know their power and seduce you with it, every wind wafting the scent into your brain and memory. They offer you the same terms that a beautiful woman offers the man distracted by her none at all, just surrender. Lilacs are the sorceress of blooms, enchanting, elusive, sharing their magic for an instant leaving you longing for what you fear you will never have again. The flower of elegy, mourning, decay, death. Lilacs are the flower of remembrance. After the fall of Tsar Nicholas II and the entire structure of tsardom, the ex-emperor and his wife Alexandra found themselves prisoners of the new regime, forbidden even to walk in the magnificent park at Tsarskoe Selo. Alexandra looked out upon an ocean of lilac, once hers, now as distant as the moon. Her haunted look, beyond mere dismay, touched the heart of a simple soldier. He gave her a sprig. His officer saw this as http://www.20WaystoProfit.com Copyright Patrice Porter - 2014 8 of 10

Flower Power - Never Underestimate the Power of Beauty! Vol.2 fraternizing with the enemy and had him shot. Amy Lowell, too, saw lilac as an accoutrement of death. The dead fed you Amid the slant stones of graveyards. Pale ghosts who planted you Came in the nighttime and let their thin hair blow through your clustered stems. Walt Whitman (18191892) also knew the immemorial association between lilacs and death, and he gave us the simple words that bespoke the greatest tragedy: When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomd, And the great star early droopd in the western sky in the night, I mournd, and yet shall mourn with everreturning spring. He picked a sprig of lilac and thought of the passing into eternity of Abraham Lincoln, Night and day journeys a coffin. It is unbearably painful for him, only the simple words and the lilac with its promise to return giving solace, for that is within the power of the lilac, too, which Whitman knew and relied on: Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes, With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, For you and the coffins all of you O death. But this cannot be the last word on lilacs, not this. Think instead of Lynn Riggs 1931 play Green Grow the Lilacs, the basis for the libretto of Rodgers and Hammersteins Oklahoma, a musical about real people and their real concerns. They brought lilac seeds with them to beautiful their often difficult lives because they couldnt bear the thought of life without its beauty, comfort and serenity. And I cannot either. By Dr. Jeffrey Lant About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Go to http://20waystoprofit.com/associates

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