Loving Bee. Alexanders or Black Potherb or Black Loving, Smyrnium olusatrum, and a Bee, Stadsboerderij 'De Wiershoeck', Beijum, Groningen, The Netherlands
A pretty sight like this...
Horse Parsley or Black Potherb are rather 'common' names for the refined Latin Smyrnium olusatrum, more literally Black-seeding Myrrh. But Black Loving is closer to my inclination. The seedheads and their association here with Bee and thus Honey immediately brought to my mind the Old Testament book of the Canticles or the Song of Songs, especially chapter 5. In that dialogue between a Lover and her Beloved there are all manner of metaphors using Honey and Myrrh in their exclamations of Love and Desire for each other.
In Ancient and Medieval times, Black Loving was used as both a vegetable and a digestive medicine. To that end, too, it was long grown in monastic gardens. I suppose the denizens of those monasteries would have known the Song of Songs very well, for one of their founding fathers was, of course, Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153). St Bernard was a prolific commentator on that biblical book. Yes... they lived by metaphor... The 'practice' of that 5th chapter would seem to be a rather sticky affair, with possible loss of the soul as well.
Loving Bee. Alexanders or Black Potherb or Black Loving, Smyrnium olusatrum, and a Bee, Stadsboerderij 'De Wiershoeck', Beijum, Groningen, The Netherlands
A pretty sight like this...
Horse Parsley or Black Potherb are rather 'common' names for the refined Latin Smyrnium olusatrum, more literally Black-seeding Myrrh. But Black Loving is closer to my inclination. The seedheads and their association here with Bee and thus Honey immediately brought to my mind the Old Testament book of the Canticles or the Song of Songs, especially chapter 5. In that dialogue between a Lover and her Beloved there are all manner of metaphors using Honey and Myrrh in their exclamations of Love and Desire for each other.
In Ancient and Medieval times, Black Loving was used as both a vegetable and a digestive medicine. To that end, too, it was long grown in monastic gardens. I suppose the denizens of those monasteries would have known the Song of Songs very well, for one of their founding fathers was, of course, Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153). St Bernard was a prolific commentator on that biblical book. Yes... they lived by metaphor... The 'practice' of that 5th chapter would seem to be a rather sticky affair, with possible loss of the soul as well.