View allAll Photos Tagged MISTLETOE
Oops, sorry i called this a scarlet honey-eater. It was in the same tree as the scarlet & to be honest I haven't seen one of these beauties before and just presumed it was maybe the female scarlet honey eater. .....Thanks for the correction :-)
Copyright © 2012 by Ian J MacDonald. Permission required for any use. All rights reserved
Mistletoe.
It's history is as confusing and contradictory as human relationships. The more I think about it the more I believe it is perhaps a very fitting symbol of human relationships and customs.
It is an ancient plant that grew before tall trees evolved. When trees evolved to be tall mistletoe stayed small but evolved to grow up on the limbs of the trees. Small rootlets steal water and some nutrients from the host tree, but rarely kill it. Mistle thrushes and other birds are fond of mistletoe's berries. The alluring berries have sticky innards. When birds eat the berries they stick to their beaks and the birds wipe them off their beaks, spreading them to new areas and new trees starting new mistletoe plants. The plant also depends on the birds to eat the berries, fly away and excrete them onto other trees.
Mistletoe was apparently highly coveted by ancient pagan societies. The exact reasons why ancient societies valued mistletoe is lost to history. Our knowledge of their uses of mistletoe comes from a few ancient (but not pagan) writers, best guesses and attempts to reconstruct societies that left little written word, just statues appearing to wear crowns of mistletoe leaves, and carved imagery that resembles mistletoe. Perhaps mistletoe was venerated because it remained green through winter? Perhaps it appeared to have healing or hallucinogenic properties? Maybe it was prized because, like its relative sandalwood, it was burned as incense? Others have suggested that its berries represented fertility or masculinity because the white sticky juice resembles semen, when deposited on a tree by a bird grew a mistletoe?
The only written information we have comes from a few Roman writers who wrote broad ethnographies of the Celts. A famous passage by Pliny describes white-robed Celtic druids shimmying up oak trees to harvest the mistletoe with a golden sickle. This information may have been quite old. It was certainly shared by many different writers and certainly there was some distortions in the retellings. It may have been that these customs were as relevant to 1st century AD Celts as medieval Christianity is to Christians today. There are probably kernels of truth in the observations, and in the end these are some of the only descriptions that have come down to us.
Mistletoe's association with kissing might have been a Scandanavian custom, possibly retained by the relatively late pagan societies such as the Vikings. The writer Washing Irving described it as a Scandanavian custom that that came to America via the Dutch, whereby a young man could kiss a girl under a mistletoe sprig BUT had to pick a berry each time they smooched. When the berries were gone, the kissing was DONE! The kissing and Christmas associations can be found as far back as the 1500s. The ancient Celtic and other iron age pagan religions were mostly long-extinct, replaced by Christianity, or more aptly, Christianized - keeping many old customs but couched in Christian theology rather than paganism. The circle on a Celtic cross is a good example as the circle, as a wheel, was a very common motif in ancient Celtic imagery. It found its way into Christianity without much thought of the contradictory nature of the religions, nor concern that it was a pagan symbol, and I tend to think mistletoe also was subsumed in the same manner.
The Victorians seemed to almost fetishize old customs and traditions. It is not unexpected that druidistic societies formed during this era as people tried to reconnect with their Celtic roots. Perhaps the soullessness of the industrial age made them long for the "good" old days when druids wandered Europe in white robes gathering mistletoe at the solstices. It was all nonsense and historically inaccurate, and the good old days of the iron age where hardly as good as they were imagined - but all societies do it, even us. The Victorians were also highly ritualized and prudish and games that allowed sexual exploration without seeming to break the social rules were common. We can laugh but think of the 1950s America where a virtuous outward appearance was everything and wild swinging, drinking, and carousing went on behind the scenes. Kissing under the mistletoe would have been one of those outlets where taboos like physical affection could be acted out; "well you can't not kiss if there is a mistletoe hanging there! It's against the rules" Perhaps all that singing about mistletoe in 1950s Christmas music is just the 1850s reenacted - with a martini.
Finally mistletoe is actually a pretty ugly plant. It's a parasite and It is poisonous. It's name is thought to mean "dung stick" from ancient German (mist: dung , Tan: stick) because it appears to grow from bird droppings left on trees. Imagine if we kissed under the dungstick!? Maybe it is fitting - it's biology is pretty well understood down to the molecular level, but its origins as a fetish object in customs and religion are shrouded in mystery and confusion, spread, perhaps inaccurately by writers with selfish motives. It's deeply embedded in Christianity but probably only because it was so integral to pagan religions - but that was so long ago nobody remembers the real purpose. Maybe it was only used at good times and nobody could bear to give it up? It is a symbol of love and affection, possibly of sex and fertility too, but is deadly toxic if ingested. Sounds an awful lot like human relations. Happy holidays.
We decorated the lamps in the kitchen with holly and mistletoe from our garden. Taken from underneath looking up to the ceiling.
Box Mistletoe
(Amyema miquelii)
Aldinga Conservation Park, Aldinga Beach, South Australia
'Tainmunta' - Kaurna language for mistletoe
Ein Spaßvogel (oder Aktionskünstler) hat an verschiedenen U-Bahnhöfen Mistelzweige über die Rolltreppen gehängt - hier am U-Bahnhof Schönleinstraße
Update (13.1.2011): Der Initiator dieser Aktion ist Bruno Pilz. Das Video dazu auf YouTube: Mission Mistletoe
Daily December - 24 Days to Christmas 2010 Day Eighteen
Mistletoe
A sign of love, even in unusual places, that is the spirit of christmas.
The trees are bare, but the mistletoe is growing well. This patch of trees runs down the side of Malvern Link Common and was picked out nicely in the sun.
Christmas Mistletoe Banner graphic available for download at http://dryicons.com/free-graphics/preview/christmas-mistletoe-banner/ in EPS (vector) format.
View similar vector graphics at DryIcons Graphics.
A very Merry Christmas to all!
To see more of my Holiday drawings go here:
www.flickr.com/photos/jacquedavis/3086083300/in/set-72157...
www.flickr.com/photos/jacquedavis/3086083300/in/set-72157...
Mistletoe banner graphic available for download at http://dryicons.com/free-graphics/preview/mistletoe-banner/ in EPS (vector) format.
View similar vector graphics at DryIcons Graphics.
Mistletoe plants growing in their host tree inside the churchyard at All Saints Church (or Church of All Saints) which is located within the confines of the private Braxted Park Estate and its very long perimeter wall near the villages of Great and Little Braxted in the County of Essex (UK).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistletoe
Photograph taken by and copyright of my regular photostream contributor David and is posted here with very kind permission
Limited edition letterpress gift tags to make your holidays and packages merry and bright. Tie'em to your mistletoe, tie'em to your toes!
All items and content
©2012 KisforCalligraphy
Mistletoe, the Christmas cat, was a gift to me from one of my very good online friends a few years back... We participated in a group Secret Santa, and Mistletoe was one of the things my Secret Santa gave me! I love her and use her as decor every year.
Loranthaceae (mistletoe family) » Dendrophthoe falcata
den-droff-THOH-ee -- from the Greek dendron (tree) and phthoe (to waste away)
fal-KAY-tuh -- sickle-shaped
commonly known as: curved mistletoe, honey suckle mistletoe • Bengali: baramanda, পরগাছা paragaacha • Garo: tuthekmi • Gujarati: વંદો vando • Hindi: बंदा banda, बंदा पाठा banda patha, बन्दाल bandal • Kannada: ಬಮ್ದಣಿಕೆ bamdanike, ಮದುಕ maduk • Konkani: bemdram • Malayalam: ഇത്തിള് iththil, ഇത്തിക്കണ്ണി ittikkanni • Marathi: बांडगुळ bandgul, बाशिंगी bashingi • Oriya: ବନ୍ଦା banda • Punjabi: amut • Sanskrit: वंदा vanda, वृक्षादनी vrksadani, वृक्षरुहा vrksaruha • Tamil: புல்லுரீ pulluri, புல்லுருவி pulluruvi, உசீ uchi • Telugu: జిద్దూ jiddu, యెలింగా yelinga
Native to: Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka
References: Flowers of India • ENVIS - FRLHT