The Daffodil – a different look

Yes, I do take a few liberties here and there

with the ancient myths and legends.

I can only hope the flowers will forgive me!

This one pretty much speaks for herself.

DAFFODIL by Charles Coghlan

Our Skyline Ikebana teacher

She is so beautiful,

She is so poison

And we so love her.

She was born in ages long past under circumstances that can in no way, to say the least, be called happy.  Zeus was once again caught by Hera having an affair.  This time it was a human beauty whose name was Io.  The two of them would meet for their love trysts in cozy hidden nooks and crannies along the seashore.  Zeus, appearing at a favorite haunt on a lovely spring afternoon with a deep frown signaled to Io that all was not well with lover boy. “Look, honey, we have to break this thing off.  Some spy has told Hera about you and she is furious.  I must save you from her wrath and I have a plan for that.  See all these fine meadows along the shore? They will all belong to you to enjoy as I disguise you as a heifer to hide you from my wife.  Also, I will make these fields sprout pretty yellow flowers for you to gaze upon while longing for my caresses.”  “Hey, like you’ve got to be kidding, right?” Io asked him.  Zeus was not kidding and so it happened.  As you can see, her birth was not one you would call  joyous.  She was that “pretty yellow flower” given as a gift of distraction to a jilted lover by an unfaithful husband. 

Her life as a flower decorating those meadows overlooking the sea would have been fine except for one major hitch.  Those ground creatures, those little rodents with the nasty incisor teeth that loved to gnaw away as they greedily devoured her.  “Enough of this!” she screamed one morning and decided to inject herself with a deadly poison.  While remaining her beautiful self, the squirrels and their friends quickly learned to give that girl a wide birth.  And so there she dwelt on those plains in a state we may not refer to as exactly happy, but at least she felt safe.

And then after a while, a dramatic shift occurred in the fortunes of our heroine that would change the course of her life forever.  Her beauty was not at all lost on the troops of soldiers on their long marches over those barren plains that were her home.  Such a site was indeed easy on the eyes of those battle worn warriors.  Falling in love with her, they then gradually became aware of her dark side.  Ironically, it was that part that made them fall even deeper in love. She began traveling along with them in their knapsacks.  They had discovered that should one suffer a mortal wound, he would eat those little bulbs in his pack.  Her poison was also a strong narcotic.  In face of a death agony, she quickly took away the pain and gave him peaceful sleep. 

While this discovery abruptly changed her fortunes, it was Caesar’s armies that truly launched her career into overdrive.  With the Roman legions, she suddenly became a world traveler.  It was in those wild lands bordering Hadrian’s famous wall that she hit the big time. Those blond barbarians knew long hard winters and were delighted to see her appear as the first flower of eagerly awaited springtime.  In fact they began calling her “Messenger of Spring”.  The gave her the name “Daffodil” while their bards and poets sang her praises far and wide.  And now, far from those windy plains by the southern sea, she struts her away across the international stage, is planted in beds of fine loam, lovingly cultivated and care for.  For a flower with such torrid and unhappy beginnings, we might exclaim “What a happy ending!”.  But actually, there is no ending to this story.  She is not going anywhere. She is already everywhere.

She is so beautiful,

she is so poison 

and we so love her.