Chat and Photos

Flora Sancta - Publication
             Fall 2005


Lauretta Santarossa
Novalis
Toronto Canado
  
  
Feb 18 2005 Lauretta Santarossa

We have just settled a deal at Novalis to co-publish Flora Sancta
with Canterbury press in the spring. It should be available in June.
Check their website for details. It will sell for approx US$40 to
45.
 
 
Feb 27 2005 John Stokes

You'll have to refresh my memory on Flora Sancta. I recall your
mention awhile back of a MS nearing publication, but not by name.
I've checked the Canterbury websites - U.K., and also U.S - but
couldn't find any announcement of publications beyond April.  Could
you fill me in on the details of Flora Sancta - author, etc.?  I
seem to recall your mention of a MS maybe by Sr. Lynn Marie, OCD,
eremitic kitchen gardener at the Carmelite monastery in Quidenham,
England, with whom we used to collaborate, before she went
"solitary" off e-mail, and disappeared from view. (See CHAT May 17,
1997.)
 
 
Mar 3 2005 Lauretta Santarossa

Thanks for your reply re Flora Sancta and more. Yes, it is
Canterbury UK.

Here's the info:

Flora Sancta: Plants in Christian History and Tradition

Author: Joyce Critchlow

It is impossible to exaggerate the part that plants and flowers have
played in religious devotion over the centuries. For example, there
are over 600 flowers whose common name refers to Mary - the Madonna
Lily, Marigolds, Lady's Mantle to name but three.

The Christmas Rose (hellebore) and the Lenten Lily (daffodil)
signify the close association between plants and the Christian year,
while St John's Wort (hypericum) and Michaelmas Daisies reflect the
habit of naming plants that came into flower on or around saints'
days.

This fascinating book - a religious equivalent of Richard Mabey's
classic Flora Britannica - is packed with the stories of hundreds of
plants and flowers and their Christian associations, interwoven with
examples of where flower carvings, emblems and associations can be
seen today.

Contents

Introduction

  1 Plants and Flowers with Biblical Associations,
  2 Plants of the Nativity and Passion,
  3 The Flowers of Mary and Mary Gardens,
  4 Saints and their Flowers,
  5 Plants in Church Art and Architecture,
  6 Plants and the Sacraments,
  7 In a Monastery Garden,
  8 Plants through the Christian Year,
  9 Plants in Popular Devotion.

Notes and Acknowledgements, Bibliography, Index of Proper Names,
Index of Popular Names.

Categories: Advent/Lent

Publication Date: June 2005 By Canterbury Press

Status:Not Yet Published

Price:£25.00

ISBN:  21 85311445 6
 
 
Mar 5 2005 John Stokes

Many thanks for the info re. "Flora Sancta".

This is clearly a major publishing event, supplementing Vincenzina's
"Mary's Flowers, Gardens, Legends and" Meditations"; the Mary
Gardens chapters in Ann Ball's "Catholic Traditions in the Garden"
and Maureen Gilmer's "Rooted in the Spirit - Exploring Inspirational
Gardens"; and also Maureen's "God in the Garden"

I am especially pleased that it is being published in England, as
well as here by you, in that I have always been hoping for major
input in the U.K. which would stimulate the planting of Mary Gardens
there, bringing together the medieval Flowers of Our Lady tradition
with the glorious general tradition of gardening in England.

I see from the Canterbury Press website page that Joyce's other
books are Church Pulpit Year Books and a Preachers Companion,
indicating an overall religious perspective, as do her first 6
chapters of Flora Sacra; whereas the last three chapters appear to
deal with the gardening, as well as devotional, dimension.

I note with special interest her Chapter 7 "In a Monastery Garden",
which brings to mind the chapter of the same name in Rosetta
Clarkson's "Green Enchantment re. a 16th century Mary Garden at
Melrose Abbey in Scotland.  Certain details of Rosetta's account
appear to be imaginative, but there seems to be some possible basic
corroboration in the mention in Richardson Wright's "Story of
Gardening" of an investigation made  by the Gereral Chapter at
Citeaux, France, of gardens at Melrose Abbey in which the monks were
charged with violating their vows of poverty through an over
possessiveness of individual gardens.  We've never tracked down this
information in France, but I did inquire years ago of Rosetta's
widower as to whether there might be something in her notes and or
archives as to the origin of her information.  He replied that he
made a search but couldn't find anything.  I also wrote to the
national monuments people at Melrose, but they replied they had no
historical data regarding any gardens, or garden investigations at
Melrose

Another historical Mary Garden reference is cited by Daniel J.
Foley, former Editor of "Horticulture" magazine: "One of the early
references to Mary Gardens is to be found in 'An Introduction to the
Obedientary and Manor Rolls of Norwich Cathedral Priory' by H. W.
Saunders.  From this record we learn that the Sacristan had "S.
Mary's garden" and the "green garden" and the cellarer rented the
"little garden" or "garden within the gates."

When Teresa McLean's "Medieval English Gardens", Viking Press, New
York, was published in 1981, I wrote her inquiring if she could
provide any further information on Norwich and Melrose.  She replied
that she had researched every document she could find, in libaries
and in monastic archives in England, and had found nothing specific
about the plantings of the Norwich or Melrose gardens (other than
the Norwich accounting records), and judged from her general
research that the "S. Mary's Garden" at Norwich would have been a
rosary.

In recently starting the posting of Developmental Correspondence to
the ARCHIVAL section of our website, I noted a letter of October 3,
1980 to Bonnie Roberson in which I described how my then research in
the folklore stacks of Harvard's Widener Library corroborated my
view that there was something very special about the English Flowers
of Our Lady oral names symbolism as compared to that of France,
Germany, Italy and Spain, and also of Latin America - just as there
was something very special about the Walsingham shrine, and English
Marian poetry.

In respect to the poetry, I was interested to learn that flower
figures were first introduced in English poetry as images of Jesus
and Mary, such as a 10th century passage (modernized here) on the
Annunciation re. Mary"

	  "The redness of the rose illumines thee
          and the whiteness of the lily shines on thee,
          and with all the variety of blooming flowers
	    art thou adorned as the bride of Christ."

While not much can be discerned as to distinguishing chacteristics
of the flower symbolisms, as such, of the various countries, other
than focus - such as in Germany, Mary's motherly love of the Christ
Child; in Italy the distribution of graces; and in Spain the variety
of fruits of the Holy Spirit - the unusual sequence of historical
periods in England give us insight into the English medieval
devotion which accompanied the medieval symbols.

Thus the "no popery" and "no Mariolitry' of the Reformation - just
as printing and wider literacy were being introduced - resulted in
the omission of specific Marian flower names in the books on
gardening that came to be written; or, per the Oxford English
Dictionary the conversion of a few "Our Lady's" to "ladies' (listing
some 20 names, such as in ladies mantle and ladies tresses) -
although the older oral Lady and Mary names were later written down
by botanists, folklorists and lexicographers, as in Britten &
Holland's 1886 "Dictionary of English Plant Names (104 Marian
namings).

Of interest here is the fact that in Southern Germany there has been
an unbroken Catholic culture from the medieval period to the
present, such that Marzell's "Deutsches Wprterbuch der
Pflanzennomen, 1927 - 1979 (1965), lists some 500 Flowers of Our
Lady (with 1200 namings) - suggesting that there may have been a
similar number of such namings in the popular oral traditions of the
pre-Reformation English countrysides.
  
In English literature, following the Reformation, names from
classical Greek and Roman myths were introduced by Milton, etc., but
as these failed to appeal to the religious and mystical sense of
nature of heart and mind, Wordsworth and the other Romantic Poets
turned to figurative expression of the religious values they saw as
inherent in nature.

But, as Coleridge pointed out, the source of the religious meanings
and values perceived in nature by the Romantics was realized to be
what they themselves were putting into it.  Subsequently the void in
flower symbolism came in time to be filled by the sentimental
"meanings of flowers" invented and widely disseminated by Victorian
writers, with the publication of many books setting these forth,
continuing to the present day.

However, Oxford scholar, Alfred Dowling, in his "Flora of the Sacred
Nativity" (1900) presented a detailed analysis, with dates and
authors' names, of the 19th century invention of the "meanings of
flowers', and of their initial fraudulent representation by some as
being of earlier folk origin - contrasting with them the authentic
traditional religious names and liturgical uses older names.

Dowling focused on only a few flowers of authentic medieval Marian
names and symbolism (we counted 58 namings), indicating a proposed
book with a full list as subjects, but such a book was not
forthcoming.  We suggested in 1997 to Keegan Paul that perhaps
Dowling' Marian research was in the Oxford library archives
somewhere, although an Oxford Internet search by us did not yield
such. Perhaps Joyce has uncovered such research.  However, Keegan
Paul re=published Dowling's "Flora...", after 100 years, in 2002,
which we considered a major contribution to the present day
restoration of the Flowers of Our Lady tradition in the U.K..

Other contributions to such restoration were Judith Smith's 1931
"The Mary Calendar" (54 namings) - inspiration of the U.S. first
public Mary Garden at Woods Hole in 1932; and Grigson's 1958 "The
Englishman's Flora" (120 namings).

(I say "namings" because, as you know, there are multiple names and
symbolims for a number of flowers.  The numbers mentioned here are
from a quick scan of the 160 flowers, with their multiple namings,
listed on the website, per click-indexing:

     RESEARCH
        Mary Flowers in...the U.K.,,,
            List of 160 UK Flowers of Our Lady

Joyce's List of over 600 Flowers of Our Lady may indeed include
others from her U.K. research, but no doubt includes those from
other countries also.  The totals from our lists aggregate over
1,000, which we still have to formalize in one list and database.

It is significant that in the introduction to his 1989 "Plant Names
of Medieval England" (which deals with written monastic records,
from which the names from rural popular religious tradition are
almost entirely absent), Tony Hunt, of Oxford, states:

     "The intriguing question of the continuity or discontinuity
     of medieval and popular names is one that can scarcely be
     tackled in the present state of plant-name research, but will
     certainly be an important topic for future researchers
     working with more extensive materials."

I hope that Joyce has made a beginning in this.

My article, "The Flowers of the Virgin Mary" was published in the
Annunciationtide and Assumptiontide, 1984 issues of "Ave",
publication of the Anglican, Society of Mary, of which I am a life
member, and Ave "guru", Horace Keast, wrote subsequent articles on
the Marian sybolism of the rose and lily.

In any case, it is my hope that the time has come historically for a
restoration to U.K. religious devotion and gardening culture of the
richness of the medieval Marian and other religious symbolism, with
accompanying planting of glorious Mary Gardens - liberating flowers
from associations with pagan gods and goddesses, and from purely
natural, fanciful or scientific considerations.  Hopefully there
will be re=discovered the religious meanings placed in nature and
flowers as showing forth not only God's goodness and beauty, but
also his truth - as signatures of divine revelation.

While we have continuing website hits from the U.K. (e.g. 3212 in
Feb), after 55 years I have specific details of only two present day
U.K. Mary Gardens - the one at Lincoln Cathedral (per the photos and
lists on the website under RESEARCH > U.K.) and the recent garden at
The Church of St Mary de Haura in New Shoreham, Sussex, UK (per the
correspondence and photos of the Dec 6, 2003 CHAT entry).

I have reviewed all this for you, Lauretta, with Cc's to Canterbury
U.K., for any perspective it may provide for the promotion of "Flora
Sancta" when published in June.

And most of all, I wish to express my profound appreciation to you
and Novalis for your publication of Vincenzina"s "Mary's Flowers",
happily republished in paperback, and now Joyce's "Flora Sancta".

Prayerful best wishes,
 
 
May 23 2005 John stokes

With respect to the forthcoming June publication by Canterbury and
Novalis of Joyce Critchlow's "Flora Sancta", I append to this
message a copy of a (long forgotten) letter I wrote to Bonnie
Roberson, and to Brother Seàn in Ireland, in 1981 (just now
transcribed from a photocopy of the longhand original) re. Teresa
McClean's then just published "Medieval English Gardens" - which
definitively set forth the specifics of the loss of the monastic
medieval religious sense of gardening in England with the
Reformation destruction of the monasteries.  (A loss attemptedly
restored by Milton's classical myth references, the Romantic poets,
and the Victorian "meanings of flowers")

Until reading her book I had assumed, along with Ed McTague - in
conducting our initial research for the founding of Mary's Gardens
in 1950 - that the some 200 Flowers of Our Lady of English oral
religious traditions of the countryside documented in the Oxford
English Dictionary (under "Lady's"), Britten and Holland's
"Dictionary of English Plant Names" (1886) and Judith Smith's "The
Mary Calendar" (1930) (and later corroborated for us by Dowling's
1900 "Flora of the Sacred Nativity" and Grigson's 1958 "An
Englishman's Flora") originated from, and were sustained, in their
Marian and other religious symbolism, by British monastic gardens -
per the Mary Garden described in pre-Reformation Melrose Abbey in
the opening chapter of Lauretta Clarkson's "Green Enchantment".

(Around 1955 I wrote to Lauretta Clarkson's widower inquiring if
there was anything in his late wife's notes and archives - or his
recollection - documenting the existence of the Melrose Abbey Mary
Garden, and received the reply that he found and knew of nothing.  I
also wrote to the historical documentation people at Melrose, who
replied they knew of no specific records of any garden plants
there.)

In inquiring of Teresa McLean about this after reading her book in
1981, I received the reply from her (currently archived in Bpston
and not at hand) that she had examined every surviving U.K. monastic
document she could find, including those of Melrose, and had found
no reference to the Flowers of Our Lady or Mary Gardens other than
that in "An Introduction to the Obedientary and Manor Rolls of
Norwich Cathedral Priory" by H. W. Saunders (accounting records),
which had an entry referring to purchases for "S. Mary's garden",
the "green garden" and the "little garden" or "garden within the
gates" - which S. Mary's Garden she judged to be a rose garden.

This is corroborated by Tony Hunt's 1989 "Plant Names of Medieval
England" which likewise found no monastic Flowers of Our Lady, and
included no research into the oral traditions of the countrysides.

I realize all this duplicates much of my message of 5 Mar on the
same subject, but I mention it all again as background refresher for
the 2/24/81 letter to Bonnie, appended below.

I would appreciate your sending a review copy of "Flora Sancta" as
soon as available, and will of course write a review indicating all
Joyce Critchlow has added to all this - in the context of its
importance to the restoration of the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary
Garden tradition in the U.K.

As ever,


PS - This appended letter was written in 1981 - 14 years prior to
the establishment of our web site; but also prior to the 1982
restoration of the first U.S. public Woods Hole Mary Garden, the
1983 establishment of the Knock Shrine Mary Garden in Ireland, and
the 1989 establishment of the major parish Mary Garden at St. Mary's
in Annapolis.

As such, it reflects our "voice in the wilderness" view of that
time, in which we struggled to get a couple of articles published
each year, with only a handful of postal inquiries coming from each,
with the starting of Mary Gardens assumedly being mostly in homes -
with little feedback to us; so our major focus was on research and
on idea development.

How different from today, with 1,000+ website visits each day,
aggregating from 100 countries.  (6,167 file "hits" yesterday, on
950 different files, including 69 from U.K.) and daily e-mail
inquiries, constantly evoking broadening of our perspective.

We thus are hopeful, with the publication of "Flora Sancta", for a
significant starting of Mary Gardens in the U.K., enriched with all
the beauty of English gardening.

---------------

Appended letter:


                                 +





                                                  Boston, MA
                                                  February 24, 1981

Dear Bonnie and Brother Seàn,

I enclose a copy of a rather lengthy letter I have just written to
Miss Teresa McLean, author of "Medieval English Gardens", published
within the past few weeks by Viking Press, New York.

I was struck that this most excellent book developed a thesis, with
extensive documentation, of the deterioration of the religious sense
of gardening in England associated with the Anglican schism and the
dissolution of monasticism...quite similar to the thesis I developed
in my 1953 article, "Man in God's Garden".

The inside rear fly-leaf of the book jacket indicates that Teresa
McLean is 30 years old, is of Irish-Scottish-English background, was
educated in an English convent school, read history at Oxford, wrote
a doctoral thesis on the estates of a Priory for Cambridge and
worked for a year with Mother Teresa in Calcutta - from all this
very evidently a Roman Catholic.

As you will see, I made a critical evaluation and response to her
book from the viewpoint of our Mary's Gardens work...and made bold
to ask her to work with us.

She deals almost exclusively with the religious sense of gardening
within the monastic setting, and hardly mentions the popular
religious traditions of the countrysides at all.  In fact, she
doesn't include standard dictionaries of plant names in England such
as Brittten and Holland and Prior in her bibliography.

It has always amazed me that there just don't seem to be any
historical records of garden symbolism, prayer, devotion or
meditation in English monasteries.  Since Teresa McLean seems to be
the most knowledgeable person around on U.K. monastic gardens and
has done this extensive research at the academic doctoral level,
perhaps she can cast some light on this.

I had just incorrectly assumed, along with Ed McTague's original
conjecture, that the monasteries were the fonts and repositories for
the popular religious names and legends of plants.  But maybe the
rural churches weren't either...although these would be the sources
for the sacramental blessing of fields, first fruits, flowers, etc..

Certainly the popular religious traditions of flowers in Latin
America don't get all that many supports from monasteries and
churches either

Also, we have the seeming total lack, as far as I can tell, of Mary
Gardens in present day England (other than the "historical
collection" at Lincoln Cathedral).  As for the city Roman Catholic
churches I visited in England, they pretty much didn't have any
grounds at all, and those in country towns were flimsy shacks in the
poorer sections of town, with hardly any grass around them.  This is
of course being an infinitesimal sampling, but it made a very strong
impression on me.  I don't recall seeing any little statues or
shrines in yards of homes in England, the way you do in suburban and
rural United states.  Come to think of it, I saw one from the window
of a train my first trip to England in 1973...I believe an Our Lady
of Lourdes statue with a little grotto and trellis around it, in a
back yard (as you can sometimes see from the perspective of looking
down from elevated train tracks).

It is significant that Teresa McLean evidently does not come out of
the "gardening establishment", but rather out of an academic
research context.

I can see that it would take a lot of courage - that of a "Knight of
Our Lady', or of a "Valiant Woman" (as Ed McTague characterized Mrs.
Lillie) - to promote Mary Gardens in England...other than as an
"historical collection" as at Lincoln Cathedral.

However, Lincoln Cathedral and Teresa McLean's book represent a sort
of "softening' of this scene...so I've sent out the call to them in
the hope that someone will be moved to undertake this work with us
there.

It's significant that Mrs. Lillie's Garden of Our Lady at St.
Joseph's Church in Woods Hole appears to have been pretty much
likewise to be ignored by both the church and the garden club
community of Woods Hole (the original 50 or so flowers of Our Lady
having been replaced by a few conventional varieties)...but just
keeps going on through the trust fund she set up to finance it's
maintenance.  And the people who visit it are mostly scientists and
students from the Marine Biological Laboratory and Oceanographic
Institute in  Woods Hole...as Mrs. Lillie intended.

Last summer when I went to photograph the Garden one morning I found
a student sleeping in it with her sleeping bag and knapsack...a
little Mary Garden hospitality!

So if parishes, convents and monasteries aren't particularly
interested in the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens in our own
experience today...why should we assume they were in medieval
England?

Love to Ernie.


Sincerely, in Our Lady,
 
 
May 23 2005 Lauretta Santarossa

Rest assured that I will certainly send you a review copy of Flora
Sancta.

It is due this summer ready for sale in September, I think. But
you'll be top of the list for reviewers.

I've been asked to talk about Mary Garden's at our Canadian National
Exhibition (The "Ex" as we call it) in Augut. Will let you know how
it goes.

Every good thing,
 
 
May 24 2005 Becky
 
Good Morning,
 
I am writing on behalf of my manager, who is wanting a list of Mary
Gardens she is able to visit in the UK. I have had a look through
the website, but couldnt find any specific listings. Can you help at
all?
 
Kind Regards,
 
 
May 24 2005 John to Becky

Hi Becky,

Thank you for your message of 24 May.

In response to your inquiry as to a list of Mary Gardens in the UK,
I am (astoundingly) only able to refer you positively to two:

The first is in the Cloister Garden of Lincoln Cathedral, founded by
Jon Codrington of the Lincoln Herb Society some time prior to 1950,
when we learned of it through our Irish associate ( since l973),
Brother Seàn MacNamara of the Christian Brothers.

This is not a full "Mary Garden" in the sense of being devotionally
tended around a focal sculpture of the Blessed Virgin, but more of a
historical collection of Flowers of Our Lady.

Codrington's general description, with an annotated list of its 34
Flowers of Our Lady, is reproduced on our Mary's Garden Internet
website at www.gardens.org - click-indexed from our Home Page via:

     RESEARCH
        Mary Flowers in....the U.K.
          Flowers of Our Lady planting in the
          Cloister Garden of Lincoln Cathedral

     
A click-link at the end of this description accesses a
reproduction of "The Flower Arranger" illustrated leaflet describing
the garden.

The two photos of the Lincoln Cathedral cloister planting were taken
by a family member visiting it some five years ago.

The second U.K. Mary Garden of which we know was planted two years
ago at The Church of St Mary de Haura, New Shoreham,
Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, Sussex, UK - The Revd Victor Standing,
Rector - per our Website illustrated entry at

     CHAT
        Dec 6, 2003 -

with description from their pamphlet.  We are awaiting an update and
further photos

I said "astoundingly" above, as Frances Crane Lillie, foundress of
the first public U.S. Mary Garden in 1932 at St. Joseph's Church in
Woods Hole, Massachusetts - inspiration for our "Mary's Gardens"
project, undertaken in 1950 - stated in a descriptive leaflet for
the garden that the list of plants "was made from English sources,
because of course Catholic England inspired the interest".

In our one visit with her in Woods Hole in 1954 (she was invalided,
and unable for long periods to communicate or receive visits) she
told us that her inspiration was "from English monastery gardens",
and that it could be one of several, but that with her failing
memory she could no longer recall from just which one(s).

However, her brother-in-law, Wilfred Wheeler - builder and
nurseryman, who had planted and cared for the garden (and had built
the St. Joseph's Angelus Tower, given by her to the church, beside
which it was planted) had given us during a l952 visit a copy of
Judith Smith's "The Mary Calendar" (St Dominic's Press, Ditchling,
1931), given to him by Mrs. Lillie, listing English wildflowers of
Our Lady - which on inspection was found to be the source of the 61
flowers listed in her 1932 "Our Lady in Her Garden" leaflet.  So,
perhaps there is a Mary Garden at Ditchling?

Our first clue that there were evidently only a very few Mary
Gardens in the U.K. was the forwarding to us for reply by the
Anglican "Church Times" of London around 1953 of a
letter-to-the-editor inquiry they had received inquiring about Mary
Gardens.  The inquiry may have originated from a reprint in the May
1953 English "Novena" magazine of an article in a Feb 1952 U.S.
magazine...or from the Mar 1933 "Catholic Digest" if this magazine
is distributed in the U.K..

Following this there was an article, "Our Lady's Flowers" in the
"Church Times" of Apr 15, 1955.  Perhaps the Editor would know of
the location of one or more Mary Gardens.

Other U.K. magazines with articles on Mary Gardens were a Jan 54
issue of "Universe", the May 1, 1981 issue of "Universe" and the
Winter, 1984 "The Flower Arranger".

The "Flower Arranger article followed our exchange of a number of
letters with them re their Lincoln pamphlet, and come think of it, I
seem to recall mention that several of their people were going to
start gardens, but I never heard if they did or received any photos.
You might check with them.

In the spring of 1987 we were contacted by Sr. Lynn Marie, OCD,
kitchen gardener at the Carmelite monastery in Quidenham, by e-mail,
informing us that she had undertaken to be an UK source of
information and seeds for the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens.
An article, "Flowers for the Queen of the May", accessed via a link
at the very end of

     RESEARCH
          Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens in the U.K.

describing her initiative, was published in the London, Catholic
Herald of May 16, 1997.  We exchanged a number of e-mail messages
with her over the summer, in which she mentioned such things as that
the Bishop was interested in starting a Mary Garden at Walsingham.

Then, abruptly, Sr. Lynn Marie informed us in the fall that she was
undertaking an stricter, eremetic, rule in a hermitage on the
monastery grounds; was discontinuing all communications outside the
monastery; and was terminating her e-mail address.  Subsequently we
attempted to communicate with her, and then with others at the
monastery by postal mail, but our letters were refused and returned.
A correspondent checked for me a couple of years ago, and found she
was still at the monastery. Maybe there are ways of reaching her?
This correspondence is posted on the website at

     CHAT
        May 17, 1997

I had also corresponded with Deborah Jones, Editor of the "Catholic
Herald", who said she was starting a small Mary Garden of her own;
but e-mail messages to her started to be undelivered several years
ago.  You might try contacting her through the Herald, to see if she
still has a Mary Garden, or knows of others who do.


Since the putting up of our website in 1905, there have been
numerous file "hits" from the U.K. - 10,041 Jan-Apr this year.
Surely there "must" be numerous Mary Gardens "out there" in the U.K.
somewhere - perhaps, home Mary Garden "early adopters", following
the U.S. experience of 50 years of "hidden" growth, with public
parish and Shrine Mary Gardens only notably being established in the
last 5 years or so - which the publication of Vincenzina Krymow's
prize winning "Mary's Flowers, Gardens, Legends and Meditations" may
have had a lot to do.  If the last is true, hopefully the coming
publication of Joyce Critchlow's "Flora Sancta" by Canterbury Press
this summer or fall will have a similar effect.

With respect to "Flora Sancta". I have started an anticipatory
thread at
 
     CHAT
        May 24, 2005

(lots of duplications in these various references, each of which is
somewhat "stand-alone" on its own - but also man more details, such
as for example the publication of little Flowers of Our Lady holy
cards, illustrated on the website, of we have four, by Medeci Press)

Thanks for prompting me to chronicle all this (or some of it).

In sum, whenever we have put this much energy into something, there
have always been Providential results, so I have no doubt that there
will one day be magnificent Mary Gardens in the U.K. with all the
beauty and horticultural excellence of the English gardening
tradition.

Yours truly,


May 23 2005, Lauretta to John

Rest assured that I will certainly send you a review copy of Flora
Sancta.

It is due this summer ready for sale in September, I think. But
you'll be top of the list for reviewers.

I've been asked to talk about Mary Garden's at our Canadian National
Exhibiotion (The "Ex" as we call it) in Augsut. I am going to
emphasize the Mary Garden part of my usual talk for this one.

Will let you know how it goes.

Every good thing,


June 8 2005, John to Lauretta

Thanks for your message of 23 May regarding the scheduling of the
publication of "Flora Sancta" for September,

In double-checking the Canterbury Press website just now, I see,
however, that publication has been put back again, to November.

If editing is still under way, it might be well to include some
mention of the various Marian doctrines symbolized by the Flowers of
Our Lady: in respect to the publication last month by the ecumenical
Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) of their
agreed statement, "Mary: Hope and Grace in Christ", five years in
preparation, which has been "submitted...to the Holy See and to the
Anglican Communion for comment, further clarification if necessary,
and conjoint acceptance as congruent with the faith of Anglicans and
Roman Catholics".

A copy of this long document is available on the Vatican Internet
website at:


http://212.77.1.245/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/angl-comm-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20050516_mary-grace-hope-christ_en.html

Representative criticisms and differences from the Anglican "Church
Times" and Protestant sources (as kindly brought to my attention by
Julie Ardery of the Human Flower Project website at
www.humanflowerproject.com/) include:


http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/80256FA1003E05C1/httpPublicPages/4BC1B2EC0DDF71868025700600488B21?opendocument

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/120/21.0.html

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/mohler/?adate=3/18/2005


So many of the Flowers of Our Lady symbolically reflect the
doctrines of Mary's Immaculate Conception and Heavenly Assumption -
dealt with in the ecumenical agreement - as well as reflecting other
traditional doctrines such as those of Mary's Co-Redemption,
Queenship of Heaven and Earth, and Mediation of all grace - which,
while not defined as Roman Catholic dogma nor formally accepted by
Anglicans, are so widely expressed in the liturgy; by saints and
theologians; and popularly - that some mention of them would be
appropriate in any books of Marian relevance published at this time.

The important perspective here is that the Flowers of Our Lady - the
specific flower symbols - have come to us historically as religious
folklore, by way of the popular oral religious traditions of the
countrysides of Europe and Latin America, as eventually written down
by botanists, folklorists and lexicographers; and as such do not
purport to represent theological affirmations.

Although a few - the rose and lily, etc. - were symbolically present
in religious paintings and prints of the Madonna and Child in
Gardens Enclosed, Rose Gardens, the Heavenly Paradise, and the few
in Mary Gardens (from which we took the name for our work); they
were not prominent or much recorded in monastic tradition - per the
scholarly research, in England, of Teresa McLean, author of
"Medieval English Gardens" (1980), or of Anthony Hunt, author of
"Plant Names of Medieval England" (1989).

As the Flowers of Our Lady existed as a matter of historical fact in
popular folklore tradition, they don't have to be doctrinally
"justified"; and their contribution to present day devotion, prayer
and mysticism is simply a matter for those who discover them and are
inspired by them - or, as late Ed McTague (R.I.P), co-founder of
Mary's Gardens in 1951 used to say, is a matter for "those who have
a sense for these things".

Interestingly, when we went public with Mary's Gardens back in 1951
as a project of lay Roman Catholic spare time independent initiative
in the restoration of popular folklore religious tradition, we were
immediately "investigated" by a priest of our Philadelphia
Archdiocesan Chancery office, in their concern lest we were involved
in some sort of pious fraud.  But when we showed them the folklore
documentation in the Oxford English Dictionary (under "Lady's") and
in old plant dictionaries, and showed them that our introductory
$1.00 mail order "Our Lady's Garden" literature, photo and seed
packet kits we then advertised cost us twice as much to produce,
they told us that as far as the Church was concerned we could
proceed with "official toleration".

(In this, our work was for a long time not picked up by Catholic
schools, as it did not conform with the detailed specs for teaching
Marian doctrine.  But, this has now changed: 2,989 May hits of Slide
Lectures 1 nd 3, and 2,085 of Background Reference/Index for
Teachers)

Actually, the pious fraud, if any, was in the in the mostly invented
"meanings of flowers" introduced by Victorian authors (and about
which so many books have been written) - as documented by Oxford
scholar Alfred Dowling in his "Flora of the Sacred Nativity" (1900,
reprinted 2003).

The proposed ecumenical Roman and Anglican acceptance of the
Assumption, brings me back in memory, also, to the time in the fall
of 1950 when, just as Ed McTague and I were considering starting
Mary's Gardens, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the Roman dogmatic
definition of the doctrine of the Assumption - saying, when asked
about the possible similar definition of Mary's Mediation, that this
was "not yet sufficiently ripe in the mind of the Church".

From over 50 years of pondering Marian doctrine, as mirrored by her
flowers, it has become clear to me that all of Mary's divine
privileges (per "He that is might has done great things unto me" of
the Magnificat) derive from her union with God ("the Lord is with
you") into which she was brought - and to which she assented ih her
immaculate purity, her utter humility and her total acceptance of
God's word - at the Annunciation.

United with God, in the divine conceiving in her, by the
overshadowing and indwelling Holy Spirit; and in her consequent
co-parenting with the Father  - of God the Son Incarnate, Mary,
through the fullness of this union, was totally united with God in
all respects.  This fullness of her divine union is thus the
enabling basis also of her Co-Redemption, Universal Mediation,
Queenship, conquest of Satan, etc. with God; - and even, in "the
retroactivity of eternity", of her union with Ged the Father as "Our
Lady of Creation" - per

	"I was with him forming all things,
        Playing before him at all times"

from Proverbs 8:30 ff., applied to her by the Church Fathers and the
liturgy,


and as, for example, shown forth in the renowned tapestry, recently
restored, of "Our Lady of Creation" at the Notre Dame de France
Church, off Leicester Square in London.

The Anglo/Roman agreement document only goes so far - with
supporting scriptural and references - as to derive or "permit" only
the doctrines of Mary's Immaculate Conception and Assumption, from
the scriptural revelation of her Divine Maternity.

The derivation of her Co-Redemption, Queenship and Universal
Mediation, etc. do not have such scriptural support - even though
they have doctrinal support from the theological concepts of the
purpose of Creation and of the fullness of her Divine/human union to
this end.

What is fundamental here is the traditional wider appreciation by
the medieval Christian faithful, the "People of God", generally,
that the fullness of the divine/human relationship in Mary is an
unique beginning fulfillment, in her, (after the failure of this in
our First Parents, likewise immaculately conceived), of God's desire
in creating the world to show forth and share the divine goodness,
beauty, truth and action with us humans, created to this end "in the
divine image and likeness" - and this to the fullest.

The culminating  fulfillment, from this beginning, of God's
Creational desire of for the ever fuller overall divine sharing with
us humans is now being accomplished by way of the heavenly
positioning of Mary such that in the ever furthering of her fullness
of her own divine/hunan sharing, she - in response to our beseeching
that she pray for us - receives all our prayers to God in
intercessory embellishment and augmentation, making them all thereby
also her own for the fullest divine acceptance by Father, Son and
Holy Spirit, and the consequent bestowal by them of the prayed for
divine grace, light, wisdom, power and providence; ever proportioned
through her universal mediation to the receptivity of those praying
and prayed for, for fullest divine/human sharing by all, in the
grace-guided building and coming of the Earthly Peaceable Kingdom to
be eternally transfigured in the eternal New Heaven and New Earth.

This is the "top down" view, as opposed to the "bottom up" view of a
more subservient religion and a limited, "scripture-bound"
perception of our human potential for divine sharing - even though
we are created to this end "in the divine image and likeness". (In
this we are instructed by G.K.Chesterton's hyperbolic observation
that "Protestantism is a prejudice of people who have learned to
read" - the Bible; but we are to recall that the Flowers of Our Lady
symbolism comes from before the introduction of printing and general
literacy.)  It's amazing to me how many argue about their perception
of Mary's usurping Christ's mediation, when in actuality she, though
her immmaculateness, etc., is making possible the fulfillment of
God's Creational desire for the fullness of divine/human sharing.

 I also reflected and dialoged a lot on these matters in my five
years service in the 1960's as recruited Catholic Executive Director
of the interfaith Wellsprings Ecumenical Center in Philadelphia -
founded by Episcopal Bishop Robert deWitt and Presbyterian Minister
Raines - in which I participated in or observed numerous
Catholic/Protestant, (and also, Jewish/Christian, Christian/Islamic,
Black/White, Men/women, Youth/Adult, etc.) dialogs, we organized for
church and synagog groups throughout the area.

I expect that the Anglican Society of Mary, in its furthering of the
restoration of pre-Reformation English Marian devotion and prayer,
has made a contribution to the ecumenical Roman/Anglican affirmation
of the doctrines of Mary's Immaculate Conception and Assumption -
which, of course, weren't yet dogmatically defined by the Roman
Church at the time of the Reformation.

We, at Mary's Gardens, first became aware of the Society of Mary
through a 1981 inquiry received by Bonnie Roberson (then handling
our research, promotion and inquiries from her Idaho address) from a
member of the Society's U.S. Minnesota chapter - which she, Bonnie,
referred to me for reply.  Through this I entered in time into
correspondence with the Society's London headquarters, and, at their
request wrote the article, "Flowers of the Virgin Mary" - published
in two parts in the Annunciationtide and Assumptiontide, 1984 issues
of their quarterly magazine "Ave" (now click-index posted on the
website via ...articles, 1984). This was followed by "Ave" articles
by their staff author, Horace Keast, on the Marian symbolism of the
rose, the lily and the flowers of the field as found in his research
into English pre-reformation Marian tradition.

In the course of this I subscribed to a lifetime membership to the
Society, and continue regularly to receive copies of "Ave".

Then on accessing the Internet in 1994 I participated in the
Anglican "listserve" e-mail correspondence community, entering into
discussions of Marian doctrine - a participation ending in 1986 when
our Mary's Gardens website, founded in 1995, came to require all my
available time.

Of particular importance to Mary's Gardens of the current proposed
Anglo/Roman reconciliation with respect to Marian doctrine is that
Frances Crane Lillie said and wrote that her inspiration for her
founding of the the first U.S. public Mary Garden, at St. Joseph's
Church in Woods Hole in 1932 was "from English Monastery Gardens"
and from the list of some 50 English wildflowers of Our Lady in
Judith Smith's "The Mary Calendar" (1931).  Of special significance
in this was Judith's mirroring, in her narratives of the flower
symbolism, of the unique maidenly esthetic beauty of English Marian
poetry.

This special quality of English pre-formation devotion to Our Lady
was evidenced by extensive research I did also into the comparative
flower symbolism of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. in the
folklore stacks of Harvard's Widener Library, as described in my
letter of October 3,1980 - posted :n:

     ARCHIVAL
        Developmental Correspondence
           Letters, Bonnie Roberson, Hagermann, ID 1980

My interest in Anglican/Roman reconciliation comes especially from
my own English ancestors' participation in the Reformation - one of
whom was a member of the Jury (and son-in-law of the judge) in the
trial which condemned Thomas More; with the consequent giving to
them, my ancestors, by Henry VIII of a farmhouse, Friars' Grange,
"sequestered" (as my uncle, family historian, put it) from a
confiscated monastery. My ancestors of the next generation emigrated
to America as Quakers.

This has been rather long, Lauretta, but I wanted to stress the
importance of the new doctrinal proclamation for Mary's Gardens,
"Flora Sancta", and myself personally - in keeping with Ed McTague's
counsel that we should ever endeavor to be a "pure source" re.
Mary's Gardens.

And, I should repeat, all this is not a matter of some sort of
personal Marian devotional enthusiasm, but of a lifetime conclusion
as to God's will re. the building and coming of the Earthly
Peaceable Kingdom, for which we pray each day in the "Our Father"
(per the Website article, "Peace on Earth - Fatima Revisited".

Prayerful best wishes,


PS -I've just checked the May website stats and see a current status
of 2505 file hits for the month from the UK, including hits for the
U.K. related files of:

 141 - RESEARCH: Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens in the U.K.
  91 - CHAT - Dec 6, 2003  - New Shoreham, Sussex, Mary Garden
  72 - CHAT - May 24, 2005 - Flora Sancta - Publication Summer 2005
  48 - CHAT - May 17, 1997 - Sr. Lynn Marie, OCD Brief Start

Note that Flora Sancta... was only up for the last week in May

(For May, 321 people accessed your and my ARCHIVAL, 1997 ff
developmental correspondence - the highest in this category)