Chat & Photos 


Children's Mary Garden
(Continued)

Jun 26 2002, Vicki

The story of the rabbit birthing in your Mary Garden is quite
sweet.

On the other side of our postcard size backyard we have a small
orchard, over which Brother Francis (of Assisi) presides, some
birds come and actually perch on this very small statue (12in).
Aren't we in the company of the best?

I have more questions for you, why are malva sylvestris called "Our
Lady's Cheeses? is it the shape of the little seed pods? I have a
patch of malva sylvestris and moschata in full bloom right now.

I am working in a garden center, and it just moves me to see all
these "Mary" plants. Alchemilla molis is so special when covered
with dew.  My son commented that it looked as covered with precious
stones-when taught that this was "Our Lady's Mantle".

In the store it was that I found the A. felix-femina that I was
enquiring about. What a job for a 'wanna-be' Mary gardener!

Do lamium maculatum and lamiastrum have any significance? I have
them sandwiched in between my hostas.

What about apples, is all the genus malus included in "Our Lady's
Apples"?  And apricots, are all the prunus included?

It is amazing how gently and lovingly we are invited to garden for
Our Lady. The logs used for my grotto were obtained two summers
ago- an impulse, and a hassle to get them into my little car,
and later unload them at home: they are large.

The Roses of Sharon are seedlings from someone else's garden, a
gift received last summer: after the two Rose of Sharon received
the previous season died over the winter. The previous ones had
been a gift from a different person's backyard.

Then everything fell in place, when I found the little statue of
Virgin Mary. How is this that the Mother of the Lord comes to me?

I can spend such a long time reading the information in the
website!  Our next step is to identify the plants that were in the
backyard from before we started officially our Mary Garden-seems it
had been there all along!

John, thank you for the address, I will mail the pictures as soon
as possible.


Jun 26 2002, John

I have not grown Malva sylvestris, so have not examined its forms -
so I'll leave this up to you.

Malva moschata is called "St. Simeon's Flower" because it was held
to be a herb for use in treating blindness.  (You will recall, from
the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple, that St. Simeon
was blind.)  Before coming across this, I let my imagination run,
and from St. Simeon's prophecy to Mary that through the sword of
sorrow piercing her soul "the thoughts of many hearts will be
revealed," noted the red heart-shaped blooms of Malva moschata and
began to think of it as "Many Hearts" flower".	On the website,
see

	ARCHIVAL/Archive of Website Monthly "New" announcements/
	1966/Feb - Candlemas Flowers

The Lamium that shows up in the research is L. purpureum, and I
think this is the one I used to grow.  See

	OVERVIEW/Miniature Flower Photos/Nativity: Mary's Milkdrops

The plant encyclopedias I have at hand (most others are in storage)
indicate that there are 50 or so L. species, and don't list L.
purpureum.  In walking down Newbury St. in Boston a couple of
years ago I saw a large bedding of the L. like the photo in front
of a store, but don't know what species it was.

However, in the encyclopedias I see photos of a lot of strains of
L. maculatum, which all seem to have white markings, but with finer
lines of white - but generically might qualify for an extension of
the milkdrops symbolism.

While checking an encyclopedia, "The Plant Book", James Mills-Hicks
(Random House Australia?), I found for L. alba the name
"Archangel", from it's being in bloom on the 8th of May, "Feast of
the Archangel Michael in the old calendar"

I believe "Lady Apple" is a specific strain of apple, but I haven't
researched it.	In the course of the French research I am working on
from time to time, I've run in to a lot of apples with religious
names, for the saints, mostly, but these seem to be the relatively
recent inventions of breeders, and not from medieval times.  Further
apple research would be in order.

Actually, the kinds of things discussed above were the heart of
Mary's Gardens for the first 30 years or so, and what I used to go
over in great detail with Bonnie Roberson.  Then, in 1983, when
Bonnie died, I got more into helping get gardens started and
writing motivational articles, etc..  So, experiencing a little
nostalgia here.	And my head is so full of these things.

Re. that Chat index listing, another thing which may have been
operating is that when you choose an Internet file on-line with a
browser, the file often opens locally from your browser memory
"cache" the way it was the last time you accessed it on line, and
you have to "View/Reload" (Netscape) or "View/Refresh" (Explorer)
to get a file that has been upload/overwritten on the website. So,
if you still get the last name posting, try the "Reload" or
"Refresh"

Great you're working regularly with plants!


Jul 3 2002, Vicki to Fiona

John forwarded a copy of his e-mail to you.

I have just started my own Mary Garden, and I found a nice statue
of Our Lady.

I usually buy my seeds from Veseys, you can find them at
www.veseys.com- they carry seeds for us northern gardeners with a
shorter growth season. I am yet to be disappointed with the seeds
obtained from them: even my 'Angel Baby' roses came up, about 9
from one package.

When we started rugosa roses from seed from Mackenzie, only two
came up from two or three packages.

I buy seeds from other sources as well, such as OSC, Thompsom &
Morgan, Mr Fothergill, etc. I must admit to having better success
with Veseys.

I have found that herbs and roses are almost foolproof. We have a
hosta garden in the shady area beside our little grotto (family
sitting area).

The Explorer series of roses, developed at a Canadian research
station, are particularly tough. We enjoy the herb garden as well,
it gives an opportunity to share with our neighbours.

Today we harvested lavender and chamomile flowers to make sachets
and soaps for Christmas stocking stuffers for family and close
friends.

If you are visiting in my area let me know, and you are more than
welcome to come and visit our little Mary Garden.

Peace and every blessing to you,


Jul 8 2002, John

Thanks for the copy of your message to V.

I find it hard to express the sorrow and concern when I see other
Catholics so very orphaned and destitute without devotion to Our
Mother.

Thank you, because just now I was failing a bit in my devotion to
praying the daily Rosary.

God bless you and your family a thousand times over for this
renewal, John!


Jul 9 2002, John 

Re. those not devoted to Mary:

As a convert, I was blessed simply to receive the grace of belief
in a loving God and Creator, from which I deduced that a loving God
would have given us a truth source, which in looking around the
world I judged with faith to be the One Holy Catholic Apostolic
Roman Church.

In this I concluded, with the help of Scripture and theologians,
that our loving God created us in the divine image and likeness in
order be able to share with us the divine goodness and action.
"Goodness likes to share itself", and God being only 3 Persons.

Judging that our infinite God would want to share most fully, I
concluded that he would provide for the multiplication of a galaxy
of sharing persons ("increase and multiply and fill the earth");
but that also, for the fullest peronal sharing, he would also
create one person with and through whom he would share the totality
and universally of his action in and for the world.	This totally
sharing person would therefore have been divinely conceived in
essence prior to the actual creation of the world; and on the
seventh "day" of Creation such a potential person was actually
created, immaculately and in a state of grace, Adam - "potential"
because sharing requires the free assent and total fidelity of the
sharing person.	And in this, God created an immaculate, graced,
sharing partner, Eve, that the two would serve as the First Parents
to care for, develop and fill the earth, with culmination in the
eternal Peaceable Kingdom of the totality of the created divine
sharing.

When Adam and Eve sinned, rupturing the original integrity of
fidelity to total divine sharing, the world fell to disharmony and
to subjugation to the effects of he original sin.

But God so loved the world, and continued in the desire fully to
share the divine goodness and action through Creation, that he
arranged for the immaculate conception and gracing of still another
person, again embodying the divine essence of universal sharer -
Mary - who this time maintained fidelity to her gracing, and
through her humility and assent became God's full and universal
partner in the divine action for the world: now including the
Incarnation, Redemption, Renewal, and Spiritual Motherhood for the
human family of sharers.

I have spelled this out again just now, Vicki, to propose how Mary
is to be viewed first of all as God's universal divine sharer in
Creation - which I was blessed to discern by virtue of the process
of reasoning I went through to consolidate intellectually the gift
of faith I received.

The problem is that conventionally instructed Catholics get so
involved with all the details of Mary's person, life and mysteries,
that they fail to grasp the essential truth of Mary as Divine
Sharer.	the fundamental work of Mary's Gardens is to provide a
historically unctioned, but lost for a time and therefore today
fresh, approach to Mary role in the Divine Plan for Creation, and
now Redemption, that will contribute to greater recourse to her
endowed sharing in the divine universal intercession and mediation
necessary to meet the present crises in the world's movement to the
divinely willed Peaceable Kingdom.


Jul 21 2002, Vicki

I have a beautiful story to share. This is something that is
happening to us at home.

A couple of years ago, one of my neighbours went to Poland, and in
a very sweet gesture brought a 'Black Madonna' for my little boy.

Well, as children will, he throws toys around, but the Black
Madonna has never met the floor.

Likewise, he pulls the petals of flowers in our back yard.  Well,
he has only touched twice the flowers in our 'Mary Garden".

This reinforces so much the knowledge I am gaining by reading the
book "The Privilege of being Catholic", by Father Lukefahr. In this
book the sacramental principle is discussed.

I am sure that God talks to my son somehow through this deep love
of nature that he shows.

That is why St Francis was invited to our little orchard. (I
attended a Franciscan nun school). It is my little boy who has
helped me rediscover this stewardship, and through it Our Lady's
invitation to garden for Her.

Take heart, John! The night is always at its darkest right before
dawn!

Servus Mariae, non peribif!


Jul 22 2002, John

Thanks for sharing with me the special respect of your children for
Our Lady's statue and flowers.  These "little" things are such a
big part of our lives of faith.  We will rejoice with the millions
of these things, from the Book of Life, in heaven.

Also, as I quote from the "Catholic Rural Life Prayerbook" in my
1996 article, "The Blessing of Mary Gardens as Holy Places", the
importance and operation of sacramental blessings, such as that of
statues and gardens, is pretty much lost today.  See the Catholic
Encyclopedia entry on blessings.

Have you had your grotto Mary Garden blessed by a priest?
Statuette?  Rosary beads?

And wherever grace is experienced, Mary is present by her action as
Mediatrix of all Grace".

Thanks for "take heart". Actually, to quote from the Legion of Mary
Prayer, my faith is "firm and immovable as a rock".  It's just that
I keep contributing what I can to a more Marian spirituality
derived from Creation Theology.  The church is getting there with
the modern dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception and
Assumption - but so many still see Marian devotion and recourse as
"optional"


Jul 22 2002, Vicki


The Rosary beads were blessed at Midland, The Madonna was blessed
at Czestochowa, and we are waiting for our kind over worked priest
to come and bless our Mary Garden.  Perhaps we should take the
statuette and have it blessed at the parish, and save him some
time.

I never mentioned a part of my every day life, my 'hobby' is to
make rosaries and give them away.  They are very humble knotted
things made of nylon bought at the local hardware store. The
material price is negligible.  I like to sit in my Mary garden and
work on a rosary.

I finally took a couple of pictures of our garden to send them to
you.


Jul 27 2002, John

Yes, do have the statue blessed, but have the grotto and flowers
blessed some time, too.

As quoted from the Catholic Encyclopedia in "The Blessing of Mary
Gardens as Holy Places", blessings produce "excitation of pious
emotions and affections of the heart".

I assume these must be actual graces (as sacramentals do not
produce sanctifying graces) which induce these emotions and
affections as the garden is  worked in or visited, and the flowers
beheld.


Mar 27 2003, Vicki

Thank you for sharing with us your thoughts about peace.  We are
all called to pray for peace, but the news seldom portrays the
aspect of the faith of those that are being attacked - to the
extent that I have no full understanding of their plight.

Now I understand why our Holy Father asked us to pray and fast for
peace, and declared the year that began in October the year of the
Rosary.


Jun 3, 2003, Vicki

We have a new guest this year in our Mary Garden. A small garden
snake has claimed the spot underneath the relocated logs over which
our Virgin Mary presides.

I was happier with our little field mouse, though.

I think there is a lesson for me to learn. I hope to decode it
soon!

Jun 6, 2003, John

With respect to the small garden snake homing under the statue of
your Mary Garden, this is very much in the Mary Garden tradition in
art, where a serpent-like creature was often included in a
subordinate position, to indicate Mary's conquering of the serpent,
per Genesis and Revelations.  This can be seen in the lower right
of the Mary Garden illustration in Dan Foley's article, "Mary
Gardens", on the website (OVERVIEW/ Medieval Mary Gardens) - an
illustration also used on the back jacket of Vincenzina's "Mary's
Flowers...".

Dan Foley used to give a Mary Garden slide lecture based on this
painting - using close-up photos of its flowers in telling of their
symbolism (of which he sent me a set).

Among the flowers of the Mary Garden we have, likewise, "Our Lady's
Adversary" (Echium vulgare, Adder's Tongue - Frauenkrieg).

There is a Russian proverb - I think mentioned in one of Catherine
Doherty's books - that at the end of the world the devil will be
converted, with Mary's lifting up of the serpent on the cross,
prophetically anticipated by Moses' lifting up of the serpent in
the desert.

Thus, it could be said that the baby snake in the Mary Garden (as
well as the baby wheat) can be seen as quickening our reflection on
the sure coming of God's Peaceable Kingdom on earth as it is in
heaven, as we pray each day in the Our Father.	 In some remarks
subsequent to his message on the Rosary, Pope John Paul II
clarified that the Kingdom he is referring to is the peaceable
culmination of earthly Creation, and not "just" the Kingdom of
Heaven or the Kingdom of Heaven within us: "this is our great hope
and our invocation: 'Your Kingdom come!' - a Kingdom of peace,
justice, and serenity, which will re-establish the original harmony
of creation."

Actually, I see the third, "Kingdom", luminous mystery, as the key
one, that the others relate to - with the Holy Spirit's action in
the first, Mary's mediation in the second, the culminating
transfiguration of the earth in the fourth, and the centrality of
the sacrament to all this in the fifth.	I get into this rather
heavily in my "Peace on Earth - Fatima Revisited" article on the
website - pointing out that today it's all dependent prayers for
peace, but no accompanying equally called for, (in the divine/human
sharing and cooperation which is the purpose of Creation),
sacrifices in reparation, for and with Christ, for the effects of
sin circulating in the world blocking the freedom of the
essentially good hearts and minds of leaders and all that they may
respond to the promptings of the graces of peace prayed for.

Send me a photo of your garden in full bloom.


Jun 6 2003, Vicki

I will be sending you pictures of our little garden soon as I scan
the snapshots taken last year.

We are having a rather overcast and wet spring around here, too.
Then on the upside, it will help our newly planted Roses of Sharon
establish. Sister snake has been a bit shy of us in the last few
days, perhaps she relocated? I am sorry to say that she will not be
particularly missed!

As our backyard gets fuller, we will be working more with the
Marian theme on the pots and hanging baskets. This year we have
done most of the baskets (about 13) in petunias.  We chose a very
vibrant cerise, in an effort to stress 'Our Lady's Praises'.
(Hullah-hoop series?)

There is a Marian theme in our front yard, and in the gardens at
the sides of our home. I paired up 'Our Lady's Mantle' with hostas
'Frances Williams' underneath our beloved magnolia tree. It looks
very pretty, we might relocate our St. Francis there.

Do magnolia trees have a Marian symbolism? What about Himalayan
geraniums (blue) and hydrangeas?


Jul 17 2003, Vicki

                 

This is what our little Mary garden looked like last season, we are
trying to improve things for the current one, we relocated the logs
to a more central part of the backyard, and are working around the
statue.

It is such a comfort to our spirit to invite Our Lady to our small
backyard!

Thank you, John.  You inspired us.  How could we ever express the
suitable gratitude to this great deed?


Jul 20 2003, Vicki

I just wanted to share with you some wonders that our family has
been pondering on . . .

Dear John, I am humbled and overwhelmed with thankfulness.  Forgive
me for using worn out expressions, but who knows what miracles you
can receive when you believe!

May God bless you a zillion times over, these wonders have been
brought about because you inspired us to start a Mary garden. Our
Lady wants to be present in our homes, she wants us to gather
around her and pray the Rosary while pondering on the mysteries of
our Lord's life. I can feel this in my life: I can see it so very
clearly!


Aug 21 2003, John

I much appreciate your valued messages telling of the movements of
the Holy Spirit and Providence, through Our Lady, in your Mary
Garden and home - and apologize for the lack of replies in kind;
especially for the photo of your Mary Garden you sent, now posted
to CHAT (with some blue in the sky replacing the white).

It is a joy to see the movements of Spirit in such things as those
surrounding the inspired planting of the two shrubs you mentioned,
and as the changes in those close to you.  These are the essence of
Mary Garden spirituality.

In attempting to set down the many thoughts inspired by "Tip-toeing
to Mary" and "Talking with Mary in the Garden" - now posted to the
website, I thought much of the things you have mentioned about
children.  The movements of the Spirit in the very young, are very
profound.  "And a little child shall lead them".  I recall a very
special spiritual communion and bonding through the eyes I
experienced daily with a classmate during kindergarten rest periods
- too sublime to be acknowledged, even with the eyes, at other time
during the class day.  A sort of Dante and Beatrice experience
which has guided all my other enterings into relationships in the
rest of my life.

Today, with my increased difficulty in walking (at 82) -
fortunately we're on one floor, with elevators - I find myself
highly attuned to constant sacrificial offerings from my daily life
for and with Christ, through Mary's Immaculate Heart, during the
day, for reparational diminishment of the effects of sin
circulating in the world - that the hearts and minds of rulers,
leaders, activists and all may be freed to respond in their
inherent created goodness to the promptings of Rosary-prayed-for
graces of peace.


Aug 21 2003, Vicki

At times my health is not the best, and yes it is a very comforting
thing to offer our little trials.  Suffering makes sense only if we
believe in redemption through the cross of our Lord.  Somehow I can
explain better this thought in Spanish.

And the wonders continue with the children in the Mary Garden.
Often times it is so amazing it chokes me up, who am I to deserve
the honour of witnesing all of these wonders!