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                                               Intro Mary Garden


     FLOWERS OF OUR LADY AND MARY GARDENS SLIDE LECTURE 

                50 SLIDES AND NARRATION TEXT


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50 2" Slides with accompanying narration for successive or selected
             individual viewing on computer with Microsoft Internet
             Explorer or Netscape Navigator Browsers (all versions). 


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50 6" Slides for successive or selected viewing (Slides only) on
             computer with Microsoft Explorer v5 Browser - in
             Powerpoint format; and for successive downloading
             to folder/directory for off-line Powerpoint displaying
             with computer projector for group viewing.

             Narration Text for printing out and reading as the
             slides are shown (or for reference in developing your
             own narration).

             Detailed Instructions for downloading slides and
             displaying them off-line for groups with PowerPoint
             and computer projector.


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Slide Groupings


   Historical Origins:

 - Slides  1-10



   30 Flowers of Our Lady

 - Slides 11-20

 - Slides 21-30

 - Slides 31-40


   Some Representative Mary Gardens Today

 - Slides 41-50


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Overview


   The revealed basis of flowers symbols of Our Lady:

       - the Rod of Jesse flower imagery of the Isaias' prophecy of
         the Virgin Birth of the Messiah 

       - Biblical flower imagery applied to Mary by the Church
         Fathers

       - flower symbols of Mary discerned in nature by
         St. Bede, St. Bernard, St. Francis and Dante

       - flower symbols of Mary in the popular religious
         traditions and folklore of the medieval countrysides

       - symbolical Marian flower names from oral traditions
         as recorded in plant dictionaries and floras from the
         field research of botanists and folklorists.


   The Use of Flower Symbols in Marian Veneration,
   Devotion and Meditation:

       - Gothic Cathedral Rose Window and Tympanna figures of
         Mary, Mother of God, surrounded by images and symbols

       - Books of Hours illustrations of the Virgin surrounded
         by her flower symbols, for meditation

       - Mary Garden paintings of the Virgin and Child in
         gardens of symbolical flowers

       - Devotional cultivation of Flowers of Our Lady in
         monastery gardens

       - Entire medieval Mary Gardens of Flowers of Our Lady

       - The contemporary Mary Garden movement inspired by the
         Garden of Our Lady planted at St. Joseph's Church,
         Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1932
     




Additional links have been provided from the texts of some of the
slides to relevant articles of the web site.