THE DAFFODIL PRINCIPLE

In a recent post, I mentioned how lovely daffodils look when paired with blue and white porcelain. Later, I found this example. My point is well illustrated! I saved this picture a few days ago, and today, even after looking at over 50 pages of daffodil photos, paintings and drawings in six different categories, I can't find it again. However, I WILL find out who the artist of this wonderful piece is, and add the name of the artist and painting later.

As a result of my daffodil post, my friend Jude - also a lover of daffodils - sent me an essay called "The Daffodil Principle." Not knowing how to attach her email to this post, and not wanting to share her email address, I googled The Daffodil Principle. There are lots of websites featuring the essay, but the very first one - right at the top of the page - is illustrated with the picture (left, below) of daffodils and grape hyacinths.


Grape hyacinths, or muscari, are among my favorite of the spring bulbs. The first time I ever saw muscari, I was in the hospital. I was given a shallow clay pot filled with sky-blue muscari. Even though it was a very bad time for me, I still remember the lift those heavenly blue flowers gave me.

Back to the essay. In it, a daughter shows her reluctant mother a "glorious" sight, "a great vat of gold" daffodils flowing like a river down the mountain sides. The sight - and the fact that 10,000 bulbs were planted by just one woman - changed the woman's life forever. The fact that her daughter's name is Julie also endears this essay to me. (Go to http://www.myhomewithgod.com/. The author of the essay is Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards.)
I was then reminded of William Wordsworth's poem, "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud," in which he discovers "a crowd, a host of golden daffodils." As an English major, I naturally studied Wordsworth, one of the greatest of the romantic poets. I learned him so well that I can remember, without looking it up, that to Wordsworth, poetry is "Powerful emotion recollected in tranquility:"

*****

"For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils"

*****

May you dance (at least in spirit) with the daffodils today.

(For the entire poem, google it. One site is http://www.poemhunter.com/, a great site!)