Pussywillows, Cattails and Other Tales

      Treasuring, remembering the promises of Spring   

Pussywillows, cat-tails, soft winds, and roses.

- Gordon Lightfoot, Lyrics and Music

Pussywillows, Cat-Tails (1968)

Folksinger and songwriter, Gordon Lightfoot grew up in Orillia, Ontario, one of many small towns in Canada's Muskoka region that swell with Summer tourists each year.  Lightfoot, who now lives in Canada's largest city - Toronto - would have spent his youth walking along country paths near lakes and ponds where the Pussywillows and Cattails (Bulrushes) grow.

Lightfoot is a legend in Canadian singing and songwriting, with:  If You Could Read My Mind, Did She Mention My Name?, Sundown, Carefree Highway, (That's What You Get) For Lovin' Me, Black Day in July, and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, to name only a few of his recordings. 

Orillia is also home to the Mariposa Folk Festival, which was founded in 1961.  Over the years, Lightfoot, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Buffy St Marie, Richie Havens, Donovan, Neil Young, Sonny Terry and Brownie Mcghee, Barenaked Ladies, Loreena Mckennit, and Serena Ryder have all played Mariposa.  

Like the Summer thunderstorms which blow across Muskoka, the Mariposa Folk Festival had a few stormy years.  In 1963, after wild, drunken brawls in the quiet streets of Orillia, the town council banned the folk festival.  So, in '64 the Mariposa Folk Festival took off for the big city of Toronto, where Lightfoot performed, Early Morning Rain for the first time.  Mariposa is Spanish for butterfly, and like the butterfly, the festival has moved many times over the decades, and is finally back in Orillia.

On it's Mariposa Folk Festival website, there's a quote from performer Chick Roberts, who said in 1985, "The history of Mariposa is not of any one person, it's the history of an idea.  Changing hands over and over again, Mariposa becomes like a folk tale...the myth survives and continues to fire the blood".     

There's a Polish folk tale about how Pussywillows came to be.  Kittens were chasing butterflies near the riverbank, when they fell into the water, and began to drown.  The mother cat's cries for help were heard by the willow branches.  The branches arched over, dipping into the river, and the kittens clung to them as they were lifted safely to shore.  Every Spring afterwards, the little kittens would reappear on willow branches.

There are many varieties of Pussywillows, however, the two most common are the small, snowy white, pearl shaped Pussywillow, and larger, Rabbit's Foot Pussywillow in these photographs.  The iconic, big, fluffy Rabbit's Foot variety stands on it's own, or in a floral arrangement.

This being the Ash Wednesday, and the first day of Lent, it is worth noting that Pussywillows have a revered place in Catholic and Orthodox churches throughout the Northern Hemisphere.  Palms do not grow in Northern climates, so, on Palm Sunday, many churches in Europe give Pussywillow branches to their parishioners.  Pussywillows often appear in Easter floral bouquets,

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Widow's Endorphins: A Hint of Spring

Widow's Endorphins: A Hint of Spring: There's a sweetness in the air, and a lightness in the steps of people walking through the city.  As the days grow longer, the lig...

A Hint of Spring

There's a sweetness in the air, and a lightness in the steps of people walking through the city.  As the days grow longer, the light itself has a lightness about it.  Spring is just around the corner...and up the street to the neighbourhood florist shop, or grocery store...

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Widow's Endorphins: A Valentine to Truth and Love

Widow's Endorphins: A Valentine to Truth and Love: If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.   - Alfred Tennyson.   Stop!  In the...

A Valentine to Truth and Love

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.  - Alfred Tennyson.  

Stop!  In the name of Love.  The British Baron and poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson never wrote those words.  The romantic verse, which appears each February, like a weed growing through the internet, was not penned in the 1800's.  It is believed to have been written by a young American woman around 1974.  In tracing the provenance of the popular Valentine's Day verse, I discovered that it was written by Claudia Adrienne Demilia, under the pen name Claudia Adrienne Grandi.  Riding on Gardenias Embracing Rainbows was published by Blue Mountain Arts, publishers of greeting cards, poetry and illustrations.

Oh, bother.  All I wanted was a line or two of verse in celebration of this day of love.  Oh, bother...
That's it!  Winnie-the-Pooh is filled with wonderful, loving quotations!

As soon as I saw you, I knew a grand adventure was going to happen.  - A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Love and destiny!  Isn't that one of the most romantic lines?  It's a beautiful, optimistic quotation, however, Alan Alexander Milne didn't write it.  In this era of fake news, one also needs to be wary of fake verse.  Fact checking this quotation, I discovered it is one of many quotations falsely attributed to Milne.

Milne's books, written between 1924 and 1928, are children's classics.  In 1961, Milne's widow sold the rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh series to Disney.  Many of the quotations which we now see on posters and greeting cards were written after Milne's death, by Disney writers.

The original words are, "Christopher Robin was sitting outside his door, putting on his Big Boots.  As soon as he saw the Big Boots, Pooh knew that an adventure was going to happen".  Not something you'd write in a Valentine's card!

Love.  It's not rocket science.  People have been falling in love, and writing about it for thousands of years.  Even the world's most famous genius wrote about it...

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. - Albert Einstein

Not exactly.  The Theoretical Physicist who wrote about the Laws of Attraction, had received a letter from someone who really didn't know anything about physics (or life), and wondered if standing on your head would somehow help people fall in love.  Einstein's answer, written in German on the pages of the letter, read, "falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do, but gravitation cannot be held  responsible for it."  Not something you'd like to write to your Valentine.

Still searching for words of love to write this Valentine's Day...and it comes back to my favourite little teddy bear:

How do you spell "love"? - Piglet
You don't spell it...you feel it. - Pooh

A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Truer words were never spoken.  Happy Valentine's Day to each one of you!

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.
Stop!  In the Name of Love:  Recorded by Diana Ross and the Supremes (1965), writers Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland Jr.
Truer words were never spoken:  William Shakespeare (Hamlet).

Widow's Endorphins: Carnations, Perfume and Goats

Widow's Endorphins: Carnations, Perfume and Goats: The intoxicating fragrance of carnations wafting on a warm breeze, is Summer - incarnate!  They may be growing along a white picket fe...

Carnations, Perfume and Goats

The intoxicating fragrance of carnations wafting on a warm breeze, is Summer - incarnate!  They may be growing along a white picket fence, or in terra cotta pots on a terrace.  One deep breath, and I am gone. The flower's spicy clove scent transports me to Spain, or Italy...or the Chilliwack, British Columbia radio station where at 19, I wrote and read my first newscasts.  I wore Bellodgia perfume every day, that first Summer. The spicy carnation scent creating an imaginary Mediterranean garden in the blue haze of a cigarettes-and-coffee-fueled newsroom. 

Bellodgia is the creation of perfumers Felicie and Ernest Daltroff, who worked for the Paris perfume house of Caron.  The Caron website describes the inspiration behind the fragrance this way, "some people return from their holiday with a few dried petals between the pages of a travel guide.  Felicie and Ernest wanted to immortalize in a fragrance the charm of a small Italian town overlooking Lake Como:  Bellagio."

The fragrance was introduced to the world in 1927.  Described as an "Oriental" fragrance with top notes of carnation and rose, it has middle notes of jasmine, lily-of-the-valley and violet; and, base notes of musk, clove, vanilla and sandalwood. It is said that over 100 essences make up the final notes.  Caron says the "warm and lively fragrance evokes sun-drenched fields of carnations, dotted with roses, jasmine, violets and lily-of-the-valley".

Scent does that.  It transports you to a time and place, and stirs memories.

The scent of carnations...Bellodgia...the rural radio station...remind me of goats.  If you're thinking cloves and cloven hoofs, it has nothing to do with that.  One of the first news stories to come across my desk, was that of a theft of goats from a goat dairy in nearby Agassiz. Everybody in town knew the couple who had owned the dairy were in the midst of a bitter divorce. Overnight, twenty-six milking goats, and two bucks vanished.    

"Who wrote this?" I thought to my little city slicker self, and immediately re-typed the news story to read: "twenty-six milking goats, and two dollars".  I broadcast the story through the night.  

It really gets my goat that commercially grown carnations have barely a trace of their spicy scent.  It's been bred out of them.  The oils which produce that iconic fragrance, also lessen the vase life of cut flowers, and cause problems in shipping.  The flowers are bred for ease of shipping, and longer vase life.  Cultivators are working on re-introducing scent to the new breed of carnations.

So, until then, you may wish to include a bottle of perfume along with your Valentine's bouquet of carnations.


You can now wear these lovely carnations on a flare dress, bodycon dress, or draped kimono (see links below)!

http://bit.do/flare-dresses
http://bit.do/AOWbodycon
http://bit.do/drapedkimono

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.