May’s Flower
Lily of the Valley
These beautiful and fragile flowers make their home in northern Europe and carpet the greening meadows and valleys of May with their milky white blossoms like stars in a midnight blue universe. The lily of the valley has held deeply religious and symbolic meaning for people across the ages and the stories connected with this humble little flower are filled with wonder and the miraculous. During ancient May festivals young men and women created beautiful bouquets of lily of the valley, which were also known as may lily or may bells, to exchange with the ones they hoped to love and be loved by. Another name for this beguiling flower is fairy’s bells and alludes to a wonderful story that fairies only emerge and may become visible to some who are seers when the nightingales sing them out. But the nightingales only sing their joyful refrains once the lily of the valley has permeated the air with their fragrant scent. So the fairies dance with the flowers, and in the dancing the flowers begin to release their sweet fragrance. As the fairies dance and are overtaken by the songs and scents around them some forget to guard their invisibility and may be glimpsed by one who might be gazing at just the right moment into another world.
A sad but as beautiful tale is that of the Virgin’s sacred power to generate life on her own terms and through her own body’s life giving capacity. When Mary sat weeping at the feet of her crucified son on the hill of Golgotha her bittersweet tears as they touched the bruised ground gave birth to flowers all around her and under the bleeding body of Jesus. This sacred, sorrowful and strangely beautiful image gave rise to the custom of naming the lily of the valley, lady’s tears and the flower becoming the Virgin’s own. Since the Middle Ages, the lily of valley has also symbolized purity and modesty the primary attributes of Mary and also young brides.
The lily of the valley is also a healing flower in an ironic and dangerous way. The plant itself-stalk, flowers and berries-is highly toxic and can kill. However, if carefully processed an effective and extremely important extract is produced by the plant called digitalis glycosides used to effectively treat heart disease for centuries. With this radical duality in its inherent nature, lily of the valley has come to symbolize the making of choices, of making decisive moves. It is a flower whose attributes clearly reflect the profound opposites we are faced with in life in all its dimensions, complexities and mysteries.