Category: Scabiosa caucasica

A song for the angels

by Catherine, posted in Scabiosa caucasica

 One of my favourite flowers, Scabiosa caucasica,Scabieuse-du-caucase-bleue2 has started blooming in the garden. Between the Pinks (Dianthus superbus) mentioned in an earlier post and Scabiosa, I’m in heaven. Life is good. All Scabiosa flowers intrigue me along with related ones, such as Knautia macedonica.

These flowers are commonly called Pincushion flowers. Like the people who live in this climate, Scabiosa are hearty souls, who thrive with added lime in the soil and good drainage.

One of my favourite songs, A Song for the Angels, by the amazing
Canadian indie group, Great Lake Swimmers, seems to be the perfect
music to listen to while spending time admiring these flowers.

Scabieuse-du-caucase-bleue

If you have a chance,
take a listen to this song. Here is a link to the song on YouTube.

I am lucky to have my niece, Antonia, regularly supplying me with new music. This group was one she introduced me to – thankfully.

Here are the amazing lyrics …

The echo to your yell
The ripple to your dive
The currents under your wave

Electricity
Flows through me
I send it out to you
We were charged
With the founding poles
Of a million years
A million years
Before us
Have trembled in their fears

Never saw you never heard you
But i knew that you where there
Everywhere
I could feel you all around me

I know that i am just a grain of sand
Meeting water at the land
We could make our castles here
And sweep them all away

I know that i am just a drop of water
Frozen into ice on the stormy earth
Who gave us birth
Over and over in cycles
Lovely cycles

Never saw you never heard you
But i knew that you were there
Everywhere
I could feel you all around me

Wild Geese and Scabiosa

by Catherine, posted in Scabiosa caucasica

With the wind whistling through the trees tonight, I spent some time looking through my photographs from this past summer. I came across this picture of Scabiosa caucasica – one of my all-time favourite flowers.It’s hard to believe that it is already November. When I took the dog outside last tonight, I heard the sound of geese flying overhead and thought of their long flight to a warmer place. I was reminded of this poem by Mary Oliver.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.