The Wisdom of Flowers
written by: Iris Taylor
@irisjtaylor
Across the mountains of Appalachia are places known as hollers—narrow valleys lined with hemlock and dogwood, most with creeks but others without—that some folk call their homes. In one such holler is a woman who lives in a cabin of mud and logs, packed floor to rafters with plants, herbs, and flowers. Folk from other hollers stop by now and then, most often in the spring and in the fall, seeking from her advice and tellings.
In the spring, they bring her the first flower they happen upon while traveling to her cabin. She looks over the flower, knowing what each one means, and gives them a telling.
“A white trillium on a Wednesday,” she says to one love-stricken man, “means you’re gonna find peace.”
“These bluebells on a Friday,” she says to a pretty young girl, “tell of true love.”
“Coneflowers on a Monday,” she says later to a fair woman, “signifies good health and a long life ahead.”
The combination of flowers and days of the week are almost endless, but the woman knows them all by heart, the wisdom passed down from her grandmother and her grandmother’s grandmother before her—the ancient and oft-forgotten art of floromancy, and the woman herself known as a floromancer. And while the tellings bring good money, the floromancer is relieved when the weather warms and the visitors dry up with it, for she lives utterly, but happily, alone.
That is, until, the seasons change again.
In the fall, men and women with baskets and dirty hands visit the floromancer. Sangers, they are called. They spend November in the dirt searching for a treasure known only to Appalachia: ginseng. Two pounds of the pale root is enough to pay for one’s needs over the winter, and the sangers seek out the floromancer before each harvest, for she knows the land well, and her tellings are always right.
Tellings for the sangers are different than for those folk who come in spring. The sangers bring her a bundle of buds that have not yet bloomed—most often asters and Black-Eyed Susans, for they bloom in the fall—and she sets them on a special shelf in her cabin and lets them dry. Once a week has passed, the floromancer looks at how the blooms have twisted and shriveled and divines a telling, again using the wisdom passed down from her grandmother and her grandmother’s grandmother. And folk travel from very far, for the flowers are always true, and the floromancer’s tellings are always right, and they seek whatever advantage can be sought for the harvest.
This year, one sanger—a gruff man with a long beard—arrives later than the rest with a bundle of yet-bloomed sunflowers. Behind him stoops a small figure, skinny and crooked from the heavy burden of carrying too many baskets. After the floromancer sets the sunflowers on her special shelf and receives her payment from the sanger, she bends down to the poor creature beneath the baskets and realizes it’s a child.
“Has the boy got a name?” the floromancer asks.
“It answers to Idiot,” the sanger grunts. “Names are only for them that’s worthy of one. It don’t need no name.”
The sanger leaves, and the crooked figure hobbles hurriedly behind.
The days pass, and on the fifth one, the floromancer looks over the yet-bloomed sunflowers. They had curled upon each other like lovers in an embrace, and the floromancer knows this means ‘temperance.’ She is pleased with this telling, for she has worried about the boy with the sanger, and a telling of temperance may lend him some patience and pity.
On the sixth day, the sanger does not return for the telling, but the boy does. The floromancer explains that the telling needs one more day to be true, but overcome with curiosity, she asks the boy’s name.
“Mama named me Iver,” he says from behind matted bangs. “She died three years back.”
“My name is Verdie,” the floromancer says, and then makes him an unexpected offering. “Are you any hungry?”
The boy nods with apprehension, but when she gives him some grits to eat, he pounces upon the plate like a bear after a long winter’s slumber and thanks her very kindly. And when she combs all the knots from his dark hair and washes the dirt from his face, she sees a set of blue eyes as brilliant as a jay’s wing and cheeks as rosy as pink apples and wonders how anyone could not cherish such a sweet boy.
Wanting to keep him from the sanger a little longer, the floromancer named Verdie sends the boy named Iver out to the woods to find some yet-bloomed flowers so she can give him a telling. He brings her back a single red rose.
“That’ll do just fine,” Verdie says, and then sets the rose upon her special shelf beside the sunflowers. And when she bids Iver goodbye, sadness—not relief—storms about her like a surprise blizzard that arrives late after the spring equinox.
Several more days pass until the sanger and Iver return, each carrying empty baskets ready for the ginseng harvest. As Verdie pulls the sunflowers from the shelf to show the sanger what they mean, she sees that Iver’s rose has bloomed and dropped its petals, and she knows that this means ‘death.’
Now very afraid and knowing that the flowers are always true and her tellings always right, Verdie strongly tells the sanger that his telling means temperance and that he must have patience with Iver or there will be dire consequences.
The sanger laughs. “You were supposed to give a tellin’ ’bout the harvest. I’ve been plenty patient with Idiot, but he’s good for nothin’.”
Verdie thinks long and hard, searching the wisdom of her grandmother and her grandmother’s grandmother. And knowing that the flowers are always true and her tellings always right, and knowing what she knows about her holler and that the sanger is cruel and greedy, she says: “A tellin’ of temperance can also mean ‘take a middle path.’ Up north, the woodland trail splits in three directions.”
Seeming satisfied with this telling, the sanger pulls at Iver’s wrist to leave, but Verdie stands in the door. She explains to him the rose that Iver had plucked and that he owes her for the extra telling. The sanger grows angry and orders Iver to pay the debt by laboring around her cabin while he takes the middle path alone, saying he will return at dusk.
Verdie, however, does not make Iver labor around her cabin that day. Instead, she combs out the new knots from his hair, again washes the dirt from his face, and mends his tattered clothes. After a good meal, she shows him around her cabin, including the special shelf she keeps the flowers on, and begins to teach him the wisdom of her grandmother and her grandmother’s grandmother.
“A goldenrod that’s dried straight,” she says, holding up the rigid stem, “can mean justice and truth.”
“And all curled up like this purple ironwood,” she says over a tangled ball of flowers, “indicates willpower and desire.”
“Does this one,” Iver asks, peering at a Black-Eyed Susan curled into a U, “mean to turn around?”
“Very good,” she says, praising his keenness. “It means to look within.”
And when the sanger does not return that evening, she explains to Iver that a telling of death can also mean new beginnings, and that the middle path to the north is rife with bears and other dangers and must always be avoided. And when she offers to let Iver stay with her, she is very relieved when he says yes, and Verdie says she will love him as if she had borne him herself, and with some time he will become the next holder of wisdom of a long line of floromancers.
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