light

This is the order of what I found on my facebook first thing this morning:

[a link] OregonLive : FBI thwarts terrorist bombing attempt at Portland holiday tree lighting, authorities say...

[a friend's comment...] What a wonderful world. So blessed, give thanks!

To go with a link to Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole singing Somewhere over the Rainbow*

[another friend's status update] "So shines a good deed in a weary world."

That last is Willy Wonka, after Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 5, Scene I, and the complete Shakespeare quote is:

Portia:
"That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

Naughty being apparently a biblical reference--Philippians 2:15: "That ye may be blameless, and pure, & the sonnes of God without rebuke in the middes of a naughtie and crooked nation, among whome ye shine as lights in the worlde." (the Bible in the article is stated as 1570 Genevan.)

In the context of the three random things my three different friends chose to post, I like "weary."

*[i don't watch tv so the kamakawiwoʻole song hasn't been ruined for me by being used on shows and commercials.]

ut omnia bene deflorescerent

I've always had a pretty hard crush on the ancient world. Reading about ancient history's nice because we know so much but we also know so little. So you can easily get inside those old stories and wear them like costumes, and it doesn't take long for them to fit you.

My favorite ancient Roman festival is the Floralia. It was a spring celebration in honor of Flora, goddess of flowers. The idea of a five day festival to ask for a blessing upon the flowers is lovely. Especially when the observance included eating, drinking, assorted merry-making, chucking garbanzo beans at people, and lots of theater where the actresses took their clothes off.

I guess it was a pretty bawdy holiday. Because, when it comes down to it, flowers are all about fertility. And there's just something extra cool about the combination of bawdy and sacred. Something so real.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Floralia to me was the incantation to the goddess.

ut omnia bene deflorescerent

I love those words. Especially the first three. Ut - in order that. Omnia - everything, all. Bene - good, well. I love how the elements of that phrase stand so far apart from each other. Like points of a triangle with room for air in between.

Deflorescerent is the word that snakes in and ties it all up together. And makes it about flowers. But leave that air in there, and anything could be as beautiful, as sensual, as real, as sacred.