Oxygen While You Sleep

I drove out to Rolling Green Nursery to pick up a few plants that might color the ground as I await some dahlia rhizomes to grow and the leaves to surface.  "What the hell are dahlia rizhomes?" I asked my friend who offered me a bag full as a hostess gift.  I don't really know what I am doing, as I tender the mishmash of plants in my gardens and yard.  But I am learning.  Native to Africa I am sure these Gerbera Daisies will winter over well in Maine.  We will see how this perennial does as the snow flies come December.  The Egyptians would say "gerbera" means connectedness to Mother Earth and devotion to the sun.  I get that as I watch bloom heads the color of a morning sunrise shift their gaze from east to west as the day grows long.  The Celts identified Gerbera daisies as the flower that reflects everyday hardship, lessened and made sweet.  Apparently God sprayed these daisies over the earth when a child passed away.  Giving parents joy in the face of unimaginable sadness. Grief and joy.  I could use some of that good juju and relate to an African plant that may not winter over well in Maine.  The Norse claim that Freya, the golden goddess of love, fertility and beauty, holds the Gerbera Daisy as her sacred flower.  Upon the authority of Google I also learn that the yellow Gerbera, in particular, symbolizes happiness and joy.  Maybe all flowers do, especially those that follow the sun.  But how many can claim to have been discovered by a Scotsman while growing wild around excavated gold mines in South Africa in 1884?  And release fresh oxygen while you sleep.  Stories dance in my head of the Scotsman Robert Jameson plucking a wild Gerbera Daisy from the fields surround a grimy gold mine.  Did they call to him like they called to me at the nursery?  And how did the first one come to be?  I choose to believe the goddess Freya graced us with the gift of her sacred and beloved flower.  She's shooting through the heavens in her golden chariot pulled by her two male cats.  Under the power of Bygul and Trjegul, I watch her eyeing the fields of Africa.  After all she is the goddess of not only sex and lust but gold, war and death, crying golden tears as she longed for her wandering husband, Odr.  I have no doubt Odin and God approve.