"Then came the wind-flower

In the valley left behind, pale

As a wounded maiden

with purple streaks of woe."

- Sydney Dorrell (1824-74)

"Alas the Paphian! fair Adonis slain!

Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amein,

But gentle flowers are born and bloom around

from every drop that falls upon the ground.

Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the Rose,

And where a tear has dropped, a Wind-flower blows."

- Bion, The Lament for Adonis, early 1st century B.C.

"However frail this flower may sound, it resiliently withstands the cruel winds of the early spring and it has remarkable healing powers. "

- Ann McIntyre

Anemone also goes by the names Pasque Flower (blooms on Pascha, Easter, and Passover), Easter Flower, Pulsatilla, and Wind Flower. In Arabic, Anemone is called "Shaqa’iq An-Nu’man," which means wounds or pieces (Flora Ritualis). The Anemone that grows in China is called the flower of death, or "da po wan hua hua," which translates to broken bowl flower (Flora Ritualis). In Flemmish and Dutch, Anemone is also known as the Devil's plant, Devil's bite, or Devil's claw (DeCleene & LeJuene). A member of the Ranunculaceae family, Pulsatilla vulgaris is native to Europe and Pulsatilla patens is native to the Americas. Other varieties include Anemone Blanda or the Balkan Anemone, the Anemone Coronaria or Spanish Anemone, and the Hupeh, or Japanese Anemone. Anemone blooms in early spring even in the snow, and withstands cold winds, giving them the symbolism of resilience and beauty in the face of harsh conditions. Going dormant underground as early as July, Anemone plants can live over 50 years in some places, and "produce seeds that literally bury themselves":

"Each seed is attached to an awn that is made up of alternating strands of tissue. Each strand varies in its ability to absorb moisture. As spring rains come and go, the awns will twist and turn with the resulting effect of drilling the seeds directly into the ground." (Candeias).

An overview of Anemone's uses

Anemone has been recognized for its use as a fast acting nervine, mental relaxant, antispasmodic, + nerve tonic, especially helpful in aftermath of trauma, during waves of acute grief, panic attacks, overwhelming anxiety, dread, feeling out of one's body, spiraling in thoughts, "bad trips", or insomnia. Anemone is a low dose botanical --meaning depending on the dosage, anemone can be medicine or poison, and the dosage is much lower than other botanicals.

Recommended dosage is between 1-10 drops (larger doses can cause stomach upset, tightness in chest, high doses can cause convulsions, paralysis, + death). The fresh plant tincture should be used within 1-2 years. When harvesting, volatile oils are released when bruised, which can cause tears + blisters, wearing gloves is recommended.

Pulsatilla is contraindicated for those pregnant or with a slow heart rate.

Anemone has also been used to dye easter eggs, in various charms to ward of illness, while other times they have been associated with sickness.

Anemone Symbolism, Mythology, and Folklore

Anemone has been considered a harbinger of spring as well as symbolizing grief and heartbreak. They have been associated with illness and death, as well as with healing.

“Anemones’ ominousness seems to have cut across cultures. In Egypt and Persia, anemones were thought of as emblems of sickness, while the Chinese called them the 'flower of death.' In the Middle East, they were believed to be not just symbols, but actual carriers of disease. An early European custom was to run past fields of anemones, 'for country folk felt that even the air was poisoned from these flowers' (via Laura C. Martin’s Garden Flower Folklore)." (Zimmerman).

However, the Romans would gather the first anemone of the season and say "I gather this against all diseases", tying it to a sick person's arm or neck as a healing charm (Grieve).

In some rural areas in Europe, it was believed that fairies would nestle within the anemone flower for protection during the rain and night, since the flowers would close and droop their heads at these times (Grieve).

In Greek mythology, there are two stories about Anemone. In one, Anemone springs from the tears of Aphrodite after the notoriously beautiful (and mortal) Adonis was killed by a boar who he had tried to hunt, against the warning of Aphrodite (Ovid). Aphrodite, who was in love with him, wept and pled for Adonis to live on as a flower, and where her tears landed on the earth, the anemone sprang. In some tellings, it is from his blood that the anemone blooms, in others, it is a mixture of the two. In other stories, it is Rose that blooms from the blood of Adonis.

Though mortal in Greek mythology, the story of Adonis comes from a long line of vegetation myths and gods who don't live forever: vegetal gods who cyclically are born and die, who come from and are composted back into the earth, usually through sparagmos, literally being pulled apart in some way: Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus (Campbell). The name Adonis is also connected to Adonai, one of the Hebrew names for God. Not only does Adonis return to the earth, but he is also born from it, as his mother Myrrha, was turned into a Myrrh tree:

"The tree, contorted, cried and wept; the goddess

Stood near in pity, reached out helping hand,

Sang charms to aid the birth, and the tree cracked open.

The bark was split, the burden loosed, a baby

Gave his first cries, and naiads cradled him

On the soft leaves, and used his mother’s tears

To wash him. Even Envy praised his beauty” (Ovid).

The story of Adonis which was the foundation of the Adonia festival, where Athenian women would go to their rooftops to sing, dance, and mourn the death of Adonis. They would plant fast growing crops (like lettuce) in pots, which would quickly wilt and die in the sun, and then have a funeral procession for Adonis throughout the streets in a ritual display of grief, beating their chests and tearing their clothes, as shared by Sappho as the way to respond to such death and loss:

"Gentle Adonis is dying, O Cythera, what shall we do?

Beat your breasts, O maidens, and rend your garments.

Gentle Adonis wounded lies, dying, dying.

What message, O Cythera, dost thou send?

Beat, beat your white breasts, O ye weeping maidens,

And in wild grief your mourning garments rend."

(Quoted by Hephaestion, presumed written by Sappho from a passage in Pausanias)

The story of Adonis and Aphrodite/Venus is also echoing older stories of Ishtar & Tammuz, Isis and Osiris, and most recently, Mary & Jesus - though as Sophie Strand points out - the story of Jesus departs from his lineage of vegetal gods, as Jesus is resurrected and his body disappears, rather than being fed back into the earth and born again as a plant. But the Anemone still works its way into Christian mythology:

"The Anemone figures in crucifixion scenes and in connection with the Virgin Mary, do express her sorrow. In these instances. the red spots on the petals stand for the blood of Christ, as it was believed that the Anemone had sprouted on Golgotha on the eve of the Crucifixion. The trilobed leaves of the Anemone also used to be read as a symbol of the Holy Trinity." (DeCleene and Lejuene)

In the second story from Greek myth, Anemone is a beautiful nymph who the God Zephyr of the west winds is in love with. Zephyr's wife, the goddess Flora, becomes filled with jealousy and turns Anemone into an anemone flower, after which she is abandoned by Zephyr and yearly coerced into bloom by Boreas, God of the North wind (McIntyre). This is one of the stories that connects anemone to being forsaken in love. This story also, like the anemone deriving their name from the Greek word for wind (anemos), also speaks to the relationship between anemone and the wind, for "however frail this flower may sound, it resiliently withstands the cruel winds of the early spring" (McIntyre).

In other places in Europe, anemone mythology shares similar stories to the Adonis myth:

"The flower is also often found growing around ancient grave sites where warriors have fallen, and as a result is sometimes known as Dane's Flower, as many of these sites are in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, where many of the battles between the Danes and the native British people took place. " (English)

In the second story from Greek myth, Anemone is a beautiful nymph who the God Zephyr of the west winds is in love with. Zephyr's wife, the goddess Flora, becomes filled with jealousy and turns Anemone into an anemone flower, after which she is abandoned by Zephyr and yearly coerced into bloom by Boreas, God of the North wind (McIntyre). This is one of the stories that connects anemone to being forsaken in love. This story also, like the anemone deriving their name from the Greek word for wind (anemos), also speaks to the relationship between anemone and the wind, for "however frail this flower may sound, it resiliently withstands the cruel winds of the early spring" (McIntyre).

These stories of Anemone reveal a flower growing out of grief, spilt blood, tears, death, ruins. Ruins, which comes from the Latin ruina, meaning 'a collapse', which means to fall together. What happens when we allow ourselves the site of our falling together to be a place from which life grows? These stories also reveal the inseparability of life and death, and make me think of Bayo Akomolafe's invitation to call birth, life, or death, the inseparable life-death. If we take the role of Adonis, what does it look like "to reclaim life inside decay" (Strand), our own sparagmos? If Rosemary asks us what and who we need to re-member ourselves to and what we need to lay to rest, perhaps Anemone asks us to think about being torn by grief, and how through breaking apart, becoming mulch, we can make ourselves good soil, as Sophie Strand and others drawing on eco-mythic-poetic and indigenous wisdoms, and vegetal gods have asked of us.

We might also think about the ways that the flower opens for the sun, closes for the rain, and the ways this mimics the expansive and contracting states of life and grief and our nervous systems, and how it happens to also be incredible medicine for grieving hearts and troubled nervous systems. We might be inspired by Anemone's expressive movements and gestures to move our own bodies in dance, prayer, lamentation, joy.

Anemone is not abundant. Not as common or easy to find. It is one of the most endangered species in Europe. So what does it mean to work with a plant or species who you might never get to see, never get to consume, or that you consume in very small, precious, drop doses? Accessible plants offer a medicine that is right under our noses, a medicine of abundance and not what is common for granted, a sensing of the magic in the day to day, while endangered plants offer us the medicine of restraint in a capitalist society that conditions us to consume without it, that encourages relentless and exponential accumulation of wealth. Like Adonis if he had restrained himself and NOT hunted the wild boar, what does it mean for something to not be for us?

Just as Aphrodite and the women of Greece taking the role of grieving Aphrodite beat their chests, tear their clothes, and grieve like wild animals in the Adonia festival. We too might take on the role of the wildly grieving Aphrodite. These stories might ask us to explore the ways capitalism does condition us for restraint - restraint of our grief, restraint of our love, restraint of our desires to feed life, to be a part of the world as multitudes and collectives.

Sources

Candeias, M. (2016, March 23). Pasqueflower. In Defense of Plants. https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2016/3/23/spring-on-the-pra

Cleene, M. D., & Lejeune, M. C. (2003). Compendium of Symbolic and Ritual Plants in Europe: Vol I Trees & Shrubs/Vol II Herbs (1st edition).

English, A. (n.d.). Pasque Flower. Retrieved March 8, 2023, from http://www.eldrumherbs.co.uk/content/content_files/profiles_pasque-flower_anemone-pulsatilla.php?state=1

Folkard, R. (2012). Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics: Embracing the Myths, Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-Lore of the Plant Kingdom. Forgotten Books.

Flora Ritualis. (2021, July 2). Anemone Flower Meaning and Facts. https://floraritualis.com/anemone-flower-meaning-and-facts/

Grieve, M. (2015). A Modern Herbal: The Complete Edition (Illustrated edition). Stone Basin Books.

McIntyre, A. (1996). Flower Power: Flower Remedies for Healing Body and Soul Through Herbalism, Homeopathy, Aromatherapy, and Flower Essences (1st edition). Henry Holt and Company.

Pulsatilla vulgaris—From the Potting Shed. (2020, March 16). Essex Gardens Trust. https://www.essexgardenstrust.org.uk/new-blog/tag/Pulsatilla+vulgaris

Strand, S. Myths as Maps /312. (2022, November 9). FOR THE WILD. https://forthewild.world/podcast-transcripts/sophie-strand-on-myths-as-maps-312

Reed, M. (2020, October 20). PLANT OF THE WEEK #34: Pulsatilla vulgaris. The Gardenist. https://thegardenist.com.au/plant-of-the-week-34-pulsatilla-vulgaris/

The Poems of Sappho: 59: Gentle Adonis is dying, O Cythera, what shall we do?... Retrieved March 8, 2023, from https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/usappho/sph60.htm

Zimmerman, E. (2017, September 27). Daughter of the Wind. Medium. https://medium.com/s/garden-variety/daughter-of-the-wind-b5724abb7f3e