| |
|
Myths of Rose mary
Today and throughout history a common association with rosemary is remembrance. We still use it to signify a special love or friendship and some countries continue to place a sprig of rosemary in the hands of the deceased before burial. Early Greek students took the meaning more literally by wearing wreaths of rosemary around their heads to stimulate their memories during exams.
Rosemary was once thought to ward off evil spirits. During the Middle Ages people slept with rosemary branches under their pillows to keep them safe from demons and nightmares. Demons can take many forms such as unpleasant odors, witchcraft and the Plague--rosemary has been burned or ingested or carried to prevent them all.
Just how rosemary received the name has differing stories behind it. One story tells us that as the Virgin Mary was fleeing to Egypt with baby Jesus she tossed her blue cloak onto a bush. The next day, flowers that had been white were blue and the herb became known as "rose of Mary." Other sources site Pliny who wanted to describe it as an herb that grew in coastal regions, or more specifically by the foam (ros) of the sea (mare).
Should you decide to grow a bit of rosemary, consider these sayings: Rosemary only grows in the gardens of the righteous. If rosemary grows vigorously in a family's garden, it means a woman heads the household. Rosemary will grow no higher than six feet in 33 years so that it doesn't stand taller than Christ. And finally, a quote from Saint Thomas Moore: "I lett it runne all over my garden wall, not onlie because my bees love it, but because 'tis an herb sacred to remembrance, and therefor to friendship."
The above taken from a search on google.
The name Rosemarinus or "dew of the sea" did not originally allude to the Virgin Mary, even though the shrub is now regarded as Mary's. Initially the name indicated Venus or Aphrodite. The rosy "dew" was the blood & semen of castrated Neptune or Poseidon which impregnated the waves, causing Aphrodite to step forth from the ocean onto the Isle of Cypros. She was greeted by naiads who draped her naked body in myrtle, but not surprisingly, in ancient portraits of Aphrodite, rosemary as well as myrtle is worked into the imagery. This is undoubtedly why Rosemary is to this day regarded as an aphrodesiac. Rosemary in relative modern times was traditionally entwined into a bride's head-wreath to encourage couples to remember their wedding vows, but this really does sound like a lingering belief in rosemary as enhancing virility & fertility.
In Greece rosemary shrubs grow to six or seven feet high & have since ancient times been associated with the entrance to the land of the dead, because aromatic herbs were used in funereal rituals to lessen the stench of decay, & rosemary is a preservative spice.
The Titaness Mnemosyne (Memory) was a cthonic goddess of the ancient Greek Maenads & Orphics. She met her worshippers at a dark pool in Tartarus & took back from them all the memories she permitted them in life, so that they would not suffer in the land of shades. This Goddess Memory (& of Unmemory) is essentially a reflex of Black Aphrodite, aka Persephone, a loving & beautiful queen of darkness. And when Shakespeare's equally lovely & deathly Ophelia says, "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance," I seriously doubt the association is concidental to Orphism.
Goddess of the pillar |
|
|
