Floriile
Flower Power
The Romans before they were “proper” Romans had their ancient gods and goddesses that slowly were replaced or eclipsed by the classical ones we all know and love. They had these special priests called flamines that tended to their worship. Three married couples for the majors (Jupiter, Mars and Quirinius), and twelve or more for the minor ones. Among those minors, there was Ceres, Vulcan and also Flora.
Flora was the goddess of flowers, spring, youth, fertility. Somehow Wikipedia says she was a minor deity in the same paragraph where it says she was one of the select 15 that had a special priest serving her. This old Roman pantheon marked by the existence of flamines is populated by an almost forgotten bunch of deities. There are some that we don’t even know who they were and what was their domain of activity. But we know of Flora. Especially because Science adopted her name to label all plants. There was no Fauna or Funga between the flamines though.
So Flora had her own festival called Floralia.
At the festival, with the men decked in flowers, and the women wearing normally forbidden gay costumes, five days of farces and mimes were enacted – ithyphallic,[5] and including nudity when called for[6] – followed by a sixth day of the hunting of goats and hares.[7]
Her Greek equivalent is Chloris, one of the daughters of the titans Oceanus and Thetis. A nymph. She married Zephyrus. If I knew this back then, I would have linked somehow this card with the one for Zefir.
Anyhow, this goddess is corresponding in Romanian folk tradition to a group of fairy-like deities named Floriile, so “The Floras”. They form a collective. I will return to them in a moment.
The Christians came later and as it happens the feast that marks Jesus’ triumphal entry in Jerusalem just before being crucified is held the same day that the spring Flora youth feast is. Jesus, being a jew, came to Jerusalem for Passover. Little did he know that 2000 years later people would need to google what Passover was, on that date everybody celebrating his last trip before his death and rebirth instead. Not to mention that he couldn’t care less about Flora and still he is stuck with her and her clone army to this day.
So back to our girls. They bring the willow branches that our orthodox believers use to decorate the icons with and keep around to protect the house during the year in any instance of a natural calamity. Now it’s the time to stop wearing Mărțișorul and pin it on a blossoming branch outside. Girls would go into the forest to gather some hart’s tongue fern, used for love spells. The day was called “nettles wedding’s day” instead of the Roman label it has today. All of this in strong connection with the cult of the dead. Including doing work at their graves, sowing flowers, doing spells.
In Coliere V1 this is ΒΛΑΣΤΌΣ, Sprout, E(8,11), [x . xxx . xxx . x] appropriately. Growing from water. Just like Chloris from Oceanus. Unstoppable. Coming through. Each and every year, again and again.
Fla-min-es, Fla-min-es, Flo-ra!
Wear the willows, pick the flowers, do the farces, include nudity if you consider it necessary. And then, then, don’t forget to hunt for your (scape)goat. Don’t cheat like little Jarnesky here.