The flowers

Observation. – This communication and the following one [The role of woman] were obtained by Mr. F…, of whom we already spoke in our October issue, in connection with the Obsessed and Subjugated; through them we shall be able to judge the difference that exists between the nature of these present communications and the earlier ones. His will triumphed completely over the obsession of which he was a victim, and his evil Spirit did not reappear. These two communications were dictated to him by Bernard Palissy. [see Palissy's communication through another medium: Description of Jupiter.]

The flowers were created in the world as symbols of beauty, of purity, and of hope.

Why does man, who sees the corollas open every springtime, and the flowers wither in order to be transformed into delicious fruits, not imagine that his life too will blossom to give place to eternal fruits? Those flowers will never perish, just as the frailest work of the Creator does not perish. Take courage, then, men who fall along the way; rise up like the lily, after the storm, more pure and radiant. Like the flowers, the winds lash you from every side, knock you down, and drag you through the mire; but when the Sun reappears your heads rise again, more noble and more proud. Love the flowers, then; they are the emblem of your life, and do not fear to blush at being compared to them. Keep them in your gardens, in your houses, and even in your temples, for they will be well placed anywhere; everywhere they invite to poetry, elevating the soul of those who know how to understand them. Was it not in the flowers that God manifested all his magnificence? Whence would you know the gentle colors with which the Creator gladdened Nature, were it not for the flowers? Before man had dug into the bowels of the earth to find the ruby and the topaz, there were flowers before him, and that infinite variety of hues already consoled him for the monotony of the earthly crust. Love the flowers, then: you will be more pure and more tender; you will be, perhaps, more children, but children dear to God, and your simple and unblemished souls will be accessible to all his love, to all the joy with which he will warm your hearts. The flowers wish to be cared for by enlightened hands; intelligence is necessary for their prosperity; for a long time you labored in error on Earth by leaving that care to unskilled hands which mutilated them, imagining they were embellishing them. Nothing is sadder than the trees rounded or pointed in some of your gardens: veritable pyramids of greenery, which produce the effect of a heap of hay. Let Nature take its impulse under a thousand diverse forms: therein lies grace. Happy is he who knows how to admire the beauty of a stalk that sways, sowing its fecundating dust; happy is he who sees in its brilliant colors an infinity of grace, of fineness, of coloring, of hues that flee and seek one another, lose and find one another again. Happy is he who knows how to understand the beauty of the gradation of tones! From the dark root, which weds itself to the earth, how the colors blend up to the scarlet red of the tulip and of the poppy! (Why these rude and bizarre names?) Study all this and note the petals that come forth from one another like infinite generations until their complete blossoming beneath the celestial vault.

Do the flowers not seem to leave the Earth to fling themselves toward other worlds? Does it not seem that they often bend their heads, sorrowful, because they cannot raise themselves still higher? By their beauty, do we not imagine that they are closer to God? Imitate them, then, and you will become ever greater, ever more beautiful.

Your manner of learning botany is also deficient: it is not enough to know the name of a plant. I exhort you, when you have time, to also work on a work of that kind. I defer to a later time the lessons I wished to convey to you in these days; they will be more useful when we have their application in hand. Then we shall speak of the kind of cultivation, of the places that suit them, of the arrangement of the building for ventilation, and of the salubrity of the dwellings. If you have this printed, suppress the last paragraphs; they would be taken for advertisements.

Bernard Palissy. n [1]

[see Bernard Palissy.]