Tutu & Blue Asters

Every flower has a history and every flower symbolizes something. Often the history and symbols are confusing and contradictory but they are still fascinating. If your birthday is in the month of September, your flower is the aster. Here is the story and language of your flower.

The Latin name for the aster is Aster, which literally means star. The association with stars, clearly references the flower’s shape. While we no longer use the word aster to refer to stars, we still use words that use the root aster in words with related meanings. The word asterisk literally means ‘little star,’ while the word disaster refers to something that occurred under a bad omen or something that was ‘ill-starred.’

The colloquial names for the aster are starwort and Michaelmas daisy. (From Suite101 by Melissa Howard)

(Blue aster by zizzy via flickr)

Week's End - Rosemary

That's for remembrance. It feels like it was last year, September 11, 2001. I had this pretty photograph from Design*Sponge in a photo folder. It's rosemary (no kidding) & the Shakespeare popped in. And then I thought, there...that is the way it runs...which is from Bellow's Herzog. Ian McEwan opens Saturday with a fairly long quote using that passage - to excellent effect. (Of course.) Which just means that I access too much free association & call it a post. Eh. Have a good weekend.