
I am falling upright, suddenly i am falling upright. I was falling and twisting. Slow, twist increasing in speed. Mouth open wide but no sound. It's in space. The complete feeling of space and nothingness. Nothingness. Gathering speed, my head was spinning more and more. Accelerating all the time and increasing in speed, just tumbling and falling. I try sometimes to think in myself, "well this is lovely you should be enjoying this but I'm so panic stricken." I see no cloud at all. I was falling through this water. That was all around me through this water. Seem to go down, down down. It's a long way down. It is very dark and deep. It is very dark and very deep.
-Delia Derbyshire, Falling from the Dreams - Radio version 1964
The high pitched waves sing slowly from my eardrum through my nerves. Stopping under my cornia. Settling and dispersing into fuzzy noise. The pitch sinks in deeper and starts to divide. A low rumbling tone stumbles along neurons and into each synapse deepening its path. I can feel it in my nostrils now. Dark and woody church pews, creaking with each footstep on carpet echoing off each crusted wallpaper wall. Heavy eyelids looking up to the gotchic lantern just standing still beneath the waxy pointed arches repeated throughout, the trefoil and quatrefoil motifs, the tracery and the finials.
Upon awaking from my gaunt audial daydream, I was researching the significance of violets dating back to the early greeks, through the middle ages, and all the way into the victorian era to now. Because of its heart shape, it is called he "Our Lady's Modesty" because it was said that it blossomed when the Angel, Gabriel came to tell Mary that she was able to bare the Son of God. Monks saw the tricolor as representative of the trinity, "viola tricolor". The deep purple, "Viola odorata" is native of the Mediterranean region -- I feel a sense of home as I smell the different violet scents that I have picked up over the past few months. Often associated with moroseness or death among ancient Greeks and Romans. They were routinely scattered through tombs and symbols of innocense and modesty. Although, I really don't feel sad or depressed from the sight or smell. Maybe a contemplativeness?
I am just settling into the fact that stories from the Bible or imagery of Christianity overwhelm me with a sense of comfort from childhood. Of course, I know not everyone can say the same, but there is a picture of me that I want to find outside of church, probably on Easter, where I am wearing a white or light pink peacoat with a brimmed hat that looks like a blossom. Eyes closed with my face pressed against a tulip.
Image reference: Robin Tanner (1904-88) Woodcut of Violets - "... And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants...” - Francis Bacon, in his essay “Of Gardens” (1625)