Hair today, grass tomorrow... LOL! I'm in a playful mood... hope you enjoy my photos. I oft think of the similarities between hair and grass... connections everywhere. I posted this and had gone to bed, picked up the book I'm reading,
American Indian Myths and Legends, selected and edited by R. Erdoes and A. Ortiz. I read the story,
Creation of the Animal People, an Okanogan creation story, and found yet another connection to include here... thus adding the sacred to the silly! (...everything is sacred, even the silly)
And this is the part that applies. It begins:
The earth was once a human being: Old One made her out of a woman. "You will be the mother of all people," he said.
Earth is alive yet, but she has changed. The soil is her flesh, the rocks are her bones, the wind is her breath, trees and grass are her hair. She lives spread out, and we live on her...
I advise caution though, once you get past the lovely photopoetic meditation... if you dare to read the 'FLAXEN' remainder of my stream-of-consciousness, hair-brained, free-fall-association-sunday's mental meanderings... I shall not be responsible for any levity you may experience!
xoxo! julie
Hair today, grass tomorrow? In a playful mood
casita-sitting down here in Corrales, NM enjoying autumn... watchin' the
grass grow flaxen and red and purple, watchin' the cottonwood leaves turn
into yellow gold.
CAUTION: oh, the many fun directions this wordplay may go... (Rated R) oh, the skills I learned as a reference librarian!... and Googling...
flax·en [flak-suhn] 1. made of flax. 2. pertaining to flax. 3. resembling flax.
4. of the pale yellowish color of dressed flax. Origin: 1510–20.
Google "flaxen hair" and the first entry is:
blond [blɒnd] adj 1. hair of a
light colour; fair 2. (of a person, people or a
race) having fair hair, a light complexion, and, typically, blue or grey eyes... [from Old French blond, probably of Germanic origin; related to Late Latin blundus yellow, Italian biondo, Spanish blondo]
synonyms:
|
albino, auricomous, bleached, blond,champagne, fair, fair-haired, flaxen , golden-haired, leucous, light, pale, platinum, sallow,sandy-haired, snowy, stramineous, straw, strawberry, towheaded, washed-out, yellow-haired
|
But FLAX is not a GRASS ~ accept that there is a grass
called Flax Grass or Wind Grass "a handsome grass forming a large weeping
clump"... OOOOOOOOOOH! POOR THING!
Either way they both have ROOTS, as does
HAIR, whether it is flaxen, brunette, black, white, red, gray, purple, green, gold, blue, teal... et al, which
brings us to:
1766, literally;
figurative use from 1901 in sense "FUNdamental level;" U.S. political
sense of "the rank and file of the electorate" is attested from 1912.
You see how my mind works? Silliness! I like GRASS!
But if FLAX is not a GRASS as I had previously thought, what
is it? We know flax
seed. Flax, or linseed, Linum usitatissimum... member of the
genus Linum in
the family Linaceae. Hmmmm... more ROOTS, as in family
history... (which I've also been
researching today... everything is connected somehow, ain't it?!) So as I read WIKIPEDIA I find a whole
lot flax goin' on... LOL!... so here's the Wiki'd Reader's Digest Condensed Version:
...native eastern Mediterranean to India... domesticated in
the Fertile
Crescent... cultivated in ancient Ethiopia and ancient Egypt... discovery
of spun, dyed, and knotted wild flax fibers in a prehistoric cave... an
erect annual plant...
OH, THOSE CAVE BOYS!
with slender stems.... SOUNDS LIKE GRASS TO ME!... use... for
the production of linen...
ancient Egyptian... Pictures on tombs and temple walls at Thebes depict
flowering flax plants... Europe... Neolithic... North America... flax the Puritans... KNOW THERE'S A
STATEMENT THAT'S NEVER BEEN SAID BEFORE!
edible oil, nutritional... ingredient
in wood finishing products... I
CAN HEAR WHAT Y'ALL ARE THINKIN' HERE... JULIE MUST BE SNIFFING WOOD FINISHING
PRODUCTS OUT THERE IN CORRALES...
an ornamental plant in gardens... Flax seeds... omega-3 fatty acids... solin...
linseed oil... of the
oldest commercial oils, and solvent-processed flax seed oil has been used for
centuries as a drying oil in
painting and varnishing... THERE
Y'ALL GO A THINKIN' AGAIN... fibers... Heckling Shops... DON'T I KNOW IT?!... bast... I'M SO BASTED...
soft,
lustrous and flexible; bundles of fiber have the appearance of blonde hair,
hence the description "flaxen"... SEE, THERE'S THE CONNECTION! ...damasks, lace and sheeting...
OH THE FINENESS, THE LUXURY!... Coarser grades are used for the manufacturing of twine and rope... high-quality paper
industry for the use of printed banknotes and rolling paper for cigarettes and tea
bags... THIS JUST KEEPS GETTIN'
BETTER!...
Cultivation... harvesting... AHHH, AUTUMN, MY FAVORITE
SEASON... TAKES ME BACK TO YE OLE
FAMILIA FARM!... manual... maximizing the fiber length... Mechanical...
mowing... similar to hay harvesting... raked into windrows... STILL BACK ON THE
FARM!... combine then harvests... harvesting... OH THE MEMORIES!... weeds in
the straw... market prices... burned... MAS CONNECTIONS...
Minnesota...straw
bale stacks... as tall as a two-story house... pulled up with the roots...
then retted...
RETTED? WELL THAT'S A NEW ONE... evenly
rett the stalks... RETT? WHERE?...
GONE WITH THE WIND (GRASS) FOOLISH SCARLET!...
rolled up... stored by farmers
before scutching... SOUNDS COZY?...
threshing... HMMM... SOUNDS LIKE A BAD DREAM... tool for threshing...
OK... KINKY!... broken straw... thrash out... I'M READY TO LASH OUT!... for the very finest purposes... lace, cambric, damask, and very
fine linen... OH THAT'S NICE...
SHE SAID SARCASTICALLY... WHAT ABOUT THE CHEESEMAKERS AND ALL THE OTHER FARMER
TYPES?...
small bundles... holding it in the left hand... between the threshing machine and
the bed or block... against which... to strike; backward and forward... until
all threshed out... end above... between the beater... gently till the three or
four inches... appear to be soft...
remove ... little finger... WHAT?... block... flax... flat upon the
block as possible.[citation
needed]... I'D SAY!
SOMEBODY CALL THE FLAXEN POLICE!...
spinning... retting...
dressing...YES! PUT YOUR CLOTHES
BACK ON!... rotting away... "broken," left unharmed, then
"scutched,"... scraped... pulled through "hackles"...
retted in a pond, stream, field or a tank... WHAT'S WRONG WITH A BED, MAN?!... soft and slimy, and...
standing out... OH, I SEE...
wrapped
around a finger the inner woody part springs away... Pond retting is the
fastest... WAM-BAM-THANK-YOU-MAM!... evaporate... in shallow pool... warm up...
in the sun; the process may take... only a couple days to a couple weeks... OH,
YOU DON'T SAY? LET ME RETHINK
THIS!... retting also produces quite an odor... scum will collect... NEVERMIND!.
Dressing... breaking, scutching, and heckling... genetically
modified flax contamination... WHAT'S NEXT?... a zero tolerance policy
regarding GMOs...
GOOD!...
As a symbolic image... AND AS A SYMBOLIC GESTURE OF LITERARY GOOD WILL... I SHALL COME TO A CLOSE HERE...
In
early tellings of the Sleeping Beauty tale,
such as Sun, Moon,
and Talia by Giambattista Basile, the princess pricks her
finger not on a spindle but on a sliver of flax, which is later sucked out by
her children conceived as she sleeps... WHAT? WELL MAMMA SURE DIDN'T TELL ME THAT VERSION! WICKED WIKIPEDIA! NAUGHTY NAUGHTY
ZUET! FLAXEN POETIC HAIR &
GRASS... &
WHAT KINDA CIGARETTES HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKIN' WITH YOUR TEA, YOU
ASK? ME? I'M JUST A GIRL WITH FLAXEN GOLDEN HAIR SPINNING, RHETTING, Dressing... breaking, scutching, &
heckling A GOOD YARN! ... A SLIVER OF A SILLY IDEA INTO GOLD... IF NOT A
LITTLE FOOLISHLY! AND ALWAYS FOR
GRINS & GIGGLES!
SO IF YOU MADE IT ALL THE WAY TO THE END OF THIS SILLINESS
YOU DESERVE A PRIZE! E-MAIL
ME AND I'LL SEE WHAT KINDA HAIR I CAN PULL OUT BY THE ROOTS OF MY MAD GRASS HATTER! ✿
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