“Marigold Mournings” – The morning-after feeling of Love lost and the anguish that ensues. Marigolds are sacred flowers for honoring grief, harbingers of hope and promise, floral trails that lead spirits home. When we are struggling with significant loss like the death of a loved one, the atrocities of war, environmental trauma, or catastrophic injustice, marigolds provide a tonic for “Grief Hangover” like no other. And the world’s grief is heavy right now, a macrocosm of my own.
Late October – early November is traditionally a time for mourning, remembering, and celebrating the dead. It’s a threshold time.
Grief – like love – can find us any time. Autumn threshold celebrations collaborate with Nature’s own transitional season to help us cope with lingering grief. “Dia de los Muertos,” the “Day of the Dead” celebrates death as a transition – part of the cycle of life. Marigold blooms adorn altars and pathways in Dia de los Muertos rituals, transforming loss into possibility and hope. It is a tender time to remember, celebrate, and connect. The celebrations feature vibrant altars called ofrendas, where photos, personal mementos, favorite foods, sugar skulls and brilliant flowers honor the ones we love. Marigolds are seen everywhere on these altars, a radiant symbol of the enduring bonds between the living and the dead, their bright colors and potent fragrances guiding the spirits of the dead back to their families.
The transition of October to November is also celebrated in the ancient Celtic tradition of “Samhain,” when the end of the harvest and the onset of winter signals a time for reflection and deepening. The “thinning of the veil” represents the permeability of the spiritual boundary between the living and the dead, when we can hover in the liminal space between worlds and allow our grief to be transformed. Similarly, “All Hallow’s Eve” (Halloween) with its night-ghost parade gives way to the Feasts of “All Saints” and “All Souls,” when we remember, reconnect, and celebrate our loved ones who have died but continue life in a new way, intrinsic to our collective memory and identity. Feeling close to the ones we lost is healing, even through a veil.
Flowers of Mexico and Central America, Marigolds (so named for offerings to the Virgin – ‘Mary’s Gold’) symbolize new life springing from death. They are of the genus “Tagetes,” a reference to the ancient Etruscan prophet Tages, often depicted as a wizened child. Tages was said to have emerged from a ploughed furrow in the Earth, teaching divination or divine knowledge. This legend is the origin of the art of Haruspicy – divination by reading entrails – knowledge arising from “interpreting” death, central to Etruscan mythos and praxis. Marigolds hold deep meaning in various spiritual wisdom traditions, including ancient Aztec and Mayan cultures, signifying the sun’s light and divine wisdom. They are also central to Hindu celebrations of intimacy and marriage, signifying the divine nature of Love itself. For this reason, Marigolds have come to symbolize wisdom, love, death and life.
Marigolds are also awesome ecosystem companions. Pollinator-attractors and nematode repellants, aphid, fly and moth deterrents, they contribute to soil health, integrity, and fertility. They play so nicely as garden companions with our veggie varietals, demonstrating why they are champions for biodiversity with bursts of collaborative energy. We love to see them blooming in our gardens because they’re gorgeous, yes, but also because they have plentiful medicinal properties for skin care, digestive health, respiratory aids for aromatherapy, and healing energy for chromatherapy. They make us feel happy and healthy.
Marigolds also help us navigate transition. While we are experiencing a global Grief Hangover from all that is happening in our world, geopolitical collapse, violence, warfare, and ecological devastation, we also experience “normal” sadness from personal loss, professional disappointment, health decline, deficits of energy and imagination, community and family division, communication and relationship failure, and general malaise from stress and anxiety. Marigolds are a mending remedy for the splintered soul. Go greet them each dawn! Models of collaboration, thresholds for connection, symbols of wisdom, hope, and new life, Marigolds are for our Mournings.
Shimmering cheeks and soulful eyes
Sparkling with memory and dream
A lithe grace of decomposition
Longing to float with him again
Bright orange-yellow Glow
Each arcing toward the other
In tender Lamentation and Longing
Softly waiting among the Marigolds
She offers her Gift of Tears
