JUNE IS BUSTIN' OUT ALL OVER

     

                                                                    JUNE

                                                            The day is warm

                                                            and a breeze is blowing,

                                                            the sky is blue

                                                            and its eye is glowing,

                                                            and everything’s new

                                                            and green and growing . . .

                                                            My shoes are off

                                                            and my socks are showing . . .

                                                           

                                                            My socks are off . . .

                                                            Do you know how I’m going?

                                                                                    BAREFOOT!

-          Aileen Fisher

Yes, as the song from Carousel goes June is indeed bustin’ out all over. It’s a month of exuberance with everything green and growing, a month of weddings – although truth to tell it’s been a long time since I actually went to a June wedding. School is out now and it’s a month of graduation open houses,  picnics, barbecues with swimming pools opening and Father’s Day, too. The first day of summer is June 21^st, although where I live I think June 1^st is the beginning of summer but it may be different farther north and much before that farther south. June also brings roses.

Harrison Yellow Antique Rose

 A sepal, petal, and a thorn

 Upon a common summer’s morn –

 A flask of Dew – A Bee or two –

 A Breeze – a caper in the trees –

 And I’m a Rose!

-          Emily Dickinson

          

Roses have been around for thousands of years and from earliest times it symbolized love and passion. In Ancient Crete, roses were being painted on castle walls in 1600 B.C. and in Egypt roses were portrayed on tombs. The Persians called it gul which meant  flower, close to the word ghul  meaning spirit. The Greeks associated it with the blood of Aphrodite’s beloved Adonis, and the Greek poetess, Sappho called it “The Queen of Flowers.” If the Greeks might have been the first to grow them in gardens, it was the Romans who loved them so much they spread the petals on their floors and in their beds. The name for rose comes from the Latin word, Rosa meaning red. They used them for food, medicines, perfumes and wine. Eventually the image of feasts and orgies using rose petals, became transfigured to an emblem of Christian mystical and spiritual love connected with the Virgin Mary, with Christ’s blood, and with the crown of  thorns.

John Cabot Rose with the clematis Ernest Markam,

It was the Romans who first  took roses to Great Britain, where they fell from favor once the Roman Empire fell. But a few of the hardier roses survived like The Apothecary rose ( Rosa gallica the Latin name) and now roses are much loved there. From what I’ve observed from my visits to English gardens, they seem to thrive in English weather.

Because I love roses and quite likely have close to seventy roses and probably more – I don’t have time to count them - it was reasonable to feature roses in my first mystery, The Blue Rose, especially since my Catherine Jewell Mystery series is on a monthly timeline starting in June when roses are at their most beautiful.

Although roses come in a huge variety of colors; reds, whites, yellows, pinks and so on, there has never been a true blue rose propagated although people have worked on it. There are roses out there with blue in the name like one of my favorites, 'Outta the Blue' but it’s more of a deep rose lavender color. And that is the reason for the murder in my book. Someone propagated the first true blue rose, and  there is doubt as to if he was the real propagator. Thus someone ends up dead because of a blue rose.

A little aside here. How many mothers would ask their sons to pose as a dead body? I did and he did, but without the garden fork in his back. My granddaughter, who designed the cover added the garden fork and blood.

What is your favorite flower?

What particular thing you love have you included in a book or story?