AtDTDA (43) 949, 973, 975 Roses

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Every now and then [lately, now] I get sideswiped by the kosmic 
2 x 4. Kinda like those "I coulda had a V8 ! ! !" ads on the tube, the 
obvious stares me in the face just long enough to be rilly 
embarrassing. For you, the sum total of Bulgaria & roses and 
musical modes and old Bulgarian folk tunes and Orpheus in the 
Underworld and the real location of Shambhala all mashed up 
into pages 931 thru 975 of Against the Day appears to be no sum,
a collection of randomly chosen bits of info, a torrent of the 
trival. For me, they have a name and a face and an address 
and a decade.

      The remembrance of these astounding folk discoveries... 
      should sober our thoughts when we criticise too freely the 
      old pharmacopoeias. It is easy to make fun of medieval 
      recipes: it is more difficult and may be wiser to investigate 
      them. Instead of assuming that the medieval pharmacist 
      was a benighted fool we might wonder whether there was 
      not sometimes a justification for his strange procedure. -- 
      George Sartori, Harvard Professor and Author

Roses figured into my life as follows:
Shira [my ex] was/is involved as manager and performer of 
the vocal ensemble "Kitka" [Bulgarian/Macedonian: "Bouquet"]. 
The group performs throughout the Bay Area and also has 
toured internationally. They have worked with the famous 
Radio/Television Choir of Bulgaria---the best known ensemble 
performing on the  "Le Mystere du Voix Bulgaire" recordings.

Kitka always set up a little table to sell CDs, tapes and other 
totchkes including these lovely little painted wooden flasks 
holding small vials of Bulgarian rose oil.

      The Valley of roses 

      The Valley of Roses is one of the biggest producers of rose 
      oil in the world. The soil and the climate in this region are 
      quite suitable for the roses. The conditions in Kazanlak 
      proved to be more favourable for the cultivation of the rose 
      than those in its own country of origin - Tunisia. This is 
      specifically valid for the rainfalls. The air humidity, cloudiness 
      and precipitation in May and June contributed to obtain roses 
      yielding high percentage of oil. 

      The Rose Valley is not a geographical name – it is just a notion, 
      associated with the location where the Bulgarian oil-bearing rose 
      grows. The valley altitude is 710m at his highest point Klisoura. 
      The climate in the Rose Valley is transitional between moderately 
      continental and transitional continental. The rose plants usually 
      start coming into leaf around March 10, when the air temperature 
      settles at over 5º C. 

http://www.rose-festival.com/valley-roses.shtml

I love that---"The Rose Valley is not a geographical name – it is just a 
notion." Like Shambhala:

      "For me, Shambhala, you see, turned out to be not a goal but 
      an absence. Not the discovery of a place but the act of leaving 
      the futureless place where I was. . ."
      AtD 975

On the one hand, this really is too personal a tale. On the other, it is 
the best demonstration of how OBA worms his way into my psyche, 
bilocates, forces me to Stencilize [and yes, I still can't stand V---it 
reeks of sexism]. And just as much as the Jacobean Torture Faire of 
the Courier's Tragedy mimics and parodies my experiences at the 
Renaissance Faire, so does this birth in the heart of Bulgaria stir up 
memory after memory of Shira [Hebrew: song], Kitka and the strange 
magic of the time I was with Shira. For what it's worth, we married in 
Berkeley's Rose Garden, Roses were a central metaphor in our relation.

      Medicine Flowers

      Roses were a favorite of the ancient Egyptians, who used 
      the fragrant petals as air fresheners and rose water as perfume.

      In Greece, Hippocrates recommended rose flowers mixed with 
      oil for diseases of the uterus. India’s traditional Ayurvedic 
      physicians have long considered rose petals cooling and 
      astringent, leading to their use in poultices to treat skin 
      wounds and inflammations. The Ayurvedics also used rose 
      petals and rose water as a laxative.

      Western herbalists echoed Ayurvedic uses of the herb.

      Medieval German abbess/herbalist Hildegard of Bingen 
      recommended rose hip tea as the initial treatment for just 
      about every illness. Seventeenth-century English herbalist 
      Nicholas Culpeper called the herb “binding and restringent 
      [astringent]” and wrote it “strengthens the stomach, prevents 
      vomiting, stops tickling coughs, … [is] good against all kinds 
      of fluxes [diarrhea] … [and is] of great service in consumptions 
      [tuberculosis].”

http://www.greenpapaya.org/category/herbs/rose/

There is an interesting passage I stumbled on this morning, 
somehow it relates, don't ask me how:

      Persisting behind the world's every material utterance, the 
      Compassionate now took steps to re-establish contact with 
      Yashmeen. As if the Balkan assignment had never been 
      about secret Austrian minefields at all, but about Cyprian 
      becoming a bride of the Night and Ljubica being born during 
      the rose harvest, and Reef and Yashmeen getting her safely 
      to Corfu---thereby sucessfully carrying out the "real" mission, 
      for which the other, mines and all, was what the Compassionate 
      liked to call a metaphor. . . .
      AtD 973

Were the 90's my time as a would-be bride of the Night?
Was the marriage, the garden, the roses---metaphors like those 
minefields? Was the real point for me to morph into a raving 
streetfreak and land in Judy Foster's basement? Was that the 
"real" assignment?