...A Daisy a Day

These daisies have pushed through the rubble of an old brick home being torn down to make way for a new interstate highway near me. According to the Language of Flowers, each flower has a message and a story. Daisies bring a message of innocence and purity, saying, "You have as many virtues as this plant has petals," or, "I will consider your request." I wonder how this applies to the current situation!

Do you remember plucking a daisy's petals one by one as a child and reciting, "He loves me, he loves me not," for each petal pulled? The last petal so plucked predicted the future of such love. Young girls might also pick a handful of daisies with eyes closed. The number of blossoms in hand told of the number of years remaining until marriage. Its simplicity has made the daisy a favorite of many poets. Its healing and predictive powers made it popular not only with farmers, but also with an infamous English king. Spring, medieval farmers would say, would not arrive until one could set a foot on twelve daisies. To dream of daisies in springtime or summer was a lucky omen, but dreams of them in fall or winter meant certain doom.


Transplanting wild daisies to a cultivated garden was considered to be very unlucky. King Henry VIII ate dishes of daisies to relieve himself from his stomach-ulcer pain. For then, it was also believed that drinking crushed daisies steeped in wine, in small doses over a period of fifteen could cure insanity.
I'll give you a daisy a day, dear...