Fragrant in June

Elevate artist Stephanie Jalland finds words to celebrate the month of June.

‘Today the fields are rich in grass,
And buttercups in thousands grow;
I’ll show the world where I have been –
With gold-dust seen on either shoe.’

Extract from All in June by W.H .Davies
Buttercups in the fields and roses in the garden the air is fragrant in June. The rose is the flower for the month and adds to the magic of midsummer. A rose picked on Midsummer’s Eve or Midsummer’s Day will keep fresh until Christmas and at midnight on Midsummer’s Eve young girls should scatter rose petals before them and say;

‘Rose leaves, rose leaves
Rose leaves I strew
He that will love me
Come after me now.’

In Victorian times, a lover might declare his passion by presenting a red rosebud just beginning to open. If this was accepted and worn, he could safely assume his attentions were welcome and follow up his first gift with a half-blown rose, and that with a full blown one. If a Victorian woman wore the last, she was considered engaged.

Cleopatra met Mark Anthony, her lover, in 42BC in a room carpeted two feet deep with roses. For the Romans it was the flower of beauty, love and poetry and dedicated to Venus Goddess of Love.
Medieval knights wore roses embroidered on their sleeves as a sign that gentleness should accompany courage and that beauty is the true reward of valour.

‘Calm weather in June sets all in tune’

Wishing you roses, buttercups and midsummer magic wherever you are.

More from Stephanie and the Elevate artists

During the spring and summer 2020 Stephanie Jalland recorded her monthly reflections, sharing the sights and sounds around her home in Downton. You can listen to all of Stephanie’s monthly recordings here.

Download ‘Elevate your mood’ Issue 10 (pdf)

Send us your contribution

We love to include some of your own reflections in future posts and in our monthly print edition ‘Elevate your mood’ or quarterly printed tabloid ‘Take the time’. Why not write a few lines, try a poem or send us picture on the general theme of summer? Email to ArtCare or send to ArtCare, Block 29, Salisbury District Hospital, Salisbury SP2 8BJ.