Happy Spring! If April showers bring May flowers, what do Mayflowers bring? Pilgrims! (Sorry, I have always loved that stupid joke since I was 5 years old and read it on a Dixie cup.)

It is true, April showers do bring May flowers. And flowers are our topic for the May Epitaph. Not just sending them to Ma on Mother’s Day, or a special May birthday, but other important functions they have performed. The Victorian era embraced a secret language of flowers to communicate feelings of love, loss, friendship and happiness, whose symbols found their way onto Rural Garden gravestones. Witches, herbalists, medicine men and others through the Ages have used plants to heal and hex, as well as crossover between planes to communicate with the sprits. Ancient people placed plants in graves to accompany the deceased into the next world and provide protection or sustenance for what lay ahead.

These are but three broad topics of the use of plants and flowers as a bridge between this life and other unearthly realms. The Gravestone Girls did some surfing this month to find good web content put together by the more knowledgeable minds on this subject. We paraphrase them here and give you the links to read more.

NINETEENTH CENTURY FLOWER SYMBOLISM

"…no feature of Victorian popular culture appears more charming, more cozy, more absolutely Victorian, than the language of flowers."

The Victorian Language of Flowers

The Language of Flowers

The Language of Flowers In Shakespeare

SHAMAN, WITCHES, MEDICINE MEN

See the next life right now!

Basement Shawman

Hawthorn Flowers (Hawthorn flowers are also called May Flowers)

GARDEN GOODS

You can take it with you…"many cultures did a great deal to make the transition into the Afterworld comfortable, which meant including objects in the grave to travel with the deceased…"

Gothic Gardening

Read on to learn about a mourning garden whose fountain ran black ink….

The Mourning Garden

All Good Goth Girls dream of cultivating Poison Gardens. But, only because they’re so pretty..…..

The Alnwick Garden's Poison Garden

The more sedate of that group, grow Moon Gardens….

Shakespearean Moon Gardens

Finally, don’t forget May is the month of Memorial Day (originally called Decoration Day). It’s a time to go to the cemeteries and remember those who have served this country in times of peace and war. It’s also a time to remember those who are fighting overseas right now in the name of democracy and freedom. Agree with the war or not, take a minute to think of those far from home.

Memorial Day

Arlington Cemetery

Memento Mori!

The Gravestone Girls -
Putting the 'Rave' Back in Grave