This period of harvest must be hence devoted to the sacralization of this fundamental force of the Nature which gives us so many fruits, essential for our life and health. The sacralization of this force is Pomona.
Pomona in the past had a specific Flamen (Flamen Pomonalis) but she has not a fixed festivity but rather a mobile festivity because it depends on the harvest maturation. It is represented, also according to the Ancient Tradition, through a wickler basket of fruits and vegetables.
Pomona is defined as "The Beneficial": she gives protection in particular to the fruit trees. Fruits are thus "Pomona's Gifts". She is linked to Vertumnus representing the sacralization of the seasons' changing and passing.
It's important to remind that the Latin term fructus doesn't mean "fruit", but "reward", "payoff", "benefit".
Fructus is the benefit deriving from the Earth and Nature goods. Fructuosus is what is fertile and fruitful: Pomona gives benefits and consequently fruits.
"Fruit" in Latin is translated with pomum: the fruit tree is translated into pomus.
I have created, with some fragments of a Homeric Hymn and a Orphic Hymn, this hymn to be used while offering fruits to Pomona in order to receive her benefits. Pomona reminds us also the semplicity and the richness of the Nature and her continuos flowing. Pomona helps us in acquiring this awareness.
Invocation to Pomona
Through You, women and men are blessed in their children
and blessed in their harvests,
To you it belongs to give means of life to mortal women and men
and to take it away
Happy are the woman and the man you delight to honour!
You have all things abundantly and the vital land is laden with fruits
and our house is filled with good things
bestow upon me for this my song
with beneficial prosperity
For You
With rapid whirl, eternal and divine
the perfect Nature
moves with powerful rhythm
You Blessed, matures sweet fruits
and with your beneficial spirit
supports fruitful seasons.
I like this post as I am very fond of Pomona and Vertumnus. There's a great poem about them by U A Fanthorpe.
RispondiEliminaPomona and Vertumnus
Lady of kitchen-gardens, learned
In the ways of the early thin-skinned rhubarb,
Whose fingers fondle each gooseberry bristle,
Stout currants sagging on their flimsy stalks,
And sprinting strawberries, that colonise
As quick as Rome.
Goddess of verges, whose methodical
Tenderness fosters the vagrant croppers,
Gawky raspberries refugees from gardens,
Hip, sloe, juniper, blackberry, crab,
Humble abundance of health, hedge, copse,
The layabouts’ harvest.
Patron of orchards, pedantic observer
Of rites, of prune, graft, spray and pick,
In whose honour the Bramley’s branches
Bow with their burly cargo, from grass-deep
To beyond ladders, you who teach pears their proper shape,
And brush the ripe plum’s tip with a touch of crystal.
I know your lovers, earth’s grubby godlings;
Silvanus, whose province is muck-heaps
And electric fences; yaffle-headed Picus;
Faunus the goatman. All of them friends
Of the mud-caked cattle, courting you gruffly
With awkward, touching gifts.
But I am the irrepressible, irresponsible
Spirit of Now; no constant past,
No predictable future. All my genius
Goes into moments. I have nothing to give
But concentration and alteration.
U A Fanthorpe
Thank you, dear friend, for your beautiful and rich contribution.
RispondiElimina