#making a game about indigenous american life as a white German who has never even texted an indigenous person;

[doppelnatur]

I think some White people use representation, inclusion and diversity as like reasons and justifications to make kind of insensitive and appropriative works

[alexsmitposts]

The Nasty Truth About America’s Love Affair with Narcissism and Self Pity

Column: Society Region: USA in the World

📷There is a saying, “the crazy people have taken over the asylum.” They did that in the United States in 2016, a nation ruled by grifters, petty criminals and the delusional.The sane and decent became the “silent majority” as the not just America but the world learned that the darkness of the American soul depicted so often by Hollywood is not fiction at all and that a reality TV actor had tapped into a cesspit of sewage that has seeped into every American community.Then came 2020.By sheer luck along and, yes, the votes of 81 million Americans lucky enough to survive voter suppression and intimidation financed by a worldwide organized crime cartel, the insane are now out of power.The new “captain’’ of America’s “ship of state” may well, however, have something on his hands worse than the Titanic. The Titanic had the courtesy to actually sink while America, under this analogy, drifts lifelessly along.Extremism is big money in America, climate denialism, race hatred, social discord and civil war, hate is both a product and an addiction.It is also one of America’s biggest businesses. There would be no social media, no Google, no news organizations, no underbelly of device driven ecstasy, without fear and hate being marketed like cigarettes and CBD gummies.Roots of America’s Politics of Fear and Hate 2.0American extremism is not the result of poverty or oppression. It originates among the privileged, the “haves” who adhere to insane beliefs driven by boredom and generalized dissatisfaction at lives the rest of the word would envy, overpaid jobs, gas guzzling cars and trucks and fast food laden with fats and poisonous additives.If you asked many millions of Americans to define “reality,” their brains would grind to a halt. Reality is based, not on experience or observation but on “beliefs” and strongly held “opinions” which are invariably those scripted for them.Beliefs and opinions untested by the feedback loop of life has created a generation of Americans who are, essentially, living in a video game. This makes Qanon a AI program.Collective delusion has become the norm for many, and by “many” we mean up to 150 million lost souls, caught in an RPG game or, for some, a “first person shooter.”What does it make those who play? But then we have seen all this before, just without a population softened up to this degree by chaos theory conditioning. Some background:The Roots of Fascist AmericaIn 1940, Adolf Hitler was Time Magazine’s man of the year. The parents and grandparents of Trump’s supporters, following Huey Long, Gerald L.K. Smith, Father Coughlin and Charles Lindbergh sought to establish a “whites only” America based on the German model with carefully selected military leaders run by Wall Street pulling the strings.There is something magical, even today, about being “white folks.” That magic originated in the 18th and 19th centuries with the “Sturm and Drang” movement. Extremes of emotion and subjectivity were exalted above rationalism.Childish temper tantrums became a philosophy and eventually a political movement.The movement, which failed in Europe, found fertile ground in the United States in a society that increasingly defined itself though ritualized slavery and degradation and oppression of “coloured races.”This was a society built on the genocide that wiped out millions of indigenous peoples with the survivors now living on “reservations.”Imagine land where nothing grows, and no one could live. This is an “Indian reservation.” From time-to-time oil is found or minerals or there is a need to build a pipeline. Then even the worst land on earth is taken away.This was done in South Africa. It was done in Rhodesia. It used to be called “colonialism.”By the 20th century there were no indigenous people left to imprison. America then turned to warring against the freed slaves and millions of “undesirable” European immigrants, Catholics and Jews in particular.Curiously, this war was centered on banking issues, blocking trade unions, sustaining child labor and controlling farm prices. This created the alignments that

exist today, the strong tie between Wall Street and homegrown extremism built of bigotry and race hatred.You see, too many of the undesirables that fled autocratic Europe found that the long hand of international banking that maintained serfdom for millions, even in supposedly advanced Western Europe, had institutionalized the same in the United States under the guise of representative democracy.Leading the way was the resurgent Ku Klux Klan.By the 1920s national membership was estimated at over 8 million. Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and a dozen other northern and western states were governed by Klan controlled politicians who used the state militias and National Guard as a private army and local police as armed enforcers.Behind it all, the banks that brought Hitler to power and the American corporations that made millions financing Nazi Germany’s war machine, General Motors, Dupont-Remington, Lockheed, Alcoa and General Motors.Even Hitler Would Cringe…The new American revolution, driven by Donald Trump and his televangelist backers, is the result of as social anthropologists note, generations being allowed to live the life of spoiled children, steeped in narcissism and self-pity.The events of January 6, 2020 and how it tied to many American religious leaders has emptied churches across the US, with millions finding themselves humiliated with having followed “false prophets” in support of hatred and tyranny. From Salon:“…these religious figures (Trump’s powerful televangelist backers) and the institutions they led (have become) hyper-political, the outward mission (has)seemed to be almost exclusively in service of oppressing others. The religious right is not nearly as interested in feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless as much as using religion as an all-purpose excuse to abuse women and LGBTQ people. In an age of growing wealth inequalities, with more and more Americans living hand-to-mouth, many visible religious authorities were using their power to support politicians and laws to take health care access from women and fight against marriage between same-sex couples. And then Donald Trump happened.Trump was a thrice-married chronic adulterer who routinely exposed how ignorant he was of religion, and who reportedly — and let’s face it, obviously — made fun of religious leaders behind their backs. But religious right leaders did not care. They continually pumped Trump up like he was the second coming, showily praying over him and extorting their followers to have faith in a man who literally could not have better conformed to the prophecies of the Antichrist. It was comically over the top, how extensively Christian right leaders exposed themselves as motivated by power, not faith.”Jerry Falwell Jr., who introduced Donald Trump to America’s evangelical Christians, is himself an enigmatic figure.Falwell is typical of America’s religious leaders and stories such as this, from Fox News, are daily fodder for Americans:“Jerry Falwell Jr. allegedly played games with his wife Becki where they’d rank Liberty University students, they most wanted to have sex with, according to one pupil who claimed to have been intimate with Becki.The ex-student — who claims Becki initiated oral sex with him 10 years ago — told Politico that she bragged about playing the sex-ranking game while walking around the Virginia campus with her evangelical-leader husband.‘Her and Jerry would eye people down on campus,’ the former student of the conservative school told the outlet.Social Engineering Through PandemicAnyone who really lives in America will make this perfectly clear, this country has turned into a lunatic asylum. Our previous president told us COVID was a hoax, allowed over 40,000 from China enter the US while the threat of COVID was well known and turned his back while, today’s figure, 570,264 Americans died. Experts now cite that Trump was personally responsible for over 400,000 of those deaths. He is quite simply a mass murderer.Do remember that only 900 died in Australia. Canada lost 23,000. 35 died in Vietnam. 440 died in

Cuba.One might wonder how a Hitleresque figure such as Donald Trump could have millions of followers while the legal mechanisms in the US are amassing evidence for both criminal and civil prosecutions which quite probably will never come to bear.Groundhog Day, an Unending NightmareLet me tell you how I began my morning. As a journalist and intelligence briefer, I review incoming material, both open source and private intel. The big story overnight involves a revelation on a religious talk show involving theories on COVID 19 and vaccines.The show is by Jim Bakker, an important religious leader and political advisor. In 1989, Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in prison for mail and wire fraud but served on 5 of those years. He has stolen tens of million of dollars from his congregation to support a wild and lavish lifestyle of utter debauchery.In this area, he is typical of America’s evangelical Christian leaders.The guest on Bakker’s show was Steve Quayle. I know Quayle as an advisor to President George ‘W’ Bush on Middle East affairs. I know of no qualifications for this post.I do know of Quayle. After 9/11 he approached my staff in Amman, Jordan offering them generous payments to “launder” otherwise sourceless intelligence on Iraq into the Bush White House to justify an American invasion of that nation.Two million people died, maybe many more, due to fake US intelligence on Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found.Groundhog Day TwoLet us take the clock back a few years. I remember traveling to Kentucky, then and still a very backward area of the country, in 1956 to visit relatives. This was a presidential election year, and my father was working for Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate that was opposing Dwight Eisenhower.Even I, at a fairly young age, was flabbergasted at the dinner table discussion that day as my “hillbilly” relatives expounded on their political opinions and version of historical fact. This is how they laid it out:We should support “Ike” because he killed Hitler personally after storming Berlin. They described a sword fight. What they described reminded me of the death of the Sheriff of Nottingham played by Basil Rathbone in the 1938 film Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn. They then went out to describe how the US beat both Russia and Germany who were at war with the US. It seems Russia did not fight Hitler at all but was actually Germany’s ally. My father, a reasonably educated person and longtime friend of Russia, found this somewhat disturbing. Next, we heard about how “godless communists” were going to take away our freedoms and destroy our standard of living. I might remind you that my relatives in Hazard, Kentucky had no electricity or plumbing. One of my cousins lived in an abandoned car parked in a slag field.During that trip, we visited my grandfather, a retired coal miner. He lived in a shack covered with tar paper along a railroad track. I loved my grandfather.Life Lessons Do not Come Over the InternetOver the next 60 plus years, I had shared tea with farmers in Vietnam, military veterans living in a small shack in the Khyber Pass and everything from heads of state to struggling farmers all over Africa and the Middle East. None would have guessed that there are Americans that live in not just utter poverty but steeped not only in delusional ignorance but far worse than that.A current obsession with American “conservatives” is the fear of being overrun with transexuals, who, according to many, represent a threat to our freedoms. I have never met a transsexual. From what I understand, up to 10,000 currently serve in America’s armed forces.Back during the 1960s when I served with a Marine combat unit in Vietnam, we probably had no transexuals, only gay or “homosexual” Marines and Navy. Absolutely nothing was thought of it as these individuals invariably served with honor and courage.They existed in significant numbers.Today aging “conservatives” who avoided military service in Vietnam continually harp about saving the rest of us from “homosexuals in the military.”Voting and

“Jim Crow”Let us take another look at efforts by the Hitleresque racists and bigots to save the rest of us from ourselves, against our will of course. In Georgia, the legislature recently passed a law that makes it a felony to offer water to someone waiting in line to vote.Water is an issue because, in Georgia and many GOP (Trump’s party) run states, polling places in areas where people of color vote have been closed causing day long lines. In 2020, volunteers offered food and water to those who would otherwise have either collapsed or left without voting. Now offering food and water can lead to being executed by racist police, quite literally, or spending 5 years in prison.In 2020, voters in many key urban areas were threatened by armed neo-Nazi militias or openly threated in emails from Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, organizations deemed terrorist in Canada and now citied by the US Department of Justice as trying to overthrow the US government.In January, during a US Senate runoff election in Georgia, 364,000 voters were challenged by the GOP in Georgia as “illegal.” All of them were African American. All 364,000 were qualified to vote and their votes were eventually counted, giving Georgia two Democratic US Senators.The Federal Elections Commission is now investigating that this effort to rig the Georgia senate elections was secretly financed by illegal contributions from members of organized crime.Groundhog Day ThreeI live in a rural and primarily Republican area. I parked my car less than 30 feet from the door of a polling place, a local church, and voted in less than 3 minutes with no lines or ID check.In order to limit mail voting, Trump ordered mail sorting machines destroyed with sledgehammers and over 40,000 mailboxes picked up and junked as scrap metal. Mail service in many cities simply ended. One letter I sent to Washington DC from Michigan took 45 days to arrive.Hundreds of millions of pieces of mail, starting in late September 2020 simply disappeared, not just votes but government checks, Christmas presents and medications from pharmacies sent to Veterans.All of this was not just publicly known, things are far worse than that. Those who so many decades ago believed the United States fought Russia in World War Two, would raise children and grandchildren with no respect for human rights, no understanding of democracy, no ethical norms nor any remote understanding of right or wrong.This is the reality for those living in America, a reality that those who watch America from afar through the distorted lens of Google Corporation and the press, can never fathom.Ah, but things are so much worse than that. It is not just having spent 4 years with a president who told us you could cure covid by drinking bleach or eating flashlights. It gets worse.Groundhog Day FourA few days ago, former Trump advisor Cirsten Welcon claimed that President Biden had been paid billions of dollars by China to let them test their newest “weather weapons” on Texas. Power outages there, now attributed to corrupt backroom deals by Republican politicians, led to many deaths and considerable suffering.Little did any of us know of the role of the magic Chinese weather machines.In another vignette, it has been a years since Trump advisor and televangelist Kenneth Copeland stood before a television audience raving like a lunatic. He then pursed his lips and blew at the television camera, the “wind of god” which he claimed destroyed COVID forever.This effort by Reverend Copeland, who has millions of followers and a vast financial empire, led President Trump to announce that COVID 19 was going to disappear.ConclusionSome would like to believe that the institutionalized insanity of America’s right is restricted to the “Untermensch” substrata of rural poor whites. However, for decades now, the most radicalized and extremist elements of America’s society, the most ignorant, the most warlike yet cowardly, have gained control of the US military through service academies which espouse their conspiracy theories.With the onset of Trump, they gained much

more than a foothold in American politics, they now control many states “lock, stock and barrel,” and are involved in not just voter suppression but a general quashing of human rights and free speech.The door to this turn of events began well into the 19th century. Laws, still on the books, are now being employed against Donald Trump, from CNN:The Democratic chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee has filed a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump that cites a little-known federal statute that was first passed after the Civil War.The complaint, filed Tuesday by Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, accuses Trump, his attorney Rudy Giuliani, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers of violating the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act. The lawsuit accuses them of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election.These same extremist elements and calling them “extremist” insults al Qaeda and ISIS (banned in Russia) who are moderate in their beliefs and practices in comparison. These statements might sound extreme in themselves were it not for so many Americans, religious and military leaders, members of government and business leaders calling for wholesale murder of their political opponents citing their personal communication with a non-corporeal authority they said is “god.”Americans hear this all day every day, the emails are unending, TV networks like Fox, OAN or Newsmax say little else, and that message is carried not just through media but lawn signs dotting the countryside.Hundreds of thousands of American homes are festooned with paraphernalia espousing murder of public officials and their families. Americans see it every day driving to work. What they ask themselves when they see things like this is how many others hold these beliefs but keep it to themselves?What if academics wrote papers on the issues, we discuss here? What if the BBC produced a documentary? Would things get better? The problem dates back not just generations but centuries.It is not a moral problem; it is not a political problem. It is one of degeneracy. At some point we may be required to reassess our definition of sentience.

[thecorteztwins]

@esteicy-blog “I'm convinced that they didn't even check the wiki page of her comic version when writing her in the mcu because movie Mantis has absolutely nothing to do with what you describe.“ I haven’t see the MCU movie, but I have read a bit about that version of Mantis and they sound NOTHING alike to me either! Comics Mantis is: - Not an alien. She’s a completely human woman with a Vietnamese mother and a German father. She was raised by Kree priests in a temple, but that temple was in Vietnam, not space, and then when she was an adult they wiped her memories so she remembered only growing up in Saigon. She never goes to space until her destiny as the Celestial Madonna is revealed. She MARRIES one of the Cotati aliens, but she isn’t one herself. Which means I think GotG has more POC who are playing aliens than actual POC characters? - Her powers are very different. As I understand it, movie!Mantis is a generic empath. Comics book Mantis had what she described as “empathy with nature” often calling it simply “empathy” for short, but what it actually was was just like...this very vague and generic psychic sensitivity. She wasn’t exactly a real telepath, nor a true empath, nor a precog, but she could feel “vibrations” that gave her clues if something was wrong, get a general sense of a person in a vague sort of way, and just generally gave her really good intuition. For instance, this one time a cop with a split personality had his other personality take over, and Mantis sensed SOMETHING was wrong because his “vibrations” changed, she just couldn’t say WHAT was going on. But more than her psychic sensitivity, was her martial arts prowess. Mantis has such martial skill that she’s able to grapple with Thor and WIN---quickly win, at that! At one point ALL THE AVENGERS try to physically restrain her, and she TOSSES THEM THE FUCK OFF (again, including Thor) She also once kicks Pietro in the face WHEN HE’S RUNNING! Again, this woman is HUMAN, she just has really extreme training by alien priests. - Her personality. Again, I haven’t seen the movie, but she seems kind of...cute and fragile and ditzy and naive from what I understand? Comics Mantis is intelligent, fearless, and very much NOT naive. She’s extremely assertive and serious, she’s not shy or giggly at all. She’s also framed as very intelligent and logical, though that’s more something the writing tries to convince us of than what’s actually on the page. She’s not stupid AT ALL, just we’re told she’s a brilliantly logical deductive mind on par with the Vision, when actually she just mostly makes guesses based on her intuition powers but calls it deduction. She’s definitely clever though, both in a fight and in terms of getting what she wants from people and situations, and how to best utilize her powers. She’s also never unsure in her abilities either; she’s so confident in them that in fact she defends them to others when they think her psychic intuition is wrong, or that she didn’t measure her strike correctly, and BOTH times she’s proven correct. But she’s also not arrogant about her skills either, and in fact demures from compliments. Mantis doesn’t tolerate anyone underestimating her abilities, including allies, and she trusts in herself completely...but she also doesn’t need praise from others either, and doesn’t seem to want it. And the story supports her, there is never a moment where she’s proven wrong in this. Mantis is NOT a character who EVER struggles with control of her powers. Mantis can be great. For instance, when she’s reuniting with the Avengers after having been away in space with the whole Celestial Madonna thing, they’re all super happy to see her. Silverclaw, a new Avenger (who is also indigenous Latina) stands off the side and is left out, because she doesn’t have any connection to Mantis. Mantis notices this, and she immediately reaches out to Silverclaw, putting her arm around her, saying that “Yes, they gather around this one. But this one would rather gather around you.” and explains that she was the new girl once and the Avengers supported her, and she wants to support Silverclaw too. It’s very sweet! Mantis absolutely can be a big jerk. The way she meets The Avengers is that some guys are being creeps to Wanda on the street, and Mantis jumps out to kick their asses and defend Wanda. This is great. But it’s not coincidence. Mantis wasn’t just passing by. She and her boyfriend the Swordsman (a former Avenger) want to join, and had come to the US for the express purpose of joining. So she was probably following Wanda and just jumped out at the moment she knew would make her look best to Wanda, so that Wanda would vouch for her as an Avenger. Mantis shows this capacity to be manipulative other times as well, and in fact in the end she seems to have been just using the Swordsman as a way to get America and be an Avenger, even though she claims to the Avenger that she doesn’t care about being one and just wants to be next to “her man”. She acts like the typical “submissive Asian girl who loves her big strong white boyfriend” at first but the minute she decides that she’d rather have the Vision, who is actively involved with Wanda, she starts pursuing him. She’s a huge jerk to Swordsman and Wanda in the process, insulting the both of them as being weak and not good enough for her or Vision, at first behind their backs, and then to their faces, she and Wanda get pretty catty. Mantis is very adamant that she wants a strong, heroic, INTELLIGENT man, and the Swordsman falls short for her. Which is her choice, but the way she handles it is very shitty to him (not to mention going behind his and Wanda’s backs trying to seduce Vision). He tries more than once to have a discussion with her about it, and she evades him, avoiding giving him any kind of straight answer when he asks her very straightforward questions. It’s not towards the end that she finally coldly dismisses him and tells him he’s not enough for her and that she doesn’t care for him any longer. Even when he’s dying after saving her and she’s begging him to live and apologizing, she’s still frankly kind of a selfish dick about it? She says she used him and that it was wrong and that she sees that now, but she says he needs to live so she can make things up to him. So he needs to live so SHE can feel better, basically, and she’s only feeling remorse in the first place because he sacrificed himself for her. Even after death, he can’t catch a break---she says she prefers the version of him that is actually the Elder Cotati possessing his dead body (I’m still not over that) because its smarter than the original Swordsman was. Ouch. But Mantis isn’t all bad for this! She’s not actually demonized for it at all, to be honest, nor is she punished by the narrative. Her story with the Swordsman is honestly more just a way to get her to the Avengers, then she quickly overtakes him in terms of importance as a character. It’s easy to forget he’s there most of the time compared to her, and he’s got rid of the moment he’s no longer really needed, and the next chapter of her story can begin as she’s revealed to be The Celestial Madonna. It’s the reverse of the typical male and female roles in a story, ESPECIALLY for a white man and an Asian woman. He’s HER prop, he’s the one devoted to her, he’s the one who is cast aside and dies for her as a part of HER story. Mantis also evolves. When she comes back from her journey as the Madonna, she’s straight with the Avengers about why she’s come to them, and she asks directly for their help, there’s no manipulative games. Wanda and her still have a bit of an issue on Wanda’s end, Wanda understandably still doesn’t like seeing her be close with Vision, but BOTH of them work at having a better relationship---Wanda in fact goes out of her way to tell Mantis that she and Vision are separated now, so it’s fine if he hooks up with Mantis (which he does) And Mantis hasn’t said an unkind word about Wanda in a very long time. Being a mother brings a whole new dimension to her. Ben Grimm cracks about how any “red-blooded American kid” would have a hard time calling her “Mom” due to her sex appeal, and Mantis rightly points out that people don’t often think of her as a mother---which is a small but VERY true commentary on how people can’t seem to conceive of motherhood and sexiness in the same woman outside the MILF stereotype---but she is, and she is a very devoted one, and she’s a great mom while also having sex with the Vision even while she also has a “mate” in the Elder Cotati, and she’s not portrayed as wrong for this in any way; she and the Elder Cotati seem poly I guess. And being a mother, being the Celestial Madonna, gave her a bunch of additional new powers, she’s stated to be a GODDESS now, and she ends up being able to TAKE ON THANOS and she WARNS him---”This one is life, Thanos, but hurt her son and she will kill you. That is a promise.” So, she’s a very well-rounded character, she’s very assertive and confident woman with every right to be, while not being arrogant. She’s got some really nasty flaws, she can be cruel and catty when it comes to romance, manipulative when it comes to achieving her goals when there’s not even any need to be, but she also matures and develops. She’s a great mom who also has an active sex life and nothing is shown as wrong about it. She starts out with admittedly very racist trappings---the mysterious seductive martial artists Dragon Lady from the Far East who seems devoted to her white boyfriend--but grows beyond it in spades. I can see why a modern movie might want to shed SOME of that baggage...but making her into a cutesty-poo side character with nearly all her incredible canon powers gone, while ALSO erasing her ethnicity and cultural identity, doesn’t seem at all a step in the right direction to me.

[mialipsky-blog]

History of Holiday Flowers: Get to Know Winter’s Most Famous Foliage!

{Source}

Sparkling lights on a towering pine tree, the winter season wouldn’t be complete without this iconic imagery, but it’s not just the Christmas tree that deserves some attention! Though the cold in many parts of the northern hemisphere means a period of dormancy for most plants and flowers, a few sturdy varieties not only endure but have become synonymous with the season. From ancient myths to modern traditions, here are some of the most popular seasonal decorations, and how you can incorporate them into your celebrations!

Crazy for Conifers

Conifer trees, often called evergreens, don’t lose their color or shed their leaves (or needles) in the winter. This makes them the perfect greenery for holiday festivities. Varieties of cypress, spruce, fir, and others can be found year round in abundance, and while these trees are the quintessential modern Christmas decoration, the tradition goes back thousands of years.

Ancient Celtic Druids saw evergreen trees as sacred objects that represented everlasting life. They used cuttings to decorate temples and perform rituals during the winter solstice. Ancient Egyptians recognized the trees as symbols of the Sun God, Ra, while the Romans similarly used boughs during the Winter Solstice celebration of Saturnalia. In the pagan traditions, the Winter Solstice was the end of that year’s harvest, so the trees that stayed green through winter were seen as a promise that crops would return again in the Spring. They symbolized new growth and fruitfulness.

The trees are a physical reminder of fortitude through the long winter, but also held spiritual meaning even before they became associated with the Christian holiday. The Vikings used wreaths and brought whole trees inside their homes for protection from evil spirits that they believed the cold brought on. The burning of logs from these pine trees eventually turned into the tradition we now know as the Yule Log.

Similar traditions by ancient tribes in what is now modern day Germany eventually turned into what we know as the Christmas Tree. German Christians adopted the tradition of bringing evergreens into their home and adorned them with apples, to symbolize the Garden of Eden, as well as other edible decorations like nuts and cookies. Eventually candles, angels, and other ornaments were added. The tradition of early Christmas Trees, first known as “Paradise Trees”, was brought with Germans as they began to emigrate to other parts of the world. It remained largely a foreign custom in their new lands and wasn’t until nearly 300 years later that it became a more universally accepted symbol of Christmas. Queen Victoria of England encouraged her husband Prince Albert to set up a tree at the palace in the way he had as a boy in Germany. The tree was featured in the London News and soon became a fashionable holiday accessory in Victorian Era Christmas celebrations. It was canonized further with depictions in popular literature including “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, and “The Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke Moore

Evergreen Tips! You can never go wrong with a little extra green.  Add cuttings to holiday bouquets or arrangements for a boost of green filler and an iconic winter holiday feel. Varieties like Leyland Cedar, with soft leaves and long-lasting color, keep decorations vibrant throughout the season.

{Source}

Berries for the Ball

Similar to pine trees, Holly keeps its luster throughout the winter season. It is also a popular adornment for Winter Solstice rituals and celebrations. Holly was considered the sacred plant of Saturn, the God of agriculture and time in Ancient Rome. It was a popular decoration during the festival of Saturnalia and often given as gifts in a wreath. Early Roman Christians were said to have put Holly leaves on their doors in order to avoid persecution, but as Christianity slowly gained dominance, Holly became associated with the celebration of Christ’s birth in December. European pagans also used Holly in decoration and even put sprigs in their hair. They believed the green leaves and bright red berries kept the earth beautiful during a time when other plants went away.

Mistletoe was another sacred plant to Ancient Druids. They believed that it could protect against thunder, lightning, and other evils. The cutting of mistletoe from the forest was a sacred event done by Druid Priests. People would then hang sprigs from their doorway for protection. Celtic peoples thought it had great healing powers, in fact the word mistletoe in the ancient Celtic language means, “all-heal”. It became a universal symbol of both protection and good luck for anyone who could possess it.

{Source}

The modern tradition of kissing under the mistletoe could possibly have been passed down from the Norse myth of Frigga, Goddess of Love. Frigga was the mother of Balder, the God of the Summer sun. The story goes, that after Balder had a dream about his death, Frigga became so frightened that she went to every element, plant, and animal on earth and asked them to make a promise not to harm her son. But the God Loki realized that she had forgotten the lowly mistletoe, and so fashioned an arrow with it on the tip. He gave it to the winter god, Hoder, who shot Balder in the heart. Frigga wept so bitterly that her tears became the white berries and eventually her love restored him. She was so overwhelmed with joy at his return that she kissed anyone who passed beneath the tree on which the berries grew.

It is easy to see how this story could be adopted to a Christian interpretation of life conquering death, as well as a flirtatious party game. The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe became popular in 18th Century England where it was often hung at balls. A girl standing under a ball of mistletoe could not refuse a kiss. If she remained unkissed it could be seen as a bad omen that she would not be married within the next year. Today, mistletoe remains a fun and flirty part of many holiday celebrations.

Get the Look!

True Mistletoe is actually a parasite on trees and does not have roots of its own. Try Snow White Hypericum Berries to get those magical white pearls. They make the perfect accent to wedding bouquets and centerpieces for extra romance and revelry!

Pepperberry is the perfect substitution for Holly paired alongside cut flowers in arrangements. It’s a green filler and a little extra pop of holiday cheer.

Poinsettias on Point

In most of North America, you can hardly walk out the door in December without tripping over a Poinsettia. Often given as gifts of live plants during Christmas, these unique plants have become a holiday staple.

Poinsettias are indigenous to Mexico and were originally used by the Aztecs for medicinal remedies and to make colorful red dye. It is known by many different names around the world including Flor de Noche Buena (Christmas Eve Flower) in Mexico and Guatemala; Flor de Pascua (Easter Flower) in Spain; and “The Crown of the Andes” in Chile and Peru. In North America, the name Poinsettia comes from the United States ambassador to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett, who sent the plant back to South Carolina and began propagating it in 1825. The association with Christmas began much earlier, however.

{Source}

The legend began in 16th century Mexico and tells of a poor little girl, sometimes referred to as Pepita or Maria, who had nothing to give as a gift for Jesus’s birthday. An angel appeared to her and told her to gather weeds from the roadside. When she brought them to the church altar, crimson blossoms sprouted from the weeds and became poinsettias. Franciscan friars in Mexico included the Poinsettia in Christmas decorations as early as the 17th century. The star-shaped leaf pattern was said to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem, and the red color represented the blood of Jesus.

Paul Ecke Jr. is largely credited for bringing the Poinsettia into the North American consciousness during the Christmas season. His family was one of the first to sell and distribute the flower on a large scale in the 1900’s. He sent free plants to television studios for them to display during the holidays and even appeared himself on shows including The Tonight Show and Bob Hope’s Christmas Special to promote them. With the classic Christmas colors of red and green, it wasn’t long before the poinsettia was recognized as the ultimate Christmas flower. There is even a national Poinsettia Day, on December 12!

Festive Petals

Though Poinsettia plants do flower, the red blooms are actually colored leaves called bracts. Cyanthia, the small clusters of red, yellow, and green flowers can be found in the center surrounded by the red bracts.

Poinsettias are usually sold as potted plants so they can be hard to incorporate into a diverse arrangement. For a festive alternative, try Amaryllis. The shape of the petals mirror the star-shaped leaves and varieties of deep red and white make it a perfect centerpiece for holiday display. The Candy Cane Amaryllis, with its festive white and red combo, will add a little extra playfulness while still oozing elegance.

A Rose for Christmas

The Helleborus Niger, or Christmas Rose, gets its colloquial name from the fact that it is able to bloom in winter and has a similar holiday myth to that of the poinsettia. Native to Europe and Western Asia, the story goes that a young shepherd girl cried because she had nothing to give the baby Jesus. An angel appeared and brushed aside the snow on the ground to reveal the perfect blossoms of the Hellebore shimmering beneath.

These flowers are extremely hardy evergreen perennials. They can stand up to the cold and continue to bloom throughout the winter and early spring. With a variety of color from ivory to eggplant, hellebore is a great choice for both classic and modern styles.

{Source}

Stunning flowers can add a dash of glamour and charm to a posh gala or a cozy gathering by the fire. Winter is an ideal time to dress up indoor spaces with life and color.

Check out the winter seasonal combo packs for more ideas on how to pair flowers and greenery for the perfect holiday cheer!

History of Holiday Flowers: Get to Know Winter’s Most Famous Foliage! published first on their blog to my feed

[mainemanus-blog]

History of Holiday Flowers: Get to Know Winter’s Most Famous Foliage!

{Source}

Sparkling lights on a towering pine tree, the winter season wouldn’t be complete without this iconic imagery, but it’s not just the Christmas tree that deserves some attention! Though the cold in many parts of the northern hemisphere means a period of dormancy for most plants and flowers, a few sturdy varieties not only endure but have become synonymous with the season. From ancient myths to modern traditions, here are some of the most popular seasonal decorations, and how you can incorporate them into your celebrations!

Crazy for Conifers

Conifer trees, often called evergreens, don’t lose their color or shed their leaves (or needles) in the winter. This makes them the perfect greenery for holiday festivities. Varieties of cypress, spruce, fir, and others can be found year round in abundance, and while these trees are the quintessential modern Christmas decoration, the tradition goes back thousands of years.

Ancient Celtic Druids saw evergreen trees as sacred objects that represented everlasting life. They used cuttings to decorate temples and perform rituals during the winter solstice. Ancient Egyptians recognized the trees as symbols of the Sun God, Ra, while the Romans similarly used boughs during the Winter Solstice celebration of Saturnalia. In the pagan traditions, the Winter Solstice was the end of that year’s harvest, so the trees that stayed green through winter were seen as a promise that crops would return again in the Spring. They symbolized new growth and fruitfulness.

The trees are a physical reminder of fortitude through the long winter, but also held spiritual meaning even before they became associated with the Christian holiday. The Vikings used wreaths and brought whole trees inside their homes for protection from evil spirits that they believed the cold brought on. The burning of logs from these pine trees eventually turned into the tradition we now know as the Yule Log.

Similar traditions by ancient tribes in what is now modern day Germany eventually turned into what we know as the Christmas Tree. German Christians adopted the tradition of bringing evergreens into their home and adorned them with apples, to symbolize the Garden of Eden, as well as other edible decorations like nuts and cookies. Eventually candles, angels, and other ornaments were added. The tradition of early Christmas Trees, first known as “Paradise Trees”, was brought with Germans as they began to emigrate to other parts of the world. It remained largely a foreign custom in their new lands and wasn’t until nearly 300 years later that it became a more universally accepted symbol of Christmas. Queen Victoria of England encouraged her husband Prince Albert to set up a tree at the palace in the way he had as a boy in Germany. The tree was featured in the London News and soon became a fashionable holiday accessory in Victorian Era Christmas celebrations. It was canonized further with depictions in popular literature including “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, and “The Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke Moore

Evergreen Tips! You can never go wrong with a little extra green.  Add cuttings to holiday bouquets or arrangements for a boost of green filler and an iconic winter holiday feel. Varieties like Leyland Cedar, with soft leaves and long-lasting color, keep decorations vibrant throughout the season.

{Source}

Berries for the Ball

Similar to pine trees, Holly keeps its luster throughout the winter season. It is also a popular adornment for Winter Solstice rituals and celebrations. Holly was considered the sacred plant of Saturn, the God of agriculture and time in Ancient Rome. It was a popular decoration during the festival of Saturnalia and often given as gifts in a wreath. Early Roman Christians were said to have put Holly leaves on their doors in order to avoid persecution, but as Christianity slowly gained dominance, Holly became associated with the celebration of Christ’s birth in December. European pagans also used Holly in decoration and even put sprigs in their hair. They believed the green leaves and bright red berries kept the earth beautiful during a time when other plants went away.

Mistletoe was another sacred plant to Ancient Druids. They believed that it could protect against thunder, lightning, and other evils. The cutting of mistletoe from the forest was a sacred event done by Druid Priests. People would then hang sprigs from their doorway for protection. Celtic peoples thought it had great healing powers, in fact the word mistletoe in the ancient Celtic language means, “all-heal”. It became a universal symbol of both protection and good luck for anyone who could possess it.

{Source}

The modern tradition of kissing under the mistletoe could possibly have been passed down from the Norse myth of Frigga, Goddess of Love. Frigga was the mother of Balder, the God of the Summer sun. The story goes, that after Balder had a dream about his death, Frigga became so frightened that she went to every element, plant, and animal on earth and asked them to make a promise not to harm her son. But the God Loki realized that she had forgotten the lowly mistletoe, and so fashioned an arrow with it on the tip. He gave it to the winter god, Hoder, who shot Balder in the heart. Frigga wept so bitterly that her tears became the white berries and eventually her love restored him. She was so overwhelmed with joy at his return that she kissed anyone who passed beneath the tree on which the berries grew.

It is easy to see how this story could be adopted to a Christian interpretation of life conquering death, as well as a flirtatious party game. The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe became popular in 18th Century England where it was often hung at balls. A girl standing under a ball of mistletoe could not refuse a kiss. If she remained unkissed it could be seen as a bad omen that she would not be married within the next year. Today, mistletoe remains a fun and flirty part of many holiday celebrations.

Get the Look!

True Mistletoe is actually a parasite on trees and does not have roots of its own. Try Snow White Hypericum Berries to get those magical white pearls. They make the perfect accent to wedding bouquets and centerpieces for extra romance and revelry!

Pepperberry is the perfect substitution for Holly paired alongside cut flowers in arrangements. It’s a green filler and a little extra pop of holiday cheer.

Poinsettias on Point

In most of North America, you can hardly walk out the door in December without tripping over a Poinsettia. Often given as gifts of live plants during Christmas, these unique plants have become a holiday staple.

Poinsettias are indigenous to Mexico and were originally used by the Aztecs for medicinal remedies and to make colorful red dye. It is known by many different names around the world including Flor de Noche Buena (Christmas Eve Flower) in Mexico and Guatemala; Flor de Pascua (Easter Flower) in Spain; and “The Crown of the Andes” in Chile and Peru. In North America, the name Poinsettia comes from the United States ambassador to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett, who sent the plant back to South Carolina and began propagating it in 1825. The association with Christmas began much earlier, however.

{Source}

The legend began in 16th century Mexico and tells of a poor little girl, sometimes referred to as Pepita or Maria, who had nothing to give as a gift for Jesus’s birthday. An angel appeared to her and told her to gather weeds from the roadside. When she brought them to the church altar, crimson blossoms sprouted from the weeds and became poinsettias. Franciscan friars in Mexico included the Poinsettia in Christmas decorations as early as the 17th century. The star-shaped leaf pattern was said to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem, and the red color represented the blood of Jesus.

Paul Ecke Jr. is largely credited for bringing the Poinsettia into the North American consciousness during the Christmas season. His family was one of the first to sell and distribute the flower on a large scale in the 1900’s. He sent free plants to television studios for them to display during the holidays and even appeared himself on shows including The Tonight Show and Bob Hope’s Christmas Special to promote them. With the classic Christmas colors of red and green, it wasn’t long before the poinsettia was recognized as the ultimate Christmas flower. There is even a national Poinsettia Day, on December 12!

Festive Petals

Though Poinsettia plants do flower, the red blooms are actually colored leaves called bracts. Cyanthia, the small clusters of red, yellow, and green flowers can be found in the center surrounded by the red bracts.

Poinsettias are usually sold as potted plants so they can be hard to incorporate into a diverse arrangement. For a festive alternative, try Amaryllis. The shape of the petals mirror the star-shaped leaves and varieties of deep red and white make it a perfect centerpiece for holiday display. The Candy Cane Amaryllis, with its festive white and red combo, will add a little extra playfulness while still oozing elegance.

A Rose for Christmas

The Helleborus Niger, or Christmas Rose, gets its colloquial name from the fact that it is able to bloom in winter and has a similar holiday myth to that of the poinsettia. Native to Europe and Western Asia, the story goes that a young shepherd girl cried because she had nothing to give the baby Jesus. An angel appeared and brushed aside the snow on the ground to reveal the perfect blossoms of the Hellebore shimmering beneath.

These flowers are extremely hardy evergreen perennials. They can stand up to the cold and continue to bloom throughout the winter and early spring. With a variety of color from ivory to eggplant, hellebore is a great choice for both classic and modern styles.

{Source}

Stunning flowers can add a dash of glamour and charm to a posh gala or a cozy gathering by the fire. Winter is an ideal time to dress up indoor spaces with life and color.

Check out the winter seasonal combo packs for more ideas on how to pair flowers and greenery for the perfect holiday cheer!

History of Holiday Flowers: Get to Know Winter’s Most Famous Foliage! published first on their blog, reposted for me