A favourite food of the dead

The pale, deathless Affodil that overruns the Elysian fields of Hades. A favourite food of the dead, Affodils are almost invisible and unknowable to the living. In the mortal world it finds approximate form as the vivid yellow daffodil that erupts and decays each spring. It is thought that attention to the materiality of the earthly daffodil may coax an encounter with its shy invisible shadow. Perhaps her attention ebbs and flows at the threshold between these worlds, at least for a while, until the silvered fields quieten their call.  

She hears the emptiness. 

Spring, another spring, slowly transforms the anonymity of this unknown, until she feels a glow of sunlight on her cloistered folds.

A ritual calling the sun

Year 1
In the first year afterwards, I buy a bunch of cut daffodils and arrange them in a vase. I sense the shadow; the Affodil of the Elysian Fields. I notice the daffodil's gradual transformation to decay and death.

Year 2
In the second year I encounter clusters of daffodils growing in the earth. Turning from the nearness of the invisible world, I see how their yellow glows with the light of the mortal world.

Year 3
In the third year I plant 48 daffodil bulbs.

Year 4
In the fourth year I tenderly watch the 48 daffodils through their life cycle: from bright green shoot to seed-head.

Year 5
In the fifth year I remember. At the Spring Equinox I hold the soil’s darkness and the daffodil’s vivd yellow brightness, in balance.

I am calling the Sun.

Year 6
In the sixth year I make a set of rosary beads from papier mache, dried daffodils and daffodil seeds
The configuration of the rosary is based on the number of mortal summers enjoyed by one particular soul.