Masculinity and Beauty

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine said that he didn't think men were drawn to beauty as much as women. This surprised me, with him especially, because I always thought of him as someone with a longing for beauty. Maybe what he meant is that women desire to be beautiful more than men, and to this I would agree. But that's not the same thing.

Whenever I've interacted with women in my life (especially my mom and sister growing up), I've thought that women don't understand beauty like men do. It's almost as if, when they use the word, they mean something totally different than men do. The fact that so many women can't empathize with men's tendency to have wandering eyes makes me wonder that these women possibly have never recognized beauty in anything they saw, because once you have an encounter with beauty, you look for it everywhere and at all times, and it takes real discipline and self-control to practice custody of the eyes. It can be a real struggle for men seeking virtue and purity of heart.

I think that beauty is attracted to masculinity and masculinity is attracted to beauty. The more masculine a man is, the more he desires to possess what is beautiful, and the more beautiful something is, the more it yearns to be possessed by a masculine man. I think it's interesting that heaven itself is called the Beatific Vision, as if God, who is Beauty itself, desires to make Himself beheld in the end. Men long to see the face of God, and God longs to have his face seen by men, so much that he became man and died to make it possible.

I think that the neglect of beauty in Catholic art and liturgy is a direct result of the increased feminine influence in the Church's leadership (or the absence of masculine leadership).

I know I might be wrong about this. I think it would be interesting to read what a woman thinks about beauty: i.e. what she finds beautiful and how she knows it's beautiful and why she is drawn to it.

Or, if women aren't drawn to beauty like men are, what might they have a keener sense for than men? Perhaps goodness. (I don't know; I'm not a woman).

I was thinking of these things today, because I was making a list of what I want in life, and what I would need to do to achieve it, and beauty kept coming to my mind. What must I do in order to be worthy to behold beauty with purity of heart? Whom should I become? And the answer - a man in the fullest sense.

A sublime pairing

I love this piece by W. F. Bach. The pairing of the harpsichord with the fortepiano really allows each voice to stand out. And gosh, that fortepiano has me lost in a sea of longing.

Various Daffodils and Deep Sleep Dreams

Have you ever had a deep sleep dream? I learned once about them. They are either rare, or we rarely wake directly from deep sleep, and so few are remembered. I had one last night. It was a strange dream. There was an image of a daffodil in front of me, and I was seeing it from various angles, and with various details coming into focus. There was no plot, no setting, no characters. It was just this daffodil, one that I saw in real life, and my mind was studying it intensely. When I woke up, because I got snagged on something in my bed, I remembered it, and I immediately recognized it as a deep sleep dream.

I remember learning once that deep sleep is when the brain strengthens important memories and connections, while eliminating superfluous memories and connections. It strengthens connections by firing them repeatedly. So, when you dream in deep sleep, you are witnessing the repeated firing of connections your brain determines to be important. The last deep sleep dream I remember was in college. In that dream, I was repeating words over and over again. They seemed to be new words I had recently learned in class or in books. I was doing nothing but saying them over and over again.

How do I know that last's night's dream was a deep sleep dream? Ah, well I have an app on my phone that uses my heart rate to plot my sleep stages. When I woke up after being snagged, I looked at the app, and it said I had just been in deep sleep for the past 43 minutes.

In any case, the detailed appearance of daffodils must be important to my brain. We must not forget any daffodil details. Someone may ask me to identify a daffodil later, and I wouldn't want to be embarrassed if I forgot.

In any case, here are photos of various recent daffodils in bloom.

Narcissus x intermedius, probably the smallest daffodil flowers I've seen. The cups are smaller than a paper hole punch.

'Kedron' - it was one of my favorites last year, and this year is even better. The flowers, which were abundant, have lasted for weeks, and even through rain, frost, and wind while staying upright. I love this one. A definite keeper.

'Falconet' - a new one for me this year. I hope it becomes a keeper. The flowers are lovely, long-lasting, have a great fragrance, and the stems keep coming up in succession. It's a Wister Award winner, so I didn't doubt its excellence.

Narcissus bulbocodium, the hoop-petticoat daffodil. It's been flowering in this lawn for over ten years, though it is shy to flower sometimes.

Narcissus bulbocodium

'Orange Comet'

I am a sucker for the Cyclamineus daffodils. With their oversized cups, reflexed tepals, and nodding flowers, they just get me. If you want to die of cuteness overload, do a Google image search for the species itself, Narcissus cyclamineus. Unfortunately, I haven't had much luck with the Cyclamineus daffodils past the first year. I think they like cooler, moister climates than mine. They don't thrive on the intense summer bakings like the Jonquilla daffodils do. In any case, I've only tried them a couple of times before, and never in pots. This year I've tried 'Orange Comet', a hybrid from Brent & Becky's bulbs. I loved taking pictures of this one.

Guess whom I took to work with me?

Narcissus ‘Diamond Ring’

If I ever breed one of these bulbocodium daffodils, I might name it ‘Gramophone’, if it isn’t copyrighted or taken. 

John My Beloved

It was a perfect week to stumble upon this version of one of my favorite Sufjan songs.

Pro 400H

Fujifilm Pro 400H is a new film I've tried. At first, it was frustrating for me. Magenta, green, and cyan are very strong. Colors are very pastel. It seemed like everything was muted or muddy. I wondered if I exposed it wrongly. I tried to err on the side of overexposure, but things looked underexposed. When I scanned them in, though, I found things I liked about it. It has a sensitive look; not quite what I was aiming for, but lovely in its own right.

Buckwheat tree

Buckwheat tree

Tulipa clusiana 'Lady Jane' in dappled sun

Tulipa clusiana 'Lady Jane' opening in morning light

Narcissus 'Bell Song', a pinkish Jonquilla daffodil

Bluets in the woods

It works nicely on people. I think I'll use it mostly for portraits in the future.

Lucy swinging

Lucy

And more shots:

Rosa chinensis 'Mutabilis', new foliage and first blooms of the year

Thurlow Dam in Tallassee, last Friday

There were more photos, but I didn't have time to scan them yet.

'Princeps' 'Ice Follies', and 'Gigantic Star'

'Princeps' is one of the oldest daffodil cultivars, dating from before 1830. It was probably selected from a wild Dutch narcissus, and is possibly the same as Narcissus gayi. Reading about it just now, on Daffseek, I see it a diploid, having 14 chromosomes, which is the number of chromosomes most wild daffodils have. I wish I had thought to look this up earlier. I might have tried to breed it with other diploids. Alas, it didn't set seed for me. At has a nice fragrance, like many trumpet daffodils.

'Princeps' 

'Princeps'

Next up is what I believe to be 'Ice Follies', a more modern but still classic daffodil. It's a large cup daffodil from 1953. I found these growing in the woods near my grandfather's old house.

'Ice Follies' (probably)

And, finally, 'Gigantic Star', a trumpet daffodil more than a century away from 'Princeps'. It's from 1960.

'Gigantic Star'

'Gigantic Star' is one of the daffodils I planted in fall of 2016. So far it seems permanent. I have it in part sun and ideally would move it to full sun. The stems elongate too much in shade and then the enormous flowers cause them to flop over.

Drops of Gold

Fujifilm Provia 100F film is pretty incredible. Look at how it captured sun through these daffodil petals.

Narcissus jonquilla var. henriquesii

'Stella' and 'Sweetness'

'White Lady'

It's difficult to overstate how much I loved the small-cup historic daffodil 'White Lady'. The flowers are huge, but delicate, and such a little pale orange cup. The fragrance was nice, too. I hope this one comes back next year. I've heard that they are perennials in Atlanta, at least.

'White Lady'

'White Lady'

'White Lady', with a white jonquil, 'Pueblo'

'Cragford' and 'Abba'

Continuing in the treatment of tazetta daffodils, today I have 'Cragford' and 'Abba' on display. 'Cragford' has relatively large white flowers with deep orange cups and a nice scent. The flowers were long-lasting and robust. I liked this one. 'Abba' is a double sport (chance mutation) of 'Cragford'. As I mentioned on this blog before, 'Abba' had some dead spots in the center of the flowers. I don't know if this was just a fluke or a common occurrence. In any case, 'Abba' is similar to the later-blooming 'Sir Winston Churchill'. I think I like 'Sir Winston Churchill' a little better so far.

'Abba'

'Abba'

'Cragford'

'Cragford'

The Daffseek database says 'Cragford' is usually sterile and I can say I don't think I'll have any seeds from it. Next year, I think I'll try growing 'Geranium'. It looks similar to 'Cragford', but may be better for breeding (also, 'Geranium' is the cultivar from which 'Sir Winston Churchill' came as a sport).

'Grand Primo'

'Grand Primo', also known as 'Grand Primo Citronière', is another historic tazetta daffodil. This one is actually growing in the woods around my dad's house, and under the ash tree behind my grandfather's old house. It's a Southern heirloom sometimes found on abandoned lots. It looks like a standard paperwhite, but it blooms a little later (although still early), the pollen is dark orange, and the corona color opens a delicate saffron color before fading to white. I really love this daffodil.

'Grand Primo'

'Grand Primo' 

'Grand Primo' in the sun

Family photo of my early-blooming potted plants. 'Grand Primo' is the tallest in the back. You can see it faded more to white after a few days. Others pictured: (back) 'Odoratus', 'Trevithian'; (middle) 'Sweetness', 'Abba', 'Cragford'; (front) Viola odorata 'Duchesse de Parme', 'Princeps', Narcissus x intermedius. 

'Odoratus'

'Odoratus' is one of the daffodils so old that it gets away with having a Latin cultivar name. Current horticultural convention prohibits Latin names, probably to ease confusion between man-made cultivars and natural varieties.

The Daffseek database says 'Odoratus' was found on the Isles of Scilly. I didn't know where that was, so I looked it up. They are southwest of England (northwest of France), and part of the United Kingdom.

'Odoratus' is a Tazetta daffodil with white petals and deep yellow or orange coronae. Unlike most other Tazettas, which I find to have a heady, almost spicy scent, 'Odoratus' smells like sweet, ripe apricots. The bulbs are huge and send up multiple stems.

I read that 'Odoratus' is seed and pollen fertile (on Daffseek), but after days of pollinating the flowers with just about every kind of daffodil pollen I could find, no seeds set. We'll have to wait to see if any pollen was able to fertilize other varieties.

'Odoratus'

'Odoratus' in the sun

'Odoratus' in cloudy weather

Another of 'Odoratus' in the sun for good measure

This was one of my favorite new daffodils. I hope it blooms as well next year.

As a bonus, from the same roll and same day as the sunny photos of 'Odoratus', a view from our lake house. The film is Ektar 100.

'Stella' and 'Sweetness'

After N. jonquilla var. henriquesii, next to bloom were 'Stella' and 'Sweetness'. By the way, we really need a shorter name for N. jonquilla var. henriquesii. Maybe "Henriques' jonquil". In any case, I was surprised by 'Stella'. It was my first time growing it. It has a nice fragrance reminiscent of large cup daffodils. 'Sweetness' is fragrant also, but more akin to a jonquil. Both are historic daffodil cultivars.

'Sweetness' has grown on me over the years. I've had it as long as 'Trevithian'. I bought six bulbs of each about ten years ago. While 'Trevithian' has gone from six bulbs to over a thousand and has a massive display every year, 'Sweetness' is a slow and steady increaser with a more modest display. I love 'Sweetness', though, because it blooms almost a month earlier; one of the first daffodils of spring always. 'Sweetness' and 'Trevitian' have similar flower size and fragrance, although 'Sweetness' is more narrow and elongated.

I tried pollinating both 'Sweetness' and 'Stella'. Both are likely sterile; no seeds set.

'Sweetness'

'Sweetness'

'Stella'

'Stella'

'Stella'

'Sweetness' with N. jonquilla var. henriquesii

'Stella' with 'Sweetness'

'Stella' is so graceful, and 'Sweetness' is so handsome. They make a fine couple.

Lent lilies

I didn't realize until this year that my grandfather's house has daffodils growing around it. Along the side are growing some lent lilies (Narcissus pseudonarcissus), a wild daffodil native to northwestern Europe and part of the parentage of many of the garden trumpet daffodils. They look like they've set seed, too, so I'll collect them.

Lent lilies (Narcissus pseudonarcissus)