A reader writes:
"I was shocked to discover from a recent post on Torpedo the Ark that even innocent-looking daffodils are highly toxic, containing as they do the alkaloid poison lycorine [1]. Does this suggest, do you think, that Nature is not only inherently dangerous, but evil?"
That's an interesting question; one that has exercised theologians for millennia.
And I have to admit, I rather like the (Gnostic) idea of a material universe that is fundamentally imperfect; the creation of a malevolent demiurge, rather than a Supreme Being who is wholly Loving and Good.
For it seems to me that it is solely in such a universe that colourful, perfumed and, yes, sometimes poisonous flowers blossom, only then to fade and pass away with transient loveliness.
For whilst in an Ideal Heaven, flowers are colourless, odourless and everlasting [2], it is only in a world that knows death - or on the winding path to Hell - that scarlet poppies grow ... [3]
Notes
[1] The post referred to is the one of 16 March 2023 entitled 'Continuous as the Stars That Shine': click here.
Without wishing to shock my anonymous correspondent still further, it may interest them to know that many flowering plants commonly found in UK gardens - not just daffodils - are in fact poisonous; this includes my mother's favourite, lily of the valley, which, whilst loved for its delicate scent, is extremely toxic due to a high concentration of cardiac glycosides. Even the ever-popular hydrangea contains small amounts of cyanide.
[2] See D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, ed. Mara Kalnins, (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 144.
Commenting on the Heaven dreamed of by those who long for the end of the actual world, Lawrence writes: "How beastly their New Jerusalem, where the flowers never fade, but stand in everlasting sameness."
[3] See the earlier post 'Little Hell Flames: On D. H. Lawrence's Poppy Philosophy' (29 May 2021): click here. And see also the even earlier post, 'Fleurs du Mal' (25 April 2015): click here.
