{"id":2472,"date":"2021-05-09T18:32:15","date_gmt":"2021-05-09T18:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=2472"},"modified":"2021-05-09T18:39:08","modified_gmt":"2021-05-09T18:39:08","slug":"the-rise-and-fall-of-mothers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=2472","title":{"rendered":"The Rise and Fall of Mother’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I dedicate a dandelion to Anna Jarvis who, having founded Mother\u2019s Day, spent an entire lifetime trying to undo it.  Her success in 1914 quickly became overscented, oversweet, oversentimentalized by the profiteers of capitalism, and within years, she was desperate to put the cat back in the bag.  Keep it simple! she railed.  Boycott florists, squash the candy makers and card hawkers!  Stop the commercialism!  She exhausted her fortune to take back a name she  couldn\u2019t quite claim – Mother\u2019s Day?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jarvis wanted to honor and respect a much more complex motherhood.\u00a0 Rather than a delicately petalled flower, I see dandelion as Jarvis\u2019 idea of mother.\u00a0 Its burst of sun-like flower is charming, and the unsung tenacity of its weed with its jagged, tooth-shaped leaf and its deeply sourced taproot where its spiritual power lies.\u00a0 The grit and vision of la dur\u00e9e,<\/em> the everyday beauty of continuity, is packed into its whole.\u00a0 It is \u201ctoothy\u201d \u2014 dandelion is a corruption of the French \u201cdents du lion.\u201d\u00a0 The feminine becomes gritty, determined, a fighter, what some might see as masculine energy while the masculine is often fragile.\u00a0 Such are the truths in paradox.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, we can spy beauty in our mothers and sidewalk flowers often \u2014 like seeing dandelion when the afternoon sun comes glancing over rooftops and catches it in its jewel light. \u00a0 I see wildness in its simplicity.\u00a0 I see an outflow, a pouring of generosity. I am never one to scorn excess!\u00a0 All the flowers I got this year have amazed me. So many beauties! \u00a0In the spirit of both\/and, I gather the whole thing and offer it in thanks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I dedicate a dandelion to Anna Jarvis who, having founded Mother\u2019s Day, spent an entire lifetime trying to undo it.  Her success in 1914 quickly became overscented, oversweet, oversentimentalized by the profiteers of capitalism, and within years, she was desperate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1102,1103,1105,1106,1104,1107,852,1108],"class_list":["post-2472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anna-jarvis","tag-dandelion","tag-florists","tag-hallmark-cards","tag-la-duree","tag-mother","tag-mothers-day","tag-motherhood"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-DS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2472"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2476,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2472\/revisions\/2476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}