Almond Blossom  |
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As one of the earliest harbingers of spring, the flowering
almond is an appropriate bloom with which to begin a survey of flowers in
Virginia Woolf’s life and work. Although
mentioned only twice in her fiction, the almond has a prominent place in
Virginia Stephen’s early diaries where -- along with crocuses, squills, and
daffodils -- its progress is carefully charted as an index to the season. During the course of twenty days in March of
1897, she recorded the almond trees in nearby Kensington Gardens as first “getting
pink” (PA 48), next “just coming out” (PA 52), then fully “out” (55) and
finally “all most beautiful” (A 59).
More than twenty years later, the venue has shifted to Kew Gardens where
in March of 1919 and 1920 Woolf notes the arrival of almond trees and daffodils
(D1 252; D2 21). Writing at Hogarth
House in January of 1921, she ironically elaborates the association of almond
flowers with early spring and by extension young love when she asserts in her
diary that she could write a “new chapter in Clive’s life”: “Spring has miraculously renewed herself.
Pink almond blossoms are in bud. Callow birds crow. In short, he’s out of love
& in love” (D2 87).
The traditional symbolism of almond blossoms matches pretty
well with Woolf’s personal experiences. According to Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers, the Flowering Almond signifies hope (8). The first flower to appear in the
Middle East, the blossoms’ early arrival and miraculous appearance on bare
branches cause it to be associated with birth and fertility. It appears frequently in the Bible: in
Numbers 17, Aaron’s rod is an almond branch, and in Exodus 25 and 37 the design
of the menorah is said to be based on the design of almond blossoms. The Hebrew
word for almond is “shakeid” which means to be awake or to watch.[1]
In Jeremiah 1 there is a Hebrew pun when the Lord asks Jeremiah what he sees,
and he replies that he sees an almond branch. The Lord says this is true,
affirming that Jeremiah sees the Lord watching.
Vincent Van Gogh’s “Blooming Almond Tree,” one of the most
famous appearances of almond blossoms in the visual arts, combines a number of
these associations. Painted in 1890 to celebrate the birth of his nephew,
namesake and godson, the painting
represented Van Gogh’s hope for a new start.
Writing to his brother Theo he called the painting “perhaps the best,
the most patiently worked thing I had done” and expressed his desire for the
painting to hang over the baby’s bed.
(VGVG 130).
While all the personal mentions of almond blossoms occur in
Woolf’s diaries before 1921, they appear in two later novels, Orlando and The Years, in both cases as signs of spring in the city. The most substantial treatment is in Orlando where, walking in Kew Gardens on
March 2 sometime in the late Victorian era, the female protagonist lists the emerging
markers of spring: ”a grape hyacinth, and a crocus, and a bud too on the almond
tree” (215). All this new growth
inspires her rather sexual fantasies of “bulbs, hairy and red, thrust into the
earth in October, flowering now” (215). Eighteen days later, she gives birth to
“a very fine boy” (217).
The last almond blossom to appear in Woolf’s work is in the
first section of The Years. Spring is coming to London: in the
Pargiter’s backyard garden “buds were beginning to swell” (17); Milly and
Delia, standing at the window, look out on the London street and see that “The
crocuses were yellow and purple in the front gardens. The almond trees and privets
were tipped with green” -- a final inventory of vernal harbingers.
(636)
[1]
“Sign of the Almond Tree: Further Thoughts on TuB’Shevat.” http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Holidays/Winter_Holidays/Tu_B_shevat/Almond_Tree/almond_tree.html <accessed 1/1/18>
Growing an almond plant is a rewarding experience; it combines aesthetic appeal with the joy of cultivating a natural, healthy snack.
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