Forget-Me-Not
T.F.S.
Three, five, and seven
3 5 7
By Ed Halpaus, Grand Lodge Education Officer.
Number 127 –
Lord Alfred Tennyson - The Brook
He’s not alone in wanting to keep his membership in the Craft to himself. We don’t need to look very far into the history of the world to see some of the reasons a Mason might want to keep is being a Mason on the private side. Masons have been shunned, ostracized, put on trial, incarcerated, and even put to death because of their Masonic affiliation by dictators and despots. Sadly these kinds of things were happening as recently as the mid 1900’s in
It is each individual Mason’s own decision whether or not he will reveal himself as being a Freemason, and every other Freemason should respect the decisions of our Brethren. Men petition a Lodge and take the degrees of Masonry for perfectly personal reasons; not for any publicity, but for personal growth and bonding with other, like minded, men.
In
Displaying a Masonic emblem of some kind on our person, home, or automobile, is referred to, by our Brethren affiliated with Prince Hall Freemasonry, as ‘wearing light.’ When some of us ‘wear light’ we do so with the familiar Square and Compasses, while others might display an emblem that is less familiar to the general public, such as the an emblem depicting the name of a historic and Biblical character from Genesis 4:22, or a Scottish or York Rite emblem, maybe the 14th or 32nd degree S.R. Ring, or maybe a simple flower; the Forget-Me-Not. The Forget-Me-Not is worn and loved by Masons world wide as an emblem of their affiliation with the Fraternity. It is also a way to express the remembrance of the persecution many of our Masonic Brethren have suffered for being Freemasons.
The story of this very simple and pretty flower and how it became an emblem of Freemasonry is an interesting one: Briefly, during the Nazi Party’s rise to power in
The Forget-Me-Not was first used by one of the Grand Lodges operating in
This “Coincidence” of the Blue Forget-Me-Not being used first by a Grand Lodge and later by the Nazi Government permitted the Masons to wear that pin, or the actual flower, as an emblem or sign understood by other Masons, as to their affiliation with the Sons of Light.
However, once the Freemasons who had been arrested and incarcerated were in prison garb it is highly unlikely that they were allowed to posses any jewelry at all - let alone to wear it on the clothes of a prisoner. If you have seen photos of the grounds of the concentration camps you might have noticed that it was unlikely there was much growing there, but being the ‘forget-me-not’ is a wild flower it is possible a Masonic political prisoner might have plucked one when available to put on his person if he could.
The name of the Forget-Me-Not in German is Vergessmein-nicht, and simply translated, as Worshipful Brother Roger Firestone was kind enough to do for me, means "forget mine not," which he commented is “not much difference from the name for the flower in English.”
That brings to mind something interesting about the flower’s ‘English’ name: One Encyclopedic Dictionary says that the flower was given its English name by the 19th century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his poem “The Keepsake.” The dictionary gives us this information: [Coleridge] gave this Eurasian and North American wildflower its common English name. In his poem 'the keepsake', published in 1802, he described it as “This is the common forget-me-not Myosotis arvensis.”
I looked for quite a while for this poem and I finally found it, so I thought I would reproduce it here, for your reading enjoyment. This poem is a bit over 200 years old now, and it could be called a part of the history of the flower, and lapel pin many of us wear as a sign of our being a Freemason.
The keepsake
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The tedded hay, the first fruits of the soil,
The tedded hay and corn sheaves in one field,
Show summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall.
Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust,
Or when it bends beneath the uprising lark,
Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose
(In vain the darling of successful love)
Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years;
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.
Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk
By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,
That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook,
Hope’s gentle gem, the sweet forget-me-not!
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline
With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk
Has worked, (the flowers which most she knew I loved,)
And more beloved than they, her auburn hair.
In the cool morning twilight, early walked
By her full bosom’s joyous restlessness,
Softly she rose, and lightly stole along,
Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower,
Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze,
Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung,
Making a quiet time of disquiet
In a smooth scarcely moving river pool.
There, in that bower where she first she owned her love,
And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy
From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretched
The silk upon the frame, and worked her name
Between the moss-rose and forget-me-not –
Her own dear name, with her own auburn hair!
That forced to wander till sweet spring returns,
I yet might ne’er forget her smile, her look,
Her voice, (that even in her mirthful mood
Has made me wish to steal away and weep,)
Nor yet the entrancement of that maiden kiss
With which she promised, that when spring returned,
She would resign one half of that dear name,
And own thenceforth no other name but mine!
“One of the names (and meriting to be the only one) of the Myosotis Scorpioides Palustris, a flower from six to twelve inches high, with blue blossom and bright yellow eye. It has the same name over the whole Empire of Germany (Vergissmein Nicht), and, I believe, in
From the Great Light of Masonry: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 NKJV
Words to live by: Live your life so you don’t need to hide your diary.
Please remember: if you would like to participate in the latest Masonic Monday Question, please go to http://www.lodgebuilder.org and click on the Lodge Education forum. When you have an answer send it to masonicmonday@gmail.com the Masonic Monday Question for the week of 07/21/08 is: “Define each of the following and give its relationship to Freemasonry: a) Jacobean; b) Jacobin; c) Jacobite; d) Jacobian”
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With “Brotherly Love”,
Ed Halpaus
Grand Lodge Education Officer
“Always two there are, a master and an apprentice.” Yoda
Labels: History