Clarens Cosmos – A Fairytale Experience
April in Clarens and the Eastern Free State is definitely the most beautiful month of the year. The author gives his impressions of this beautiful and chaotic kaleidoscope of colors that only occurs during April.
When you’ve seen the trio of autumn colors of the Eastern Free State – the sandstone mountains, flaming poplars and fields of cosmos – then winter can begin. And sometimes, as I travel between Kestell and Harismith, or Golden Gate and Clarens, I can’t help but be overwhelmed by the shortest and best of the three: the Cosmos. A photographer friend affirms that the cosmos is the most photographed flower in the world. And I understand perfectly! There is something so tender and moving in the beauty of this flower, that one would like to keep it forever, be it in a photo, a watercolor, a poem…
Perhaps we would just as much like to save this brief stream of life, because, according to folklore retold for generations, it came to the country by way of war. The seed was mixed with bags of horse fodder, imported from Argentina, during the Anglo-Boer War. Perhaps you are calling for a National Cosmos Day, similar to Poppy Day? There is definitely something transcendent about this care-free flower: Spanish priests in Mexico (the country where this flower originated) planted it in their gardens and named it “Cosmos.” The evenly distributed petals were her inspiration for the word “cosmos” – “harmony” or “orderly”. Other sources claim that the name of the flower comes from other meanings of the word “cosmos” in Greek, particularly “ornament”, obviously because it is such a pretty flower, while in South America (and some in South Africa) it is considered a bad weed.
Perhaps this “long-stemmed” flower, which breaks through the earth’s crust where the soil is most barren, compels us to feverishly grasp the camera or brush, because we know it will be gone with the first frost? In any case, the cosmos, a family of the equally beautiful sunflowers, daisies, and asters, still manages to entertain us from our routes and routines, which makes us stop at the side of the road, go out, breathe, and look… thus planting in its own way. a bit of chaos needed, right? A lovely chaos, just a moment before winter comes.
The appearance of the fairy tale of the “cosmos” is really something out of the ordinary and really worth making the effort to see.