Ears of the Earth listen for summer - Editorial Notebook

The original occupants of the Prairies have the best name for these most beautiful of inhabitants.

First Nations people dubbed them Ears of the Earth, because their fuzzy leaves thrust themselves from the prairie soil just after the snow disappears; just as people understand that spring has triumphed over winter.

Prairie Smoke and Windflower are other names; the former for its colour and perhaps for the amorphous appearance of the plant after blooming, and the latter for the flowers’ defiance of icy spring winds in the very act of showing purple against the brown of spring prairie.

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But this stalwart harbinger of spring is properly known as Prairie Anemone (related to Anemos, the Greek word for wind) and commonly known as the crocus.

For many people of the prairie, its appearance is a sign that we can safely celebrate the promise of spring and the coming growing season.

The discovery of the year’s first crocuses constitutes part of the fabric that binds my family together. When I can’t be home to help conduct the search and celebrate the Windflower discovery, the photos of crocuses sent by readers from all over the Prairies are balm to a soul sick of winter.

Sometimes the photos show Ears of the Earth defiantly thrust up through cow pies, in a show of their ardent desire to bloom. Sometimes the photos show wisps of Prairie Smoke in a breeze. And sometimes they’re bouquets of anemones in a child’s hand.

This delicate blue-purple flower, with its fuzzy stem and sunny heart, reminds us that in spring, all things are possible.

Southern Alberta author Annora Brown, in her 1954 book Old Man’s Garden, tells the Indian legend that explains the attributes of Ears of the Earth, so named, says Brown, because the flowers are the first “to listen for the first faint rustle of summer.”

As legend has it, Wapee, an Indian youth, is seeking his solitary passage into manhood when he encounters a flower “as white as the snow that was now resting on the slopes of the far-off mountains.”

He finds comfort, peace and passage through his friendship with the flower and because of it, Wapee asks the Great Spirit to grant the flower’s wishes.

“The Great Spirit was pleased that Wapee’s first thought had been for the flower,” writes Brown in recounting the legend.

“Now over the hillsides thousands of the descendants of Wapee’s small white friend face the cold winds of early spring, with the colour of the distant mountains in their petals, a bright sun in their hearts, and a warm furry robe wrapped securely about them.”