I. LOVE
Angela wrapped the lavender flower stems with ribbons—violet and white. She tacked the bundles above the doorway to her room to ward off evil spirits and bring her love. Then sitting next to the fireplace, she warmed herself in the velvet folds of her gown and waited for an unknown lover. Angela went on with her daily life but waited. She waited a year and a day, but no lover entered her life. She lost faith in lavender’s spiritual history of love, devotion, and harmony until she understood that finding love requires more than a passive bundle of flowers.
II. CALM
Michael awoke feeling refreshed and calm, having slept well for the first time in months. He’d found he could no longer continue his lifestyle filled with louche partnerships and harmful addictions. So he’d visited Angela, a casual acquaintance and herbalist, to ask for a potion to comfort the anguish and the hopelessness of making this change. He sat in Angela’s warm, sunlit kitchen while she brewed a tea of lavender, valerian, and chamomile, and then they talked of their lives and unfulfilled dreams for hours. His nerves now calm, he knew he’d found redemption in a cup of lavender tea.
III. PROTECTION
Angela and Michael entered into a Lavender marriage. They had been casual friends—nothing more—but they married not for love or physical attraction, but instead for protection from the world’s negativity and violence toward those who are different—nonbinary. They made their home together, shared meals, friends, social engagements, but they never touched during thirty years together. They shared their fears, concerns, and passions, their hopes and dreams. As their closeness grew, their lives intertwined. Intimacy developed slowly in this unexpected way until they discovered that they had crossed over into a spiritual love that required no physical manifestation.
IV. SCENT
Lavender grows in my garden—a sentinel against insect invaders and intrepid evil spirits. I brush past it on my walks and I’m comforted by its scent. I cut the abundant flower stems to add to bouquets and take cuttings of leaves to wash and dry for making sachets and tea bags for gifts to friends. Lavender requires little—only some love and water if rain doesn’t come for weeks in the heat of summer. Pruning helps its shape, but nothing more. How rare it is to find a living thing that gives back so much more than it requires.