The Circle: The Sea Shore's Flower

Most Christmas stories begin with sleighs and carols, Santa's little helpers and children's gifts, but mine does not. Instead, as befits the soil on which I am stationed, it mingles the salt of the sea, the cold wind of its tempests, the spirits of the past lurking, the Pleiades casting their faint light over the water in the depth of its nights and the glimmer of hope upon the approaching traveller's return.

Many Christmases ago, I happened to be sent to my uncle and aunt's summer house on a tiny, remote island off the shores of the monastery community of Mount Athos, Greece. My parents needed to travel to Europe and my imagination was piqued by the countryside which I hadn't seen in its December glory; rampant and wild, moor-ish almost, the sea salt mines shinning in the fangled sun from afar like a blanket of edible snow. Days were short and evenings were spent at the glimmer of the petrol-filled lamp, electricity not yet provided to the tiny island, ears perking up at the melancholy wailing of the dolphins streaming up the seaways at night. The logs in the fire were crackling merrily, telling their own tales of harvest and honest toil: olive-tree wood, chopped up in big rough chunks, its resinous, oligeanous essence perforating my memory with the sense of being at one with the silent nature around, its aroma the very essence of Greek history.

It was customary at the time for children to read Christmas stories by Alexander Papadiamantis(1851-1911); a Greek Dostoyevsky with shades of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens thrown in, if only for his mysterious nuances, his predeliction for the less proviliged in life and his industriousness in turning out a new story for Christmas, Carnival and Easter every year. Those stories were filled with predicaments, premonitions, organically lived Orthodoxy and humble triumphs; those last often of a spiritual rather than a physical dimension. In one of them, The Sea-shore's Flower, unravelled on his native island of Skiathos, he occupied himself with the village's fool, a young innocent man who was seeing visions in the night. That kind of person is called ελαφροισκιωτος in Greek: person with a "short" shadow. In one of those repeated visions whilst on night-fishing on the boat, the youth was seeing a bright light over the sea-shore's edge in the shape of a flower. As the story progressed, we learn that the light reflects the tale of a local girl, named Flower, who was waiting for years for her beloved, a foreign seaman, to come back from his wars with the barbarians and marry her on Christmas Day; only to find out that her man had been captured in the interim and died in slavery. For ever since, every Christmas Eve the light can be seen on the night sky, its flickering the soul of the seaman withering in the heavy bondage of slavery, far away from his beloved, and only men with a clear soul could see it...

Such was the story's impact that I found my childish self seeking to find out outlines of starry designs on the pitch-black sky, the flower of the sea-shore mingling in my mind with the Star of Bethleem we had been taught about at school; the crushed love of one person versus the uniting love that was incarnated for all. And it dawned on me that perhaps one of the most precious elements which we bid farewell so soon, eager to shed its perceived obstacles, is our innocence. The innocence that had allowed us to believe in Santa Claus as children (suspension of disbelief, if you prefer); the innocence that had us all excited over holidays instead of moaning and groaning over the sheer torture that is the holiday shopping, cleaning, preparing and arranging everything into place. The innocence that allowed us to give, rather than receive, often from the very things we lacked instead of possessed, in order to make someone happy on these holy days.

Upon my parents' return I didn't see the Sea-shore's Flower, although my excitement was so palpable as I unpackaged my gifts and spent the Christmas day with all the family that I could have easily seen visions of reindeers on the sky raining packages through the smoking chimney. I haven't seen it, ever. I doubt I ever will. And every day I pine for the lost innocence of that childhood, which was the only time when one can truly feel like Christmas.


With this story I am participating in The Circle, an Advent collaboration beginning on November 29 and ending on Christmas Day on which various perfume writers and artists, led by Roxana Villa, natural perfumery artist, are writing something special for each day. Please don't forget to enjoy all the participants' writing by clicking this link.

The story The Sea Shore's Flower by Alexander Papadiamantis can be read in Greek on this link. Painting Ship under the Moonlight by Greek painter Konstantinos Volanakis via Un Petit Bateau III

A Christmas Tale told by Jean Claude Ellena

"It's December the 25th and my grand-children are calling me to unwrap their gifts. Hastily I put on an old, shapeless cashmere sweater imprisoning a sweet and sour smell, reminiscent of sweat and salt.
Everyone is gathered round the Christmas tree. The smaller kids throw themselves in my lap. Three ages, three smells that mingle into one. During the course of the evening, they lose the scent of their bath; their smell now is nothing but softness, tenderness and happiness. I don't dare breathe, I become intoxicated. Their three little, impatient mouths are spattered with chocolate. "Jean Claude, have you tried the one with orange zest?" "No, I prefer coarse dark chocolate; Caracas I think it's called."
The room is pervaded by aromas which don't blend. The smell of resin, of candles, the scent of yellow roses which reminds me of the scent of tea. Lunch will be a perfumed affair; a small bottle of fragrance will be slipped inside the napkins. With an Irish wife, one child married to an Italian and another to a German, dishes and desserts will be redolent of the whole of Europe! The kitchen is filled with the smell of butter and spices, coming from the pudding being cooked for an hour now. There will be white truffle from Alba and stuffed goose. To add to the tastes, we will talk about smells!"

~Jean Claude Ellena

Thanks to Jean Claude Ellena and au.feminin