Category Archives: Alchemy

St. Roch in Lisbon–and New York!

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In this interior view of the Church of St. Roch in Lisbon, you can see the famously expensive Chapel of St. John the Baptist. One reason it was so expensive os the large amount of lapis lazuli used on the front of the altar and the walls of the chapel.

My recent post about St. Roch was much more popular–and sparked some very interesting comments and responses–than I had anticipated and prompted me to think a little bit more about the good saint.

The most famous church dedicated to St. Roch is in Lisbon, Portugal. (There are a half dozen churches dedicated to him in the metropolitan area of New York City.) The church in Lisbon was the earliest Jesuit church in the Portuguese world, and one of the first Jesuit churches anywhere. The Igreja de São Roque was one of the few buildings in Lisbon to survive the disastrous 1755 earthquake relatively unscathed.

When built in the 16th century it was the first Jesuit church designed in the “auditorium-church” style specifically for preaching. It contains a number of chapels; the most notable is the 18th-century Chapel of St. John the Baptist which was constructed in Rome of many precious stones and disassembled, shipped, and reconstructed at São Roque in Lisbon; at the time it was reportedly the most expensive chapel in Europe.

The history of the church is fascinating. In 1505 Lisbon was being ravaged by the plague, which had arrived by ship from Italy. The king and the court were even forced to flee Lisbon for a while. The site of São Roque, outside the city walls (now an area known as the Bairro Alto), became a cemetery for plague victims. At the same time the King of Portugal sent to Venice for a relic of St. Roch, the patron saint of plague victims, whose body had been brought to Venice in 1485. The relic was sent by the Venetian government, and it was carried in procession up the hill to the plague cemetery.

The inhabitants of Lisbon then decided to erect a shrine on the site to house the relic. This early shrine had a “Plague Courtyard” for the burial of plague victims next to the shrine. In 1540, after the founding of the Society of Jesus in the 1530s, the king of Portugal invited them to come to Lisbon and the first Jesuits soon arrived. They settled first in All Saints Hospital (which no longer exists). However they soon began looking for a larger, more permanent location for their main church, and selected the Shrine of St. Roch as their favored site. They used the old shrine for a while but built the current church in 1555-1565.

St. Roch himself is usually represented in the garb of a pilgrim, often lifting his tunic to demonstrate the plague sore, or bubo, in his thigh, and accompanied by a dog carrying a loaf in its mouth. The Third Order of Saint Francis claims him as a member and includes his feast on its own calendar of saints, observing it on August 17. There is a popular street festival in his honor in Little Italy at the end of August each summer; read about it here.

Daffodil, the Flower of March

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Associated with Venus and water, daffodil is used to promote love, fertility, and luck.

Associated with Venus and water, daffodil is used to promote love, fertility, and luck.

Daffodil or “lent lily”, one of the early blooming flowers of spring and the flower most associated with the month of March, is a common name for the blossom which is a variety of those called “Narcissus.” It was said by the ancient Greeks to have bloomed where the youth Narcissus withered and died, having become infatuated with his own reflection in a pool. (The goddess Nemesis had cursed him in retaliation for his already self-obsessed and cruel disdain of the mountain nymph Echo. Echo had already been punished by the goddess Hera who had made it impossible for Echo to say anything other than repeat a word or two that someone else had spoken to her. Greek mythology is one big interconnected soap opera, isn’t it?!)

It is associated with the goddess Venus (because of Echo’s love for Narcisscus and Narcissus’ love for himself) and is therefore a “feminine” plant. The alchemists associated daffodil with the element water (perhaps because of its association with Narcissus’ death by a pool, even though the flower itself grows easily in meadows and woods).

If you carry daffodil, it will attract a lover to you. If you place fresh-cut daffodil in your bedroom, fertility will increase. If the bloom is plucked and carried next to your heart, it will attract good luck to you. Good luck and fertility being exactly what Narcissus was himself in short supply of, perhaps his flower is attempting to make amends for him and his bad behavior toward the nymph who wanted nothing more than to be his lover.

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“There’s gold in them thar fleece!”

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Jason returns with the Golden Fleece, shown on an Apulian red-figure calyx krater, ca. 340–330 BC

The California gold rush began on January 24, 1848 with the accidental discovery of gold in the water during the construction of Sutter’s sawmill. When President Polk announced the discovery later that year, it caused a national and international sensation and the “Forty-Niners” swooped down to begin sifting and panning for gold in the streams and rivers of California.

Gold has been associated with wealth and opulence throughout history. It is especially associated with gods and divinity and royalty. Gold coins protect people from hunger and poverty. Gold coins in the Tarot (Pentacles) deal with earthly, daily experiences related to work and endeavors that support our emotional and physical well-being.

Gold is mentioned in Greek mythology for examples as varied as King Midas, the Golden Fleece stolen by Jason which possessed the power of resurrection, and the Golden Apples of Hesperides. The Golden Apples bestowed immortality on whoever ate them. Gold has always been associated with the eternal, the unending, incorruptible and embracing powers of the divine. The color and shining quality of gold continues to be associated with the sun and the sacred masculine.

There is a fascinating connection between the Golden Fleece and the California gold rush. A widespread interpretation relates the myth of the Golden Fleece to a method of washing gold from streams, which was well attested from c. 5th century BC in the region of Georgia to the east of the Black Sea. (The myths of the Golden Fleece say that the Fleece was kept in Colchis, i.e. the modern Georgia in Eastern Europe.) Sheep fleeces, sometimes stretched over a wood frame, would be submerged in the stream and gold flecks borne down from upstream would collect in them. The fleeces would be hung in trees to dry before the gold was shaken or combed out. Collecting gold flecks from the rivers was what the Forty-Niners would do in California, often using pie pans to swirl the water in and then pour through filters–the same idea as the sheep fleeces.

Gold represents the best in us but also brings out the worst in people. Legends of Aztec and Inca gold drove the Conquistadores to seize the Native American empires. Jealousy and Greed, simmering beneath the surface of our emotions, are brought out into the open when we see someone else has something–such as gold–that we want for ourselves.

Click here to read more about folklore associated with gold.

The Fool, one of the Major Arcana of the Tarot, shows a golden sky that the pilgrim is stepping off into. He trusts that the universe will protect and shield him from exterior evil as well as from his own worst instincts.