GENTLE REMINDERS

I love the garden and the gentle reminders as nature continually prompts me to be mindful and aware.

Colours, shapes, textures and smells! All growing and living in a similar environment, and yet each is so different and complex in their own unique way. People are no different.

Jewels in the garden

How many flowers can you see in the photograph?

How many judgments and perspectives, can you note from looking at the photograph?

Which flower grabbed your attention first?

The traditional rose, beautiful smells and velvety texture - accepted in nearly every society and environment. To have them thrive can prove they can be fussy and high maintenance plants, depending on the environment. Liking acidic soil and are prone to black-spot, with our humid and wet tropical conditions. I nurture them differently according to the environment they live in. I give them a hard prune around March because I know that is when the black-spot hits them hardest. They are bright and produce beautiful roses in our temperate winters, giving me healthy flowers.

I have given a rundown on shape, texture, scent, acceptability and which environment and season it will thrive in. People are similar with their clothes, hairstyles, colour, perfume, all the external views are accepted or rejected. BUT what environment are they being nourished and renewed in internally? So they too can produce a beautiful life and give pleasure to those around them?

The other end of the spectrum is the black bat plant. For starters the colour? Who likes a flower that is linked to darkness, mourning and death? Or absolutely loved because it doesn’t fit at all? Embraced because it is different, it doesn’t conform, exotic, unusual a spectacle in itself. It is fussy, on what environment it can thrive and where it grows. It flourishes in my greenhouse over the hot humid summer months and no flowers are given in winter. I love it because it dares to be different!

The thoughts which flit through your mind when gazing at the arrangement of flowers.

The whiskers on the bat plant?

The colour is black?…… for a flower?

Texture is different?

These are all differences we perceive, and then we accept or reject.

Both the rose and the black bat plant have long stems. One is scented the other isn’t. Depending the stem length when trimmed depends, on which flower will tower over the other or how they are arranged in the vase.

Then you have the dwarf ginger, no scent, grows rampant in the wet tropics shooting out everywhere. In the tropical environment it is considered common - almost a weed. You can appreciate the flowers in summer when the rose bushes are not producing beautiful rose buds. It could be perceived as a nuisance.

The texture is more waxy, not soft and gentle to the touch like the rose petals.

Then finally we come to the geisha, soft flowing, providing a gentle grace to the eye. Submerged in the background and used as a filler in the vase. Providing a glimpse of small purple petite flowers. The geisha plant producing soft gentle flowers which bend and wave in the wind. Happy to flow anywhere you put it. The foliage of the leaves grab the attention, closer to a lime green colour rather than the dark green foliage of the rose.

It does not strike the unusual end of the scale and it does not strike the beautiful end of the scale. It can be passed by and not noticed.

Then finally we come to the following…

No matter where you put these exotic beauties or what environment, whether a vase or room. The colour catches your eye, even though they have been displayed in a plain wooden vase, their beauty still shines through. Some people are like the orchid. Their inner light and exuberance for life shines through IF within a protected room BUT is no different to the other plants. Where the orchid grows still requires a specific environment, to produce these beautiful flowers and brilliance.

When I pick the flowers in all their beautiful colours and forms, and I notice the uniqueness of each one of them. I am reminded it is only our perceptions and judgments on whether they are beautiful or ugly. I like to put them together in a vase, to show they can all come together in my environment are loved and accepted despite their differences.

They follow their own inherent nature, not conforming to anyone's expected standards, rules or beliefs. To love them is to care for them a nurturing way, giving them an environment where they can thrive. They reward me and grace my environment. The flowers nurture my perspectives and beauty in the world.

Stay Strong

Karen