The Message of Flowers

Listening to violet's whispers has brought me tender messages of love from my ancestors, and so much more.

Dear Ponder,

I’m so thankful for your enthusiastic reactions to the new artwork that I’ve been giving shape to in the past few months, and how the practice of drawing, mixing colors and putting delicate brush strokes on paper served as a therapy for my weary mind.

There’s a crucial piece of my art practice that I didn’t mention in my last newsletter, though. That piece is the time prior to my putting pencil on a blank sheet of sketch paper, and it is by far the most important step of my art practice.

Outlining my subjects is an act of lovingly caressing them with my eyes, and a bargain with time itself to prolong it—well, at least to prolong my subjective experience of the beauty in front of my eyes.

You might have noticed that most of my subjects are flowers. Why flowers? Besides the fact that I’m growing them in my garden and can find ready subjects to paint, there’s a philsophical aspect to it all.

Let me share my poem, Flowers, written in 2023, to expound my passion to invite flowers into my life and to share them with others:

Flowers
Why are we so drawn to you?
Was it the petals
the colors
the scent?

Or was it the pistils
where fruits may grow
pulling us closer
with the prospect of food
and another day of survival!

But not all flowers bear fruit
Not all people bear children
Not all life becomes productive
Yet does it mean a life’s wasted,
And its existence unworthy?

That which didn’t give us fruit
has bloomed with all its glory
pleased us with its beauty
fed insects with its nectar.
Its dead petals
nourished the earth
where food may grow
someday, perhaps?

Don’t we all deserve to live
even if we don’t bear fruit?
Aren’t we beautiful
just being who we are?

How boring would the world be
if all flowers were the same?
Why is it so difficult
To love our human differences
the way we love a bouquet?

After penning this poem, I’ve come to know flowers more intimately through my gardening practice. I delight in the knowledge that while not all flowers bear the typical fruit that we and animals gather and consume, they serve a critical purpose in our ecosystem.

This year, the flowers I planted in my community garden plot—zinnias, hyssop, snapdragons and more—are powerful attractors of pollinators like bees and butterflies. As you may already know, bees are crucial to human life as we depend on them to pollinate plants that eventually turn into our food. I see this at close range at the garden.

The bees that come and get nectar from the flower garden also visit other vegetables that I and my fellow urban farmers planted. With the help of these bees, our vegetables are able to produce fruit via “plant sex.”

This simple but profound observation completes the thoughts encapsulated in my poem. And beyond that, I think we all agree that the beauty and softness of flowers bring delight and joy to our sometimes/often harsh human existence.

If someone ever asks you, what’s the purpose of beauty? Well, there you have a scientific and poetic explanation! We literally depend on beauty to survive!

On the theme of flowers, I want to share a fascinating experience last week—a community gathering of plant lovers to learn how to listen to plants and tab into their spiritual essence for our inner healing.

Bringing us together was Beacon, NY-based Amy White Eyes, a Clinical Herbal Practitioner with proud Oglala Lakota and Mexican heritages. Amy’s work is rooted in ancestral knowledge, intuitive plant work, and a deep reverence for the Earth.

Coming to Amy’s class, I was expecting to learn about the medicinal qualities of the native plants in our local, Mid-Hudson Valley area. What transpired was a full-body experience that started with the physical lymphatic system and gradually moved to our emotional and spiritual realm—a pleasant surprise!

After placing our offerings on the altar, we each picked a handful of local flowers and herb, and were guided to tap our body along the lymphatic drainage path. It reminded me of dry brushing, which I used to do before taking a shower to enhance the drainage of toxins through the lymphatic system. As we tapped our bodies, the essential oil from the plants, such as hyssop, was released. The fragrance awakened my senses and prepared me for a mysterious journey of listening to a particular flower that Amy would chose for us.

Violet. Credit: Flickr / Hans Hillewaert (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

That flower was violet. We were led to a guided meditation, moving our inner vision through the various energy centers of our body. What follows are my visions and conclusions:

Root chakra: I saw the gentle face of my paternal grandmother, whom I had never met. She was known as the medicine woman of her Indonesian village and had healed countless souls with the herbs and grains she dispensed. As I listened to her silent message, it came through the underground roots to my feet and reached my heart, telling me to receive her unconditional love that had always been there even before I was born. It was love coming from Mother Earth and channeled through my ancestor. I felt a deep warmth in my chest, pleasantly surprised to have received the kind of love that I never felt I experienced through my nuclear family and romantic relationships.

Solar plexus: I saw my father uttering the words, “Purple flowers! Purple flowers! My favorite!” He did indeed say those words on his death bed, but I had no idea why. It suddenly dawned on me that the word “purple” in Chinese could mean either purple or violet, depending on how we qualify it. Could he have meant violets? Were those the violets he saw in his native Indonesia? And then I heard a whisper from him, almost like a sigh: “I’ve always loved you, despite….”

Heart chakra: I felt an opening of my heart toward a sense of curiosity and wonder. I saw the yellow swallowtail that visited my flower garden, which I believed housed the spirit of my deceased friend. Yellow is exactly the complementary color of violet. There was levity, playfulness and a sense of new beginning and happiness in my vision. I believed it was a deepening of the message my friend sent me, and a permission for me to be “open hearted” (開心)—the Chinese characters that mean “happy.”

Crown chakra: We were invited to look into our own creative practice, and then take a sip of the flower essence Amy prepared in a bottle (violet essence + 30% brandy) before asking violet a question we had in mind.

Naturally, I thought about my painting, and asked violet: “Will I be able to survive by choosing my art, and by choosing to live out my authentic self?”

The answer was a reassuring “Yes!”

When I opened my eyes at the end of the meditation, they were awashed with tears. I felt a common thread linking the energy centers of my soul—love. This powerful love was something I realized I could always draw from, offered by my ancestors and fellow humans who are living in the realm of pure love now.

The symbolic meanings of violet are numerous, some of which were revealed to us after the meditation. They include:

💟Gentle ease—Violet’s heart-shaped leaf lends itself to a wonderful grief aid and heart mender. It goes deep into old wounds to help us release any emotional tension.

💟Softness—Violet helps to soften the sharp edges of life and clears space for joy, clarity and enchantment. It reminds us that liberation comes not from control but from surrender and softness. It is here where we find the magic of acceptance. Known as “cloud medicine,” it helps us dissolves hardened tissues, as well as emotional hardness.

💟Playfulness—The violet essence invites dream time, play and the joy of looking up—to clouds, to stars, to our ancestors and guides. It helps us release what no longer serves us. It opens the eye of our hearts, and helps us ask, “What do I need?” rather than “What I do want?”

💟Light and shadow—The violet blooms above ground in the Spring and underground in the Fall. It symbolizes the duality and transmutation of light and darkness, life and death. When underground, it self-fertilizes. To me, it inspires resilience and growth even without witness by others.

💔❤️‍🩹💓What serendipity! These messages from the violet were just what I needed to mend my broken heart over my friend’s death and to look at life from a softer, lighter and more hopeful angle, accepting what is and opening up to new possibilities.

🏳️‍🌈A note about the special symbolism of the violet in LGBTQ+ history: In the 1920s, wearing a violet on your lapel was a quiet way for queer women to signal their identity. By coincidence, I offered a rainbow colored heart-shaped pin at the altar at the beginning of the session. Finding out about this piece of queer history just completed the circle for my self expression.

Speaking of self expression, this description of the violet flower essence cannot be more on point:

Violet flower essence is especially attuned to highly evolved and fragile souls, assisting with self-liberation, self-expression and individuation, while retaining the refined and tender qualities of their feminine beauty.

Source: Power of Flowers Healing Essence Company

Question for my fellow Ponders: What’s your favorite flower? Have you ever tried flower essence? Please share your experience—any kind of experience—with flowers from the land where you live.

“Bouquet from My Garden” with colored pencils and watercolor markers, painted by the author in 2023

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