Lily, your words land as a tapestry where beauty, ancestry, and survival thread through one another. I linger with your poem, especially where you ask if a flower that bears no fruit still carries worth—because that question stretches far beyond the garden. I see how your practice honors presence itself as nourishment, how even petals feed soil for what may come later.
I also notice the weave between your father’s final words, your grandmother’s healing hands, and the violet’s voice. A dialogue across generations and species arises—human, insect, plant—all whispering love in their own form. You show how beauty does more than please us: it sustains life, and it sustains dignity.
The piece opens a contradiction I often live with: we say beauty has no function, yet you reveal how our very survival depends on it. You bridge science and spirit here, and I find myself wanting to ask: what other aspects of life appear ornamental on the surface yet hold the hidden architecture of survival?
I have long written in violet ink because of that meaning of the color. (currently I have a vibrant green that is more conducive to healing and hope).
Jay, thank you for reflecting back to me your understanding and insights into the elements that are interwoven to make up the tapestry of life. And yes, that philosophical question of whether beauty serves any purpose has been on my mind since I was a child! There was also pain involved in this question, because my father, who was the primary artistic "influencer" in my life, had his self esteem constantly attacked in the capitalistic societies he lived in that did not appreciate art. But both of us clearly felt that art was essential to our spiritual needs and our happiness. When you wrote that beauty sustains dignity--bingo! That is the mysterious yet ever-present thread that connects all the beautiful things in life. It made me think of the beautiful architectures of the past. There was no functional value in taking so much time and effort to create the aesthetic elements, right? But they did it to highlight and uphold the dignity of the human soul and to honor something larger than us (oftentimes, God or a divine being). When we move in these structures, we partake in reverence and dignity.
I appreciate your question: "What other aspects of life appear ornamental on the surface yet hold the hidden architecture of survival?" It will be something for me to ponder.
Writing in violet ink sounds delicious ;-) Oooh, now you're getting me interested in a hunt for that kind of ink and write in it. Vibrant green does sound soothing and healing!
Louisa this was an exquisite and fragrant journey through a meadow of flowers, especially violets, accompanied by your ancestors, giving you so many important messages. What a powerful experience you had in Amy’s workshop. So healing. I also loved your flower poem. Flowers give me great joy too, and I look forward to learning how to grow them from seeds, with your help 😀💗 🌺
Amy, thank you for your lovely, fragrant comment that lit up my spirit. Yes, that experience was really healing. It was such a wonderful surprise! Imagine if we talk to and listen to flowers every day! What kind of messages will we pick up? Hmmm, that gives me an idea to listen to the flowers that I have planted and also made into bouquets! 💐
It would be great fun to show you how to grow flowers from seeds.
I love this comprehensive invocation for the power of plants and flowers. As you know, I have dieted and studied with indigenous plants and trees for almost 2 decades to learn their properties for healing and connection. My favorite is Ayauma, one of many trees that opens and heals the heart, and teaches boundaries... much more.
Thank you for your dedication to liberation and beauty.
I am still with injury, little typing, so I'll cut and paste your words even though the entire piece delights me — to be part of your creative process and feminine wisdom.
💔❤️🩹💓
"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."
Dear Prajna, the wise Cron with all indigenous plants- and nature-related knowledge. Thank you for your generous comment, sharing and sisterly love! I'm just starting to connect to my grandma's heritage and am in love with what plants have to teach us and offer us! I will definitely look into Ayauma. ❤️
I'm sorry to hear about your arm injury (on top of everything else that you have to handle on the home front including the red tapes, urgghhh!). I wish you gentle healing, and may the the spirit of the violet catch you on a cloud of softness when you need it! ☁️💜
Lily, thank you so much for sharing this gentle beauty. Your description of your experience in meditation was very moving to read. Your post brought to mind an interview with Robin Wall Kimmerer that I was listening to yesterday. She was describing an exchage she had with a science professor. She said that she was excited to learn why the aster and the goldenrod looked so beautiful together. He replied dismissively that a scientist does not consider beauty and that perhaps she should go to art school instead. Fortunately she did not take his advice! 😉
Hi WilM, thank you so much for your gentle and inspiring comment. I'm touched that my meditation experience had moved you. The answer of the scientist in this interview you mentioned cracked me up! I think it is exactly the compartmentalization of art and science that led us to where we are in terms of the destruction of our beautiful Planet Earth. Our modern life is largely disconnected from the spiritual union between science and art--a thread that weaves through all life forms. In fact, as you probably know, the study of nature (or science) had always been the same as "natural philosophy," until the 19th century when the modern scientific method started to gain traction. To me, science encompasses the philosophical inquiry into the nature of knowledge and the universe, and art is an outward expression of our connection and insights into nature. Therefore, these two disciplines cannot be separated as that scientist suggested!
Wow, Lily, you expressed that beautifully!! I could not agree more! I love the clarity of your thinking about the relationship between science and art.
Thank you again! I wonder if taking the college course, "Physics for Poets" (with the purpose of avoiding taking a hard-core science elective), has helped shape my perspectives. But I do know that some of the greatest scientists in history, such as Albert Einstein, were fascinated by art and would philosophize about the mysteries of the unknown. They were not so arrogant as to put their discipline on a pedestal separate from the arts and humanity.
Lily, your words land as a tapestry where beauty, ancestry, and survival thread through one another. I linger with your poem, especially where you ask if a flower that bears no fruit still carries worth—because that question stretches far beyond the garden. I see how your practice honors presence itself as nourishment, how even petals feed soil for what may come later.
I also notice the weave between your father’s final words, your grandmother’s healing hands, and the violet’s voice. A dialogue across generations and species arises—human, insect, plant—all whispering love in their own form. You show how beauty does more than please us: it sustains life, and it sustains dignity.
The piece opens a contradiction I often live with: we say beauty has no function, yet you reveal how our very survival depends on it. You bridge science and spirit here, and I find myself wanting to ask: what other aspects of life appear ornamental on the surface yet hold the hidden architecture of survival?
I have long written in violet ink because of that meaning of the color. (currently I have a vibrant green that is more conducive to healing and hope).
Jay, thank you for reflecting back to me your understanding and insights into the elements that are interwoven to make up the tapestry of life. And yes, that philosophical question of whether beauty serves any purpose has been on my mind since I was a child! There was also pain involved in this question, because my father, who was the primary artistic "influencer" in my life, had his self esteem constantly attacked in the capitalistic societies he lived in that did not appreciate art. But both of us clearly felt that art was essential to our spiritual needs and our happiness. When you wrote that beauty sustains dignity--bingo! That is the mysterious yet ever-present thread that connects all the beautiful things in life. It made me think of the beautiful architectures of the past. There was no functional value in taking so much time and effort to create the aesthetic elements, right? But they did it to highlight and uphold the dignity of the human soul and to honor something larger than us (oftentimes, God or a divine being). When we move in these structures, we partake in reverence and dignity.
I appreciate your question: "What other aspects of life appear ornamental on the surface yet hold the hidden architecture of survival?" It will be something for me to ponder.
Writing in violet ink sounds delicious ;-) Oooh, now you're getting me interested in a hunt for that kind of ink and write in it. Vibrant green does sound soothing and healing!
Louisa this was an exquisite and fragrant journey through a meadow of flowers, especially violets, accompanied by your ancestors, giving you so many important messages. What a powerful experience you had in Amy’s workshop. So healing. I also loved your flower poem. Flowers give me great joy too, and I look forward to learning how to grow them from seeds, with your help 😀💗 🌺
Amy, thank you for your lovely, fragrant comment that lit up my spirit. Yes, that experience was really healing. It was such a wonderful surprise! Imagine if we talk to and listen to flowers every day! What kind of messages will we pick up? Hmmm, that gives me an idea to listen to the flowers that I have planted and also made into bouquets! 💐
It would be great fun to show you how to grow flowers from seeds.
I love this comprehensive invocation for the power of plants and flowers. As you know, I have dieted and studied with indigenous plants and trees for almost 2 decades to learn their properties for healing and connection. My favorite is Ayauma, one of many trees that opens and heals the heart, and teaches boundaries... much more.
Thank you for your dedication to liberation and beauty.
I am still with injury, little typing, so I'll cut and paste your words even though the entire piece delights me — to be part of your creative process and feminine wisdom.
💔❤️🩹💓
"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."
Thank you dear sister.
Dear Prajna, the wise Cron with all indigenous plants- and nature-related knowledge. Thank you for your generous comment, sharing and sisterly love! I'm just starting to connect to my grandma's heritage and am in love with what plants have to teach us and offer us! I will definitely look into Ayauma. ❤️
I'm sorry to hear about your arm injury (on top of everything else that you have to handle on the home front including the red tapes, urgghhh!). I wish you gentle healing, and may the the spirit of the violet catch you on a cloud of softness when you need it! ☁️💜
Awww, the violet net. Thank you, dear friend!
Lily, thank you so much for sharing this gentle beauty. Your description of your experience in meditation was very moving to read. Your post brought to mind an interview with Robin Wall Kimmerer that I was listening to yesterday. She was describing an exchage she had with a science professor. She said that she was excited to learn why the aster and the goldenrod looked so beautiful together. He replied dismissively that a scientist does not consider beauty and that perhaps she should go to art school instead. Fortunately she did not take his advice! 😉
Hi WilM, thank you so much for your gentle and inspiring comment. I'm touched that my meditation experience had moved you. The answer of the scientist in this interview you mentioned cracked me up! I think it is exactly the compartmentalization of art and science that led us to where we are in terms of the destruction of our beautiful Planet Earth. Our modern life is largely disconnected from the spiritual union between science and art--a thread that weaves through all life forms. In fact, as you probably know, the study of nature (or science) had always been the same as "natural philosophy," until the 19th century when the modern scientific method started to gain traction. To me, science encompasses the philosophical inquiry into the nature of knowledge and the universe, and art is an outward expression of our connection and insights into nature. Therefore, these two disciplines cannot be separated as that scientist suggested!
Wow, Lily, you expressed that beautifully!! I could not agree more! I love the clarity of your thinking about the relationship between science and art.
Thank you again! I wonder if taking the college course, "Physics for Poets" (with the purpose of avoiding taking a hard-core science elective), has helped shape my perspectives. But I do know that some of the greatest scientists in history, such as Albert Einstein, were fascinated by art and would philosophize about the mysteries of the unknown. They were not so arrogant as to put their discipline on a pedestal separate from the arts and humanity.