The Art of Flowers
This week was mother’s day. The first without my Grandmother. While she was in hospice at home with me, my mother brought her a huge orchid for her window sill. The petals began falling a few days after she passed. They burst into bloom on Sunday… Mother’s day flowers, if ever there were. There has never been a grief or absence in my life as I have felt the past 6 months without her. Home no longer exists for me. I pass her house and feel as though I am a refugee in exile. In many ways Elysian is an epitaph for her. A way of carrying forth her legacy of family and offering an open door to those who need a place to come home to; as she always did for so many, for me.
I came across a quote years ago that has stayed with me since I read it. It has become a mantra of sorts for me. I think of it often, and it’s been on my mind this week as we carry you deeper into our floral theme. There is no part of this project that is small. It is an enormous idea, an enormous undertaking, an enormous imagining that many consider impossible. It’s been difficult to not feel discouraged as we begin this journey, when I’m falling behind in content and not making progress in paperwork, and the epidemic has shut everything down. I have to remind myself great trees begin as seeds, and their first act of becoming is not pretty, or graceful, and is in its own time, according to its own season.
The past few years have certainly been a growing time for me, and it has certainly felt like destruction as I crack open. I have never been patient for things to move through their season, in their own pace… perhaps why I myself am not talented at gardening as my mother and grandfather have always been.
Healing is the bravest thing we do… it requires so much vulnerability and kindness {something we rarely afford ourselves.} It begins with unraveling the false sense of self we’ve built, who we’ve been told to be, who we’ve convinced ourselves we need to be, and are. It’s going deep into the self and finding the child we abandoned at one point, so we could prove ourselves worthy to the standards of someone else. So the beginning of this process of finding self, has been searching for her where I remember her. When she was a little girl that pressed flowers between the pages of her favorite novels, and had sketch books laying all around her room, and believed in magic.
I’ve been retracing my steps lately back to my first loves, to get back to my first self, in hopes we could sit together. Spend time coloring, and pressing flowers, creating spells; if we could get reacquainted, if I could regain her trust after abandoning her, perhaps we could heal together. This week was a returning to that. This project is a returning to that on a grander scale. Permission to love the wildflowers others call weeds, to spend the day barefoot in the grass, to make the food I eat look pretty first, to be a hopeless romantic, and hopelessly hopeful. To wear flowers in my hair for no reason, to believe in magic, and seek it out, to be happy without fear or guilt. I think most artists are creating in one form or another, through dance, and acting, music and song, painting, sculpture, poetry and storytelling because they’re trying to bring some magic back into the world, create something that gives us the feeling of wonder we had as children.
We’re still trying to get in front of the content creation and building our schedule. Beginning in may was very ambitious, and the quarantines have been both beneficial and a hinderance in the process. We’re doing things we’ve never done, there’s a huge learning curve, and it’s far from perfect. We’re behind 2 days on content, but I am trusting this is calling to my people, and they’ll be understanding of our stutters and shifts as we begin. On the upside that means you get lots of content today! Here’s what is coming this week:
From the Drawing Room: Nature Made Paintbrushes.
From the Attic: Pressed Flower Love Letters
From the Garden: Growing Moon Gardens
From the Apothecary: New Moon Wishing Spell {A great chance to try it on the 22nd of this month}
From the Library: Hand Colored Dream Prose
From the Kitchen: Recipes of Moon Milk for pleasant dreams, restful sleep, and sweet ends to your evenings.
