Having created an arrangement this week that combined Sago Palm, amaranthus and chrysanthemums, I brought it home and began to live with it. My question was the usual one: “What do I have here?”
For a couple days, I just looked. Eventually, I came to see the cycas (Sago Palm) and amaranthus as “surround” for the red chrysanthemums.
Sago Palm, not a palm at all, is a primitive plant said to have evolved little since the days of the dinosaurs. As a group, cycas are referred to as living fossils. The dramatically trailing seedpods of the amaranthus reinforced feelings I had for the cycas. Together they represented something old, mysterious and dark.
The red coming out of this “surround” is a threshold color with its own mysteries. Red is the color that tends to accompany and intensify endings and beginnings. Red is the color of life. It is probably the color in which the earth was born.
The line, mass and colors of this arrangement are not so important to me as the symbolism of early beginnings both of cycas and of life. I didn’t get this insight on Thursday, the day of my flower class. It came later—on reflection.
Creating this arrangement was great fun. Discovering its possible meaning was equally engaging—and gratifying. Like a baseball game, a flower arrangement isn’t “over” until it’s over!
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