We were standing at the light at Park Avenue and 57th Street. I saw his tie first, red, white and blue, a cymbal-like symbol. I remarked about it.
"I'm a veteran," he replied, and, pausing a beat, continued, "I served in the United States Air Force." This was said with dignity and pride. Then, holding the hand of the youngest of his three sons, he crossed the street stating, "We're on our way to the parade."
"Thank you," was all I said.
Ariel and I met for flower practice this week. When first created, our arrangements were studies in purple and fuchsia, primarily. After 2-3 days, however, the lilies began to open. This not only transformed our arrangements, it was a testament to flowers as presence and to the passing of time.
I like to celebrate this quiet miracle that seeks no attention. It is a gift woven around the heart of wonder.
We talked about "Symbols and Memories: at Salon this week. To supply some context, we read an article, "Why Do We Like Old Things? Some Ruminations on History and Memory."
Memory begins when something in the present stimulates an association. Symbols provide that stimulation. They also serve as "containers" for chunking memories of several types.
Participants were asked to bring a symbol/memory that would supply insight into who they are. All were asked to explain the importance of their selected keepsake and to share their views on the relevance of past to present.
My choice of symbol, flowers, surprised no one. However, friends did want to know if I knew the origins of my love for flowers. That was easy! I have vivid memories of my Grandmother's flower border in our large, Iowa-farm garden.
Seed catalogues show up early in January. Grandma Ohm must have looked, dreamily perhaps, at all the flower possibilities because the array in the garden, and elsewhere, was great. (I would love to know what she spent on seed!)
The flower border began with cosmos and went on to four o'clocks, nasturtiums, sweet peas, bachelor buttons, cockscomb, dahlias, zinnias, bleeding hearts, gladiolas, marigolds, phlox, petunias and snapdragons. There may have been more, but this is what I remember. Elsewhere there were roses, irises, peonies, clematis, morning glories, hollyhocks, spirea, orange blossoms, lilacs, pansies and lily of the valley. Like friends, I wanted to name the names of the flowers. Flowers bloomed from early spring through late autumn.
I walked by the flower border often. Four o'clocks were of special interest. They released a rich fragrance when they opened in the late afternoon. By the next morning, they were closed. I've since learned this was not due to clock time but to the drop in temperature.
With this early start in appreciation of flowers, the discovery of Ikebana, many years later, fitted in like something long sought for--unconsciously. The practice of Sogetsu, a special school of Ikebana, is nurturance for my soul, something always fresh and new.
I agree with Emerson who said, "The earth laughs in flowers." I agree with Lincoln, too. He said, "We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses."
"Is the glass half-empty or half-full?" raises the same kind of question. We choose.
As I reflect on flowers "then and now," I'm struck with how flowers and animals were treated in much the same way. On the farm, both remained outdoors! I smile, remembering.
Last Friday I made what will probably be my last visit to the site of the BMW Guggenheim Pop-Up Lab. The Lab was a wonderfully hospitable site that drew a cross section of people interested in exploring the idea of "Confronting Comfort in the City." And what ideas there were! People with a variety of perspectives presented/talked about new ways of perceiving and addressing comfort and discomfort in urban settings in our daily lives and on a global scale. To acquaint yourself with goings on there, see: http://www.bmwguggenheimlab.org/whats-happening/calendar/event/confronting-comfort-an-overview-by-rosanna-flouty?instance_id=648
The Lab opened on August 3, 2011 and closed on October 16. During its short stay, the Lab was one of my favorite "go to" places in New York City. I went a number of times--and I took my friends.
To document the dissembling was one thing. To find all the delicious details in Christine McLaren's (Oct. 24) blog post, was another! See: http://blog.bmwguggenheimlab.org/2011/10/labs-long-road-to-berlin-explained/
The Lab will be opening in Berlin in spring 2012. It will go to Mumbai in late 2012.
To see how the conversation begun in New York grows, develops, changes across the globe is a compelling story I want to watch. Christine (below) will be posting from Berlin. I plan to "stay tuned."
This record-sized pumpkin was grown by Jim and Kelsey Bryson from Ormstown, Quebec in Canada. It weighs 1, 818.5 pounds!
The chrysanthemum, kiku in Japanese, is the most celebrated of all Japanese autumn-flowering plants. Today I went with a friend to the New York Botanical Garden to experience and enjoy the kiku exhibit there. (You notice, seeing it was only the beginning.)
As we entered the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, we were met with a view of this extraordinary sculpture titled, Tanjori (rebirth). Come to find out, artist Tetsunori Kawana, a Master Teacher of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana in Tokyo, to make the installation, used salvaged materials collected from the grounds of New York Botanical Garden in the days following tropical storms Irene and Lee.
In re-purposing the fallen twigs, branches, vines, stumps and roots and reassembling them, Kawana created something that engaged our five senses and connected us to the five elements: wind, earth, sky, water and fire. My "Irene experience" is close still; it was no stretch to couple those memories with the sculpture.
Tanjori was a "wowie-zowie" introduction to all that was to follow! My expectations were met--and surpassed--in this magnificent coming together of chrysanthemum, chrysanthemum masters and kiku experts in a practice that stems from fourth century China.
Flowers "tell" us exquisitely, "Nothing is permanent." The exhibit closes on Sunday.
This display features hundreds of kiku flowers all grown from a single stem. It is the most difficult display to execute.
In one of the TED Talks recently posted, Richard Seymour, speaks about "How Beauty Feels." See: http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_seymour_how_beauty_feels.html/ He asks, "Do we think beauty or do we feel beauty?" He explores our response to beauty and the surprising power of objects that exhibit it.
"What we sense and feel arrives in the brain before we can think about it," he says. That is exactly what I experienced on a recent trip to Acadia National Park. These pictures were taken in an Acadian Afternoon, an afternoon not to be forgotten!
The impact of this scene of Jordan Pond with the North and South Bubbles in the distance was immediate. My breathing slowed and I felt a sense of relaxation tempered with anticipation. Views of Maine's rocky coast have the same effect.
I have often thought about beauty. I'm happier feeling it.
When my friend, Ariel, and I met for our last flower practice, it was still September, and, as Sarah Ban Breathnach wrote in her book, Simple Abundance, "September's song is a two-part harmony. As summer's lighthearted serenade ends, a deeper melody begins."
We began our practice with a meditation on the poem, "Tilicho Lake," by David Whyte.
In this high place
It is simple as this,
Leave everything you know behind.
Step toward the cold surface,
Say the old prayer of rough love
And open both arms.
Those who come with empty hands
Will stare into the lake astonished.
There, in the cold light
Reflecting pure snow,
The true shape of your face.
Both of these arrangements, Ariel's first and mine next, contain the same light and dark materials: two kinds of chrystanthemums, alstroemeria, asters, ornamental cabbage flowers and chamaedorea. Both, too, reflect the "open arms" of David Whyte's poem. Together, though differently, they speak to the two-part harmony of September, the light-hearted serenade of summer and the beginnings of autumn's deeper melody.
