Saying it with flowers.

I love flowers, most of them, I've always associated some with funerals and some with different times of the year. Finding the right flowers is not easy, how to express ourselves, what healing can be achieved with the choice of flowers?


In Victorian times they had a whole language of flowers, sending little posies to each other with hidden meanings. Naturally red roses were for love, white for purity, yellow for a true friend, pink for affection.  And even now we use rose petals at times for Rites of Passage....White for a Naming Ceremony, Red for a Marriage and Yellow for a Rite of Passing......going to the Summerlands, where the Sun is always shinning.


Forget me nots were sent to those left behind when our Hero's went to war and now its common to grow them in remembrance of a loved one. But be warned if you think its a good idea to grown them in your garden....they grow like weeds and will be popping up all over the place.


I wonder how many other people pick flowers for friends and lovers without thinking, and in the hope that its something they might like? Lilies will always remind me of Easter growing up as a child and seeing the beautiful pure white flower displays with the huge Arum Lilies in church. They were meant to stand for what? Life after death perhaps. 
But there are some very beautiful coloured lilies which have so many different meanings depending on their colours.


Flowers for a Rite of Passing can help those left behind, give them a sense of the feeling the person has for their dear one? Although its clear they have to be cut in order to be used....but they are grown especially for this.


Flowers to give someone when they are unwell is also full of meaning, something that smells refreshing? Light colours, maybe the rose is a nice one to choose.


And the marigold which does not smell very nice has so many different healing properties, and the petals can be used in place of saffron, the oil of the flowers will soothe and heal burns and sore skin.


And the healing power of love, the oldest cure in the World, nothing like the deep rich red or the rose, although the smell has all but gone on cut flowers now so perhaps if we could grown some and then pick them from our gardens or window boxes?


And the most important? A Peace Rose......creamy in its purity and then turning pink and then red with love.


This week we shall be saying it with flowers!