Flowers: A Metaphor For Our Lives

What a sweet-smelling episode we have for you this week Clarity Fam! (Yup, we said smelling not sounding!) because this week we want ya’ll to wake up and smell the roses!

Yes! We are over here literally talking about flowers! Well, we are really talking about how flowers are a wonderfully beautiful metaphor for our lives and our evolution as human beings :) Just as flowers blossom from a tiny bud, flowering into something beautiful, we too grow and thrive in all our health and beauty at different times throughout our lives. And just like flowers, no two moments are the same. No two relationships are the same. Not even two of our lives are ever the same.

There is something so powerful in drawing all these amazing parallels between flowers and ourselves that is just too good not to make your heart melt thinking about it next time you see your favorite flower. So enjoy this episode. We know we did.

Transcript

Cali  0:02  
No two moments are the same. No two relationships are the same. No two followers are the same. And we get to appreciate that beauty of the uniqueness of each flower each relationship each time in our lives.

Barb  0:20  
Hi, and welcome back to clarity cafe. I'm Barb, I'm here with my clarity sister Callie. Hi. And we are here to talk about one of my favorite things in life, which is

Unknown Speaker  0:34  
flowers. Yeah. Flowers,

Barb  0:38  
such a happy topic. I mean, just it's a happy word to think about flowers. And when you get flowers, and you give flowers and you see flowers, you pick flowers, so much variety in flowers, all the beauty of the colors, and the smells and the sizes and the shapes. I think flowers are a wonderful kind of metaphor for life in general, and kind of how we relate to flowers. For me, flowers are a wonderful way to bring beauty and nature and kind of caring into my environment. And I think I love it to walk by people's houses and see the beautiful flowers that they've planted outside. I love to buy flowers from Roberto, the wonderful flower guy that I passed by on my way to work. And I get to stop and see what fresh flowers he has. And when there's an occasion like a birthday or someone who's you know, out ill for a little bit how they can brighten your day. So I love the topic of flowers in general. But the thing I really wanted to talk a little bit about today, Callie is, is how flowers change every day. What a wonderful metaphor that is for how we change as we go through our lives and how every moment and every day of the evolution of a flower is a perfect moment. And how wonderful it is to recognize that in flowers and then ourselves. So I have a flower arrangement on the table in the kitchen. And I looked at it today. And I'm like, Oh, the snapdragons are kind of wilting and the roses are kind of gone. But the hydrangea is still really pretty. So I should up, pull out the ones that are wilting and I was like, No, I love the whole composition, and how all of them are changing. And I just love watching the ways that they're appreciated they how the smell changes how the texture changes. And it just occurred to me that that's very similar to how you can appreciate people and how different they are every day, and how different we are as we go through our lives. And when we're a little older, our body may change a little bit, our hair may change, our face may change. But it's still beautiful and perfect in its own moment. flowers,

Cali  2:58  
flowers. And so I, as you know, love flowers, and probably could not count the number of blooming plants that I have around my home. And it's always a symphony of different colors and kinds. And I really got into a thing a couple of years ago about creating like a scent garden and having like beautiful odors of different types of scents from the flowers. Natural because chemical stuff I don't do so good with but I love, love, love natural flowers. And so for me, there's that piece about spring, and the beauty of like, Oh, we're through the winter, and now we're having these flowers, but I love to have flowers as much as you know, the longest blooming season possible. And there is a lifecycle to it. And there's a beauty in knowing how wonderful a flower and full bloom can be. And the reminder that it is a point in time and time is changing. So really appreciating the full cycle of pre opening a little you know, like tulips, they just they just little green comes up and then you know, eventually a couple of leaves and then a stock's gonna come and wow. And they start to open and they get to that perfect, beautiful representation that you see of postcards of a tulip. It's wonderful to say yep, that's what a postcard looks like. But I can actually appreciate all the stages before and all of the stages after and what joy that brings and in our lives we have these cycles of things that happen and nothing stays the same. That's the beautiful part of this wonderful world is changes in our are boring because it's always happening. So appreciating that kind of deep kind of a big thing. It's not just, you know, oh flowers, it's like flowers,

Barb  5:10  
a huge teacher and the anticipation, you were saying about like, watching the bulbs start to peak up and then see that it looks like, okay, there's a leaf. And now there's a little pregnant place where it looks like there's going to be a flower. Oh, now you can see it's really going to be a flower. But I wonder if this is going to be one of the yellow ones, or one of the red ones because I put a whole bunch of different bulbs in there. And the surprise what it starts to come out, or maybe it's a variegated one, I think one of the things that happens in watching flowers unfold and go through their lifecycle is that sense of wonder. And that all ages, you know, you know, as a child, kind of watching that grow, you need to get to have a little bulb in your room, right? You get to plant the little garden, at school, and or help your mom, I always helped my mom in the garden, because I love watching the little seedlings come up all that new life, and then wonder, would it ever make a full flower, and not all of them would become flowers, because maybe that one didn't get in as much water, maybe that one didn't get as much sun. But just being able to see all that variety and recognize that all those different outcomes are possible. And again, it's like Life is like that, right? Everything doesn't turn out perfectly the way we expect it, which is a source of a lot of suffering, the whole expectations thing. So just taking the flowers that might be the, you know, high biscuits that only had a couple little flowers, there might be one over there with 25 little buds, but they're both beautiful, and both have a wonderful smell.

Cali  6:46  
And appreciating that whole journey, and the uniqueness of each flower. Right? No two moments are the same. No two relationships are the same. No two flowers are the same. And we get to appreciate that beauty of the uniqueness of each flower each relationship each time in our lives. Sometimes there's bugs and they knock on them. And sometimes in our life, there's these bugs and they non parts of our lives. And it's like not fun. And you know, but you go, wow, there's still a flower there. There was still an experience there. And I think it's so interesting how so many of our cultures use flowers as a way to highlight events. It memorable events, not always are they events that are joyful, a lot of transitioning from being in a body to not in a body. A lot of memorials and things like that have flowers. There's rites of passage in our lives that we celebrate with flowers, but it's a wonderful thing to think about all the different ways that flowers are utilized in cultures to, like I said, highlight these events or these times in places and they really do play a powerful role in in our lives.

Barb  8:14  
Yeah, they're so evocative. I was just thinking I had a friend who was at a wedding a couple of weeks ago, and it was a three day Indian wedding and I was like, Oh, we're there just like 1000s of bright orange chrysanthemums did you get to see the orange chrysanthemums because that just I knew that that was what was going to be like such a feast for your eyes to, you know, experience that are so evocative. And one thing I remember even as a as a child, my mother and her rose gardens and you know, all the work that went into that during the winter of protecting the roots even when the there was just bare root stock, basically, because you trim the roses way back after they bloom, right. And then the cold comes and you make sure that the roots are protected. Even though they like the cold, you don't want them to have a hard freeze and you still feed them the coffee grounds and all the magic that our mothers and grandmothers and and grandfathers and fathers knew how to do that we still are able to do and then the joy of the spring and then when the flowers come and then arranging the flowers. I always just loved being able to cut the flowers and then bring them and put them in the run the water over them and cut them on the bias. And no matter how you arrange them, it was always beautiful. Because all colors went together. And I would think you'd never had to think about is this match? Is this an outfit that works because flowers all go together and the greenery with them all goes together. And the more variety the better. Or sometimes it's beautiful just to have one beautiful pink tulip that flower arranging has always been something that I really treasure. I find it very relaxing and to be A very meditative sort of exercise of just calm and being in communication with all that color and that experience. And so, I always thought being a florist would be fun. And I gotta say that the guy that I get flowers from, he's one of the happiest people, he's always in a great mood. And I'm like this, because he's hanging out with flowers all day, we should all hang out with all the flowers in our lives, right?

Cali  10:25  
So yeah, I want to just say to like, for each of us, we may or may not listening to this have a relationship with flowers. But if you don't explore, to see if that something that brightens up a room could be a single flower, it could be a plant that blooms, it could be a bouquet, I play with that. And I love how a flower or flowers can really set a space and just really brighten it and bring some life to it. So for some of you probably have deep relationships with flowers, and yay, how exciting to keep that going. But But yeah, I think the other piece about flowers that I just thought we might touch on together, is gifting them to others. And I know that there's some very traditional concepts about when and how we gift flowers to each other. But I'd like to just set those aside for a moment and talk about, you know, when you're thinking about some fun things to do or give to people, it doesn't have to be a huge bouquet, it can just be one simple flower, or one little, little bright light that we share with each other.

Barb  11:43  
Hmm. In fact, I was even thinking is, you were saying that Kelly that I remember when I was living in a studio apartment in the Mission District in San Francisco and, and I didn't have a whole lot of money it was a was just starting a new life sort of, and it wasn't like I was going out and spending a lot of money buying extravagant flower arrangements. But there was a wonderful store that had these beautiful silk flowers. And so I had silk flowers that I would put on windowsills or put around windows, and if there's a little light on them, because it's just the idea of a splash of color. And how important the idea of brightening someone's day with color with a surprise of of a flower or a surprise of something, even a, you know, makes you happy to see a Hawaiian shirt that's got flowers on it. Right, then you just instantly feel more relaxed. So bringing those elements of happy. You know, I think that you know, we talked about how important it is just to give herself a little dose a happy. And maybe that's just even when you're a kid and you draw a daisy and you make a face and the Daisy and have a smiling and then the petals around it.

Cali  12:58  
I never did that. But I feel like I need to go out in the yard right now. I have no daisies but like I definitely need to do that. And that makes me think clarity fam, I want to see posts that we've got to do a thread of posts of people's like, favorite flower pictures, because I feel like that has to happen. There might even be two threads one is like favorite flowers and then just like funny flowers, and maybe we gotta get that Daisy. That live for sure.

Barb  13:32  
Gonna go draw when you get off of this. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was just thinking, you know, Kelly, you have such a beautiful garden. And you've been so generous to share it with me on facetimes. And you know, as we sort of look at your beautiful rhododendrons, and azaleas, and all the different things and, and how it's like, and this one hasn't bloomed yet. And this one is going to be really pretty in a week and this way, and all the anticipation, just all of that goes so much toward their last podcast we were talking about, you know, when you have something that kind of a crummy thing that kind of could derail your day, I'll guarantee you that if you just go draw a picture of a flower or go look at a flower, it'll help you get back on track. Just got to remind you of like, look at the bounty of nature. And you know, how happy are in in that that one week in April when the when the cherry blossoms bloom. And the pictures that you see from Japan have all of those in bloom. And then there's some right outside your window. The clinic there's like one tree that has these beautiful white blooms for like a week. And then the next week, it's like it's snowing. And it's like my favorite week. I'm like, oh, what excuse Can I have to go hang out in that room and watch that tree snow?

Cali  14:48  
That's so wonderful. And I erased by let's be honest, I think I feel like you kind of outed me. Yeah. And I felt like I was probably downplaying or not really full Lee, I was omitting the truth of it, the truth of it is I have an acre of flowers, just all kinds, at least an acre of flowers just of every kind. And the little ones and the big ones and all different kinds got purples and peaches, and yellow, and like five shades of purples and five shades of reds to pinks, and fuchsia and magenta. And you name it,

Barb  15:30  
not to mention, all those colors attract the bees and hummingbirds. And all of the other sort of insects and birds that are part of that, for which flowers are such a part of the important part of the ecosystem, right that when you see a flower open, you realize, Oh, it's beautiful. For us, it's also serving this really important role. And there goes the hummingbird because it loves the red flowers. And there goes the bees and there's the sunflowers opening and those seeds are going to get carried by the birds and then there's going to be more sunflowers what an amazing situation that is that they take their beauty and the animals spread it and the insects spread it and what a great metaphor for us that we can take that little beauty those little fields in our lives and and spread them far and wide. It's just part of our nature.

Cali  16:26  
Yeah, that's such a good point. I can't wait to see this threads in all the different feeds of of the flowers for this episode. So thank you, everybody.

Barb  16:39  
Yeah, and here's a bouquet of flowers to everyone,

Cali  16:41  
everywhere. What do we say take what works leave what does it take

Barb  16:49  
what works li what does it and we love flowers and we love you clarity fam. And it's just been such a great experience and continues to be We love all the listener suggestions and all of the feedback and shares and good feels and let us know what you're thinking. Take what works, leave what doesn't and know that we send you many beautiful flowers of appreciation and love