A Branch, A Flower, A Book

The Saturday a month ago, I had system maintenance work in the morning, therefore, I was half hour late for my ikebana class. The materials for the day were quince branches, chrysanthemums and pines. There were only few quince branches left. Those branches were different from the ones I used before, there were lots of small side branches on the main branch. I love ikebana because its elegance. However, when I saw the branches, from the first sight, I thought about word “busy”.

I hold the branches one by one and slowly turned them to study. I did not like the busy small side branches, but I finally decided to keep them. Without the side branches, the branch would lost the characters. I was not satisfied with the finished arrangement. No matter I viewed it from which angle, it all reminded me “busy”. I originally planned to bring it to my office, but I changed my mind. I took it home since I thought it was not good enough to share with others.


Quince, chrysanthemum and pine are all long lasting materials. The arrangement survived three weeks at home and I had seen this same arrangement for three weeks everyday. In the beginning, it appeared busy to me, later, I changed my attitude and begun to accept the way of the branches, I enjoyed and appreciated the arrangement. A flower or a branch is a book of their life recordings. What they have experienced in their life are reflected as their characters (shape, color and so on). In an arrangement, each flower or branch tells its own individual stories and together they tell us their story. That we learn the stories is one way for us to appreciate an arrangement.

Enjoy the arrangement and Happy Monday!

In Friendship through Flowers,
Yirou.

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