Friendship Through Flowers

Two years ago I gave a flower talk at WISHES. I made some friends there. They became Happy Monday readers and gave me a lot of supports. That was my very first flower talk, the beginning. Since then, I conducted multiple talks, and every time I gave the talk, I made new friends. I shared what I knew about flowers, ikebana and what I learned by applying the things I learned by practicing ikebana into my daily life. People enjoyed my talk, joined Happy Monday circle and introduced their friends to the circle. It is truly a process of friendship through flowers. I enjoyed this process, therefore, I had never turned down an invitation, I tried my best to cooperate the schedule.

The past Monday, Kristin, a friend I met when I gave talk at WISHES, invited me to Half Moon Bay Garden Club to give a talk. I had great time and made new friends.

Among the three parts of the talk, “flower, ikebana and beyond”, my own favorite is the beyond part. This is unique to my talk. In traditional Chinese teaching, in order to become a good person, one has to takes everyone and everything as the teacher. A flower arranger always deals with flowers, the arranger naturally takes flowers as the teacher. I shared with audience what I learned from flowers. I tell them stories, audience enjoyed with chuckles.

Human’s love to flowers is not limited by their age, gender, cultural or nation. The very famous Chinese handsome man, Pan An (潘安，247－300), he’s also named Pan Yue (潘岳), who lived in Jin Dynasty (晋代, 265–420), was not only handsome and talented in writing, he was also concerned about environment. When he servered as the head of Heyang county, he influenced and supported people to plan flowers, especially peach trees, everywhere in the county. Soon Heyang county was famous as “the county with flowers everywhere”. People lived harmony life in that environment. This story had been carried over as legacy for more than thoughrand years. To have flowers everywhere is one of my dream, I wish there will be a day when flowers are everywhere and people learn from flowers and behave like flowers. The world will be very beautiful by then. This has been the other drive force for me to give flower talks.

Hope you enjoy this Happy Monday, wish you a very Happy Monday.

In friendship through flowers,
Yirou.
(3-12-2009)

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