Episode 179: A Love Letter to Flowers – Secret Histories, Creative Uses, and Everyday Magic
Cuddle up for this love letter to the hidden histories and secret lives of flowers. We’ll explore how blooms have been used to heal, inspire, and communicate since time began, You’ll also gather creative, practical ideas for bringing more of the beauty and abundance of flowers into your home and heart.
This episode will leave you with a bouquet of timeless wisdom, healing beauty, and creative kindling to brighten your days.
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179. A Love Letter To Flowers
Hello beautiful and welcome to the Come to Your Senses podcast. I'm your host, award winning certified feminine embodiment coach, licensed esthetician, and enthusiastic foster dog mama to animals across the land. Mary Lofgren Here we explore how to bring more richness, radiance, peace and pleasure to our lives, homes, and hearts through the joy of beauty, the wisdom of the body, the warmth of connection, and the splendor of the senses. I'm so glad you're here. Pull up a pouf and let's dive in. Hello, beautiful beings, and welcome to today's episode, which is a love letter, a enthusiastic tribune, and tribute and just overall fascination and gratitude to nature for the beauty, the magic and the medicinal qualities of flowers. So flowers and their beauty have been used really, since the earliest records of human history. To heal, to celebrate. To mourn. To hold secrets. To ask for forgiveness and express deep emotion. And simply to brighten the spirit. Through Mother nature's abundance. And today we are going to explore some really common flowers that you can probably get at a local market that have tremendous healing and mystical properties. And so we'll look at some of the uses of these flowers, as well as historical stories about these flowers. And then I'm also going to share with you creative ways that you can use these flowers beyond just displaying them for their aesthetic properties, but ways that you can weave them into your everyday life to have more romance, more radiance, and more richness through the art of flowers. And whenever we talk about, you know, consuming something, purchasing something, purveying something, I always feel it's important to begin. With the roots of that thing, and how to make the purchase and collection of it as beautiful as the thing itself. And this is a fancy way of saying there are a lot of abuses in the flower industry and a lot of exploitation, particularly of black and brown workers across the world. And so before you shut up, I really strongly recommend investigating where your flowers come from. Most often, if a flower is Fairtrade certified or Rainforest Alliance certified. These are certifications that usually have a tag or sticker on the bouquet that our third party company. That helps to signal better practices for the people who grow the flowers, and the way that the Earth is respected in the growth of the flowers. You also can shop locally. There's a lot of flower farms around these days. Secret retirement dream for me, even though I'm not a big gardener, I could see myself getting into it later on in life. Farmers markets. Local florists who have a regional connection to source their products. Some of the countries where there's the most exploitation are Kenya, Ecuador and Colombia. When you look at the labeling of where those products or where those flowers were grown. And Fairtrade flowers do cost a little bit more. But as I've shared many times on this podcast, I would so much rather have an ethically grown single stem tulip in a bud vase than ten bouquets on my table where I don't know the true cost of this beauty. You know the true cost to the people who have handled it to the land that has grown it. And so that's just a little plug, little encouragement for an approach to bringing more beauty into your life that looks at the totality of that beauty, not just its aesthetic value. And a couple of resources I'll pop in. The show notes for this episode are Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, very Flora, and Slow Flowers. And so with that, providing the roots and the foundations of our beauty practice this week, now we will dive in to the specificity of the sensuality of these blooms. And we will start with the Queen herself, the rose. A fabulous quote about the rose comes from Angeles Celsius and it says the rose is without. Why? It blooms because it blooms. So roses are incredibly diverse flowers. There are recorded over 30,000 varieties of roses. That's like the size of the nearest city that I grew up next to. Population wise, roses have more genes than humans. They're incredibly diverse. Biologically, a rose can have anywhere from five to over 100 petals, depending on its variety, and roses across the world have been used for spiritual ceremony. In the Sufi tradition, the rose is a symbol of divine love and the soul's longing for union with the great beloved. Huh? Come on. As we know, Sufi poets like Rumi and Hafiz wrote about roses as metaphors for spiritual awakening and the presence of the divine. Rose water is commonly used in Sufi ceremonies and offerings, but is also a delicious culinary addition to dishes, particularly Indian dishes and Ayurvedic dishes. In the Celtic tradition, roses were thought to be protected and would be planted near homes to ward off evil. Many fairy tales we know link to roses. In ancient Rome, the phrase sub Rosa means under the rose. And in Roman times, roses were hung over meeting tables or carved into the ceiling to show that in that space, everything said was confidential. In medieval churches, you'll see roses carved on confessionals to remind clergy that confessions were never to be repeated, and to remind confessors that this was a confidential space. And as I know, you don't need me to tell you, there are so many color associations with roses. Red roses being a symbol of erotic passion, yellow roses being a symbol of friendship, white being a symbol of new beginnings. Often. Why you see a lot of white roses in weddings and purple roses symbolizing enchantment like a fairy godmothers cloak. And so of course, styling roses. I love to put roses on my bedside, particularly tea roses. In fact, I was just creating a video recently for members of the Sanctuary, which is our online Come to Your Senses community, and it was about how to style a pedestal vase, which is a vase that's slightly elevated off the table. And it's got a big mouth. It's a bowl, really. It's sometimes called a compost bowl. And how to basically, you know, arrange and stand up flowers in such a wide mouth vessel. And one of the ways is using flowers that have a lot of breadth. And so tea roses in a pedestal bowl or just in a bowl in general, just make such a gorgeous dome. And they're so dense that I don't ever really need to put any other flowers in the arrangement. To me, that single bloom is beautiful enough. So obviously roses sprinkled around your home and bud vases, maybe with a sprig of lavender or something. Eucalyptus gorge. But you can also find so many different ways to incorporate the healing and loving power of Rose into your life, such as things like rose infused honey. I mean, imagine drizzling that over your morning yogurt with a little granola or rose infused tea. Rose can be used, as I'm sure you've experienced in the past, because, I mean, how could you not being a member of the come to your senses community, but rose petals in your bathwater? But one thing you can do is you can take a rose, and rather than just sprinkling ahead of time, you can make it a ritual of peeling off each petal deliberately and perhaps infusing each petal with something you love and appreciate about yourself, or infusing each petal with one of your desires, or a combination of both. You could make it a gratitude bath. I mean, the possibilities are limitless. You can also. This is really if you want to go up a level. You can make rose petal ice cubes. I mean, can you imagine having a summer garden party and you come out holding a tray of lemonade with gorgeous clear ice cubes with rose petals and rosebuds in them? I would die. So if you want to make those, I recommend doing a Google search because it's not necessarily something I feel like I can explain here in detail. But essentially anytime you're using Rose in food for consumption, whether it's to sprinkle on top of a pan of brownies or in this ice cube magnificence, you definitely want to use food grade rose petals. And you know that just ensures that they're not sprayed with pesticides and all sorts of things that could be harmful to your body and to your tummy. And the final thing that I recommend doing with roses that I love to do is, you know, after Rose is completed its life cycle in your vase. I love to take those petals and sprinkle them on my front doorstep so that when I walk out and when I'm walked in, I am escorted by beauty. I have seen a bestie of mine had a bouquet from her 40th birthday that she dried, and she made all these wishes on her 40th birthday, and 1 or 2 years later, we were at her wedding and she tossed that dry bouquet into the ceremonial fire of the wedding. I mean, it was an epic moment, remembering her making those wishes on her birthday bouquet and then her wishes coming true and seeing the bouquet offered as a prayer so special. And another thing I'll do is taking dried rose petals and breaking them up and putting them into salt scrubs or into bath salts. If you just make a container of Epsom salt with some rose essential oil and some delicious dried rose petals, say magnifique. So that is our love letter to the gorgeous Rose. Our next goddess in the spotlight is the demure yet divinely powerful lavender. So, as we know, lavender is a flower that has so many healing and calming properties. Lavender. You might be familiar with the rows and rows of lavender in the south of France. John Giorno is known for saying lavender is the soul of Provence, and lavender comes from the root word llevar, which means to wash. So lavender has an extraordinary antimicrobial and antibacterial quality to it. It's one of the reasons you'll often see it in many bathing products. It's one of the most commonly used essential oils, and that's because it has such a wide variety of uses, and can also be used as one of the only essential oils that can be used directly on the skin, although I always recommend using caution when putting essential oils directly on the skin. The very origin of aromatherapy happened in 1910. Well, let's let's just back it up one second here. The origin of aromatherapy as we know it in the 20th and 21st century. Obviously, aromatherapy is an ancient art that has been practiced and studied since humans developed olfactory cells in our nasal passages. But the current study of aromatherapy arose in 1910, when French chemist René Maurice Ghaffar burned his hand, and upon burning his hand, he instinctively plunged it into a vat of lavender oil, and from that discovered its incredible healing properties, which launched the modern movement and study of aromatherapy, which I always find it really fascinating to know that aromatherapy, you know. Aroma has obviously a mood lifting and enhancing aspect to it. But what's really interesting to me about essential oils is that, you know, this oil, which is pure essential oil, is kind of like the lifeblood of the plant. And even though certain essential oils can feel almost watery in their texture, essential oils do have a chemical configuration where they are oil based, and so they meld with the oils in our skin. They move past the epidermis, the very surface layer of our skin, into the small capillaries in the dermis, and are therefore absorbed into the bloodstream where they can have a therapeutic impact. And you know, I love rosemary on my desk as much as the next person. But it's always astounding to me to learn about the ways that these chemical compounds and their healing and medicinal properties can influence our organs, our overall health and the way that aroma truly is therapeutic beyond just its cosmetic uses. And so lavender is like this purple priestess of relaxation. Lavender is known to calm the nervous system. It soothes the skin. So any inflammatory skin conditions lavender can be helpful. Maybe not put directly onto the skin, but you'll also often find it in balms and lotions and creams. It can be helpful with burns and insect bites. It can help ease a headache or relax muscle tension. And lavender, as I shared before, has antimicrobial properties and in fact, a story from the time of the plague. Don't try this at home. Is that lavender mixed with vinegar was created. And named for thieves vinegar, because grave robbers during the plague would spray themselves and douse themselves with lavender infused vinegar to help ward off bacteria. And it was shown to work and to help. So again, don't necessarily recommend using it for that purpose, but you'll often see lavender and common household cleaning products. And that brings me to some creative uses for lavender. So I love keeping lavender around in the car. They definitely make essential oil diffusers for your car, but you can even just take a cotton bud and put it in the vents, like sandwich it into the vents of your car for a little aromatherapy treatment while you drive. You can create a linen spray using distilled water and witch hazel and some lavender essential oil, and man mist that puppy just before bed, on your pillow and on your sheets, and you will be on a purple cloud to dream time. It is such a helpful aid to relax your nervous system at bedtime. You can make your own home glass cleaner. I love doing this with just some vinegar and distilled water. Lavender, essential oil and lemon essential oil, lavender and lime. Come on Gorge and I love to add lavender to bouquets, particularly in a complementary color scheme like lavender or purple. Goes really well with yellow and so yellow roses with a few sprigs of lavender. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous summer or spring bouquet that adds just so much color to your table. Our next darling of divinity is Rosemary. So I love the quote from Francis Bacon in 1625. As for Rosemary, I let it run all over my garden walls in the place where I live. There are probably a dozen rosemary bushes right near the entrance to our home, and it's so powerful because Rosemary has this extraordinary aroma, as we know. In ancient Greece, students wore rosemary wreaths around their necks and around their head to boost their memory during exams. I remember one of my first moments of being exposed to aromatherapy. There was this client and I was working at a spa. I was a facialist and esthetician, and she was asking me about aromatherapy because she had gotten a rosemary plant and placed it on the edge of her desk, and she just couldn't believe how transformative it was On her mood and on her mental health. And with Rosemary. You know, there's so many creative ways that you can use rosemary in the kitchen. Of course, sprinkled on a sheet pan of summer vegetables, sprinkled on a baked potato loaded with butter, placed inside a glass, and then filled with a gorgeous golden hour mocktail. In fact, I just also recorded a video for the sanctuary as well. One of the things we'll feature is on Fridays you get a little luxury, so it's like a journaling prompt for the weekend or a conversation prompt having to do with the theme that we're exploring. And then there will be either a book or movie recommendation. Sometimes there's a playlist, and sometimes I make a little bonus video like I did with the pedestal laws. And also I made this delicious cooling Hibiscus Iced Tea mocktail refresher with a rosemary sprig. Oh my God. And then I also made a sugared rim with chopped rosemary. Divine. So Rosemary has lots and lots of uses in the kitchen. But what you can also do with it is clip some stems and dry them and use them in the wintertime as a smudge stick, or put them into a bundle with some other burnable herbs like cedar, and make a winter fuel bundle. I've done that at my Yule retreat before. You can keep Rosemary a small pot of rosemary, like I said on your desk. Having rosemary alongside lavender delicious, amazing little aromatherapy treatment for your brain. And rosemary is also known to be a treatment for the scalp. And so you can use rosemary oil to massage your scalp. It is reported to help influence hair growth. You can make an apple cider vinegar and rosemary oil rinse for your hair. So many beauty uses for rosemary. And so that brings our little expedition of petals and perfumes and scent histories to a close. And if you enjoyed this episode, I would be so grateful if you could take a moment to follow or subscribe so that you never miss an expedition into beauty and presence and the secret life of everyday things that we explore here on the podcast. And if you'd like to go even deeper, I have created a free audio collection called In Celebration of Beauty, and you can download that by going to Mary Lofgren. There's a link below this episode to check that out, and it's a free three chapter audio series on beauty as a spiritual calling and a tool for healing. It's an amazing collection. It's one of my favorite things that I've ever created. And so you can download it right now at Mary Lofgren and consider it a little bouquet from my heart to yours. So until next time, thank you for listening. And may your days be filled with the medicine and magic of flowers.