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Posts Tagged ‘flowers’

#AGiftFromGaia

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 29, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Prussian Asparagus

Lizard tongue orchid

Poppy

Selfheal

Star of Persia

These are all plants which I’ve discovered in my garden this month. I didn’t plant any of them. They just appeared, clearly their seeds having been borne here by birds, wind, or other creatures. Every single one of them is a delight. Every one of them stimulates my favourite “emerveillement du quotidien” (my everyday wonder). Every single one of them has stopped me in my tracks, to gaze, admire and contemplate not just their beauty, but the incredible, unpredictable nature of Nature.

And in every case, there are several of them. There are a number of these plants, either close together, or in quite different parts of the garden.

I first saw “Selfheal” when it appeared by the forest and spread across the grass as I was recovering from an operation the year before last. I didn’t know what it was, but it gave me a real boost to discover its name and its ancient uses (I didn’t actually swallow any of it, however!).

The poppy is also a medicinal plant, and the ones which have appeared “from nowhere” this year are the tallest poppies I’ve ever seen. (I haven’t swallowed any of that either!)

Apparently the “Prussian asparagus” is edible, but there are only about six of them, so I’m letting them be, in the hope that they will seed and spread further.

Several of the “Lizard tongue orchid” plants have appeared together in a clump at the edge of the forest, and I found a “Bee orchid” in the front plot. Every orchid I’ve ever encountered strikes me as a wondrous plant. They all appear to me as astonishingly beautiful.

So, with the beauty, the wonder, the science and the symbolism of these plants, I really feel blessed. I’m going to share the photos on social media using a hashtag of #AGiftFromGaia – maybe you’d like to do the same.

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Discovery and exploration

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

What I love about discovery and exploration is that you can do it right on your own doorstep. Our garden here in the Charente Maritime was largely abandoned for a few years before we bought the house. We’ve been working on a bit at a time over the last three years. There’s an area where we had giant brambles, overgrown nettles and fallen trees cleared away and seeded grass where it had until then been impenetrable but we left all the healthy trees which surrounded that area. I made a few paths amongst the trees and it feels like a little forest walk.

One of the things I love about this garden is that so many plants grow here after having found their own way here. I think there’s very little which has been deliberately planted (until we arrived!). So, the other day, the sun lit these lovely yellow flowers and I thought, what on earth are these? These days it’s dead easy to find out. I took a photo with my phone, pressed the “info” button and it told me this is Calendula arvensis. I only knew Calendula officinalis, so I then searched online and found a research article on PubMed Central about traditional uses of this particular plant. Wow, was I amazed! The researchers say it has “anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antimutagenic, antimicrobial, insecticidal, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory activities” – well, that sounds a lot! They list about 45 different areas of the world where there are recorded traditional uses of this plant, describing in each instance what parts of the plant are used and what they are used for.

I find all that absolutely fascinating, and it reminds me how much we limit our knowledge and therapeutic skills when we ignore how populations around the world have used particular plants over millennia. Surely we shouldn’t dismiss all this information just because we haven’t studied them the same we study our manufactured, artificial drugs?

While I was admiring this little flower I was aware of how much bird song I could hear, so I fired up another app on my phone, “Merlin”, which is a kind of Shazam for birdsong, and it found and identified seven different species of birds all singing like mad. I don’t think I’ve ever lived somewhere where there were so many birds around every single day.

I like how modern technology helps be to recognise plants and birds and how easy it is now to discover so much about them. It makes me aware of how little I know and how I’ll never stop discovering and exploring.

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Beauty in form, spirals

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »

One of the commonest forms you’ll see in the plant world is the spiral. Pretty much any plant which sends out creepers to latch onto something so the plant can grow higher towards the sunlight, uses this form. It doesn’t go for a straight line….what we were taught is the shortest distance between two parts. Why not? There just aren’t that many really straight lines in Nature. It seems there’s a great preference for meandering, changing direction, spiralling around…..not what a machine would do.

Machines, and the industrialised types of management which dominate our lives now, are said to be best when they are most “efficient”. But Nature has a different idea. “Efficiency” seems, these days, to be about expending the least possible amount of effort and money to achieve a standardised outcome. It’s not natural, and it squeezing out beauty and life.

Complex, natural, living forms are not like machines. A plant doesn’t produce the least number of seeds required to produce a second plant. It produces thousands and thousands of them, using a huge number of different methods to have those seeds carried far and wide, relying on the weather and other creatures to do the scattering. Have you ever watched a bee or a butterfly collect pollen? They don’t start top left and work their way “methodically” flower by flower until they’ve harvested the most possible. There’s an inherent, apparent randomness to their flight. You just can’t predict which flower they are going to explore next.

The spiral is a favourite form of exploration in many plants. It’s a way of discovering.

It’s also extremely beautiful. One that artists replicate again and again. Here’s an example from the sculpture park near where I live……

Beautiful, dynamic, attractive, pleasing, and even in a stone carving, bursting with “life”.

I reckon we’ve taken a life destroying path through industrialisation, and I’d love to see us grow whatever we find life enhancing instead. We can do that by paying attention to, and learning from, plants and other creatures. We can privilege beauty, joy and Life instead of consumption, “efficiency” and “profit”. That would lead us to a very different kind of “growth”, and a very different society.

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Just glorious

Posted in creativity, from the consulting room, from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, perception, personal growth, photography, tagged , , , on June 1, 2021| 1 Comment »

Wow! Just look at this poppy which has opened up in the garden a couple of days ago. I went in close to take this photo because I think when you look really closely you see an astonishing creation.

This is like a work of art. In fact, who would have imagined something like this if they hadn’t seen a flower before? I was thinking, what if an alien landed on Planet Earth and encountered this poppy, wouldn’t they be utterly amazed?

Actually, I’m not an alien here on Planet Earth but I am totally amazed by this. Look at the details! As well as the gorgeous red petals, right in the centre we can see this rich, dark array of structures which make up the reproductive system of this flower. The thirteen stripes on the seedhead – what are they? And why are there thirteen? Don’t you think thirteen is a strange number?

Honestly, I think you can lose yourself in contemplation of a glorious flower like this. On single plant, one single blossom, totally captivating.

And it won’t be here for long. Within a few days, all the petals will fall to the ground, ultimately only leaving the seedhead behind. I think it’s amazing. I’m transfixed! In fact, a simple, astonishing, utterly beautiful, intricately complex flower like this, can make me lose my sense of boundaries and separateness. I can experience transcendence in moments spent with a flower like this.

I guess we humans have been, and continue to be, pretty blasé and unthinking about the plant kingdom. But without it, none of us would be here. It’s the plants which capture and transform the Sun’s energy. We can’t do that. We eat the plants, or eat the animals which eat the plants, so existing a bit further along that chain of energy transformation to get what we need to survive and thrive.

It’s not just that there is an emerging consensus that plant-based diets are best for us in terms of health, they are best for us in terms of the planet too. I’m not vegan. I’m not even vegetarian. But I don’t eat meat every day, and in all the studies I’ve read over the years, time and time again, the conclusions seem to be, if you want a healthy life, and if you want a long life, you could do worse than to limit your meat consumption and move towards a plant-based diet.

There are many many studies now which also show us the benefits to our immune systems, to our inflammatory systems, and to our mental health, of spending time in, and connecting with, the natural world. Primarily, that’s the plant world of trees and flowers. So, it’s not just about seeing plants as a source of nutrition. Engagement with the plant kingdom is good for us every day – noticing, stopping, gazing, contemplating, wondering about, and, especially caring about, flowers, plants, trees is one of the best ways I know to increase the quality of everyday life, and to set yourself up to live as healthily as possible.

Glory to the plant world!

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Rudbeckia in the GHH garden

Posted in from the dark room, photography, tagged on August 26, 2008| 1 Comment »

rudbeckia

Rudbeckia are from the Aster family. These ones growing the garden at Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital (GHH) struck me as particularly lovely.

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What is this?

Posted in from the dark room, photography, tagged , on May 10, 2008| 2 Comments »

purple flower, originally uploaded by bobsee.

Does anyone know what this plant is called?
It’s about 12 inches tall and grows in the verges at the sides of the road. This one is just outside Aix en Provence
I’ve never seen a flower like this in Scotland and I’d like to know what it is.
Can you help?

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