Apparently I’m pretty predictable. At least a couple of times a year I wake up with an overwhelming urge to create another blog abecedarium. It’s fun that April’s A-to-Z blogging challenge meets that need in a big way and I get to participate with hundreds of other people. But there’s something entirely frenetic about that challenge – both in writing the daily posts and making the rounds commenting on many dozens of posts every day. Doing an abecedarium on my own eliminates a lot of the pressure, but it’s still a lot of effort and that’s worth thinking about before undertaking.
These days I’m paying particular attention to what I commit my energies to. It feels like there is less spaciousness around things currently as our timeline feels so accelerated. So it also feels particularly important to commit only to things that make my heart happy as those are the things that magically “create” more spaciousness and expansion even when it seems physically impossible.
When I discovered that June 28 through July 4 is designated as American Flowers Week, I knew it was about time I blogged about one of my favorite topics – flowers! And because it’s my abecedarium and I get to do whatever I like, I’m blogging under the broad topic of Flora and will see what unfolds for each letter.
Because this topic is so dear to my heart and I have so much to say, let’s start today with two A entries.
is for…
American flowers. Considering that it was American flowers that set me off on this blogging idea, it’s only fair to pay homage to them to begin with. You can look up each state’s flower and download coloring pages if you’d like here. Illinois celebrates the violet as our flower and I think it’s a fine choice. They have me at those heart-shaped leaves and then throw in a bit of the typical purple color and whiff of their delicate scent and you’ve got me entirely. A curious thing about violets is that a major component of their scent is a ketone compound ionone. After stimulating scent receptors, ionone binds to them and temporarily shuts them off completely. After a few breaths, the scent pops up again – disappearing and reappearing like magic.
The second A topic that comes to mind is archetypes. Several years ago I came across this then-burgeoning website Archetypes that aimed at typing you as a constellation of archetypes, and then focusing content towards you based on those typed archetypes. Truthfully, my interest is more transient that sustained, but occasionally something catches my eye, and they do have an article about what flower matches each archetype.
I type out as Spiritual – Creative – Caregiver. The flowers associated with these archetypes per the site are Lotus, Poppy, and Peony.
You can take the archetype defining quiz here, and then scope out your corresponding flower(s) here.
An on-going project I’ve been dabbling in for years is a study compilation of archetypes that pertain to me. At one point I did a “garden of me” imagining what flowers I’d plant to represent various aspects of myself. I then spent time studying each flower in depth and working on a deep personal connection. It was immensely interesting and the kind of body of work that can easily unfold for years and years and years. I think I may return to it again, but for now suffice it to say that interestingly enough lotus, poppy and peony were part of my “me garden.”
And now there you have it – covering the land of A with abecedarium, American, and archetypes. Not a bad start. But what about you? Is there some “A” topic holding your attention today? Know and/or love your state flower? Think of yourself in terms of archetypes? Do tell – you know I love to hear.
Yay another abecedarium! Looking forward to learning about the flora and I am going to take the quiz to see what I might be. Thanks for sharing!
Yay to a kindred abecedarium lover Janet! I hope this one will be like getting a bouquet of flowers, one at a time.