La fleur qui marche

If “the earth laughs in flowers,” as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, spring is the season of smiling. At this time of year, gardens and fields start to blossom, and colors and smells emerge everywhere.
To embrace this season, what is better than to take a “flower walk”, heading to a park, public garden or the wild nature. Be it with a simple walk or an adventurous hike, it is the greatest opportunity to celebrate spring’s glory.
And what day could be better chosen during this season as the “Bring Flowers to Someone Day” held annually on May 15, mid-Spring. The true sense of today is to hand over the flowers yourself, walking with flowers to and for a beloved person.
This gesture is older and more meaningful than it looks at first sight.
It goes back to the mid 1700s in Turkey, called “Selem”, where bringing flowers to someone was bringing a secret message, in the language of flowers, or Floriography.
The Turkish flower-messagers were inspired by even older traditions in Ancient Greece, Rome and China, where giving someone flowers was a way to communicate. Every flower is thought to have its special meaning, which can change due to its color or variety. This form of communication became a big thing in the conservative Victorian era, and many flower dictionaries were published.
After world war I the practice of talking with flowers died out, but still bringing flowers to someone, by foot, especially today, has a significant meaning, by walking to the local flower shop and giving them in person to the people you care, a message of smells, colors transmitted by walking.
If you give flowers to an important person today, or if you give yourself a flower walk during these mid-Spring May-days, it is in the first place about connecting, caring, being aware that walking is more-than-human, that we do not only walk in nature, but with nature, and that as flower walkers we are simultaneous flower talkers, Floriographists, speaking the universal language of flowers.
Happy Flower bringing and walking Day.

_{Image: La fleur qui marche (Walking Flower), Fernand Leger (1952/53)}

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