Remember The Flowers

At the end of a hard day away from nature and a hard February, I watch videos of people harvesting and distilling lavender essential oil and hydrosol. When it’s time to turn the lights out, I listen to an audiobook about the American Civil Rights Movement. After the book is silenced, as my mind drifts towards sleep, I consider that people are like flowers. Our lives are fragile and brief.

The captured essences of flowers, the essential oils, absolutes, and hydrosols, are the artifacts that remain when the life of the flower is gone, just as the creative works of human beings are the artifacts of our lives. Some flowers live and die unrecorded. Some leave a byproduct, an essential remnant in their wake after they are gone. Be one of these flowers if you can.

Ancient alchemists, the inventors of the distillation process, believed that the captured aromas of these flowers were their essential life force, their spirits. If you’re able, leave behind your own beautiful soul in a form that others can experience. Remember the flowers that came before you. You’ll encounter the aroma of the strongest still at work in the world long after they’re gone.