while in coimbature, i had lots of time to take walks and simply admire the nature around us. there were so many lovely flowers and i appreciated nature's beauty. each flower, so different, in color, size, shape and form, each complicated, yet meant to perform the same simple function. each with a beautiful fragrance and ephemeral glow. i reflected on our own ability and blessing to blossom, each day, over time.

i was especially amazed by the bouganvilla- a common plant, whose colorful brachts (the pink parts are not flowers, but modified leaves that attract pollinators to the tiny white flowers within) are abundant and even adorned our little cottage back in berkeley, but this variety was cauliflorous - it's flowers emerging right from the stem.

the beautiful yellow queen (Pachystachys lutea) and the white spider lily (Hymenocallis narcissiflora) were taken at the new botanical park in chennai.

everywhere around us is beauty, in nature and each other. take a moment to enjoy and appreciate.

hapazome = brilliant

i recently learned about something called "hapazome" or flower pounding. a couple of weekends ago, the ecological artist rebecca burgess came to the uc botanical garden to teach a wonderful day long workshop on native plant dyes. little did we know that we'd leave knowing all that and more! i was enchanted with hapazote. the amazing textile artist india flint apparently coined the term. it is a way of using fresh flowers and immediately extracting the pigments and sealing them into our clothes or other fabrics. it was so easy, so gratifying and so beautiful.

you begin by laying down your piece of fabric. we used t-shirt scraps. then you lay fresh flower petals on the cloth as you'd like. we used a few such as nasturtium, pansy, cosmos.

then you lay another piece of cloth over the flowers-- if your using a t-shirt or big piece of fabric you can simply fold over the cloth. we then sprayed the fabric with water and soda ash or wood ash mixed in a spray bottle. when the cloth is saturated you can begin pounding:

my favorite thing about it is this: the flowers fade, but then, once they do you can keep pounding new flowers into your cloths or sheets or any fabrics to create these beautiful collages of your history and the flowers you've come across. the fabrics become histories of our lives and beautiful stories of our natural world. i LOVE it! thank you rebecca for teaching me this beautiful art and to your wonderful brother michael who took this great photos.

april flowers