I See Fields Of Green
Written November 7, 2018
When I was four, my nursery school teacher handed us each a thing flat piece of plywood. I can't remember what we were asked to create, but I can still see my little fingers feeling it then bringing fat marker pens to it and drawing a row of flowers. The biggest had green petals. As I was working on my personal masterpiece, my headmistress (a chiseled lady with enough furrows on her face to make anyone frown) stood over my shoulder and said in her heavy voice: "You don't get green flowers.”
I never drew one again… until 2018.
Around 15 years after I was led to believe that green blooms were not a thing, I was walking past a florist and there they were... Not white flowers edged with green, not white flowers artificially coloured with dye.
REAL. GREEN. FLOWERS.
And I stopped. In that moment my naivety was gone and I roared a little inside. In that moment, I truly realised that not every loud intimidating authority figure was right. In that moment I realised it was possible that anything a young mind, or any mind for that matter, can comprehend is entirely possible.
“Everything you can imagine is real.”
Since that moment, green flowers have been a feature in my life. But it wasn’t until I sat and painted some with my children the other day that I felt like the lesson was complete. My middle child, an artist at heart - perhaps here to awaken my inner artist - was worried that her flowers didn’t look like mine. And I told her that hers weren’t supposed to, they were supposed to look however she wanted them to look. And I felt sad for my headmistress and the fact that she had been surrounded, daily, by little explorers and never quite saw their greatness… their magic.
The discovery that green flowers do exist has guided me in many ways, and it’s something I strive to bring to the mothers I work with. The deep, comforting, unshakable certainty that comes with listening to your inner voice... going with your flow. Whether that’s creatively through a coloured pen or creatively through your incredible body. And hopefully we can pass on that respect for intuitive wisdom to our own children.
And so... while the protea has always been and remains the blossom of Monday’s Child, Mother Earthed brings another dimension with the desert rose succulent. I know, I know, it's not technically a green flower, but it’s just right... It's resilient, but soft, it thrives pretty much anywhere you plant it, including the desert (where I found myself when Mother Earthed was born), it’s juicy (because aren’t we all full of stories?!) and if you happen to break it, it still finds a way to put down new roots.
If someone looks over your shoulder and says your vision is not possible, remember, it's simply not possible for them.
If someone looks over your shoulder and runs with your vision, remember, your vision bloomed.