Thoughtful Flowers

"The essence of all beings is earth. The essence of the earth is water. The essence of water is plants. 

The essence of plants is the human being."

                                                     Chandogya Upanishad I 1.2 

Last night I went to watch 'An Audience with Chris Packham' my favourite New Forest nature man. I came away bursting with a heart full of passion, admiration and over flowing with new purpose and inspiration! 

Chris, the controversial king of integrity, a punk rocker with the kindest of hearts, smartest of brains and tenacious determination. 

He is a voice for nature, when it can't speak for itself.  

Feeling inspired I thought it was time to share something with you. More of a general ethos for me than anything else. Growing my business and setting a precedent. 

T H O U G H T F U L  F L O W E R S .

I was recently described as a 'mystic sherlock' and then coincidentally I recieved this lovely review from one of my brides, and it all fell into place. Thank you Natalie. 

" I throughly enjoyed working with Kelly-Marie, she is such a wonderfully kind and spirited person with a real natural creative flair. She really tries to understand what is in your head so she can take the brief and deliver it to the highest standard. " 

What resonated with me was the description of me as 'spirited and understanding' a way I have tried to be in everything I do. 

I work with flowers because I have an overwhelming love and passion for nature and I work with people because I have an unrelenting need to help them... I seek out the spirit of things.  

Sometimes the wedding and flower world does not seem like the right place for me at all. 

 I am a floral designer, I scrapped my creative job in London to move back to the country side and be where my soul belonged.  Styling with nature is a natural progression, but for a lady that thinks about everything so deeply it can't stop there. 

Floral design is now possibly one of the most fashionable professions you can aspire to have. Floral and wedding design is so beautiful, we all love it, the fashion industry loves it, social media loves is. 

The environment does not love it!

Of course it is not true for all of the industry ( hello The Natural Wedding Company ) but the international cut flower industry, as it stands, is destoying the very nature that it is made up of.

The British and slow flower movement is abundant now and has made such a positive change to educate people, British flowers are readily available again and are inspiring others to get back in touch with their gardens, it's truly amazing, but we can't just stop there. We have to keep growing and moving forward. Fighting the good fight. 

 'Thoughtful Flowers' for me started when I was having a moment of despair and doubt, so I started by asking myself,  who are you and what is it you really want to do here?.... 

'Hi i'm Kelly-Marie, I'm a thoughtful 'mystic sherlock' floral designer with healing hands and a deep understanding of animals and the healing ways of plants... oh yeah and 

I have a design degree from Central Saint Martins, and a penchant for hoarding (selling) vintage. '

Quickly realising that despite their appearance these things do not need to be seperate, i just need to find away to combine it all together. 

I do not have to belong in an industry that is destroying the very thing that lead me to it in the first place. We can all choose to do things differently. 

Thoughtful Flowers is a general term and a simple way for me to describe what it is i'm doing, to remind me to dig deeper, be thoughtful.... What are the plants trying to teach us?

I'm a CREATIVE, thinking about the environment. I am HEALER thinking deeply about the needs of our planet.

Thoughtful flowers is a journey for me to get intimate with the plants. Combining my herbalism, floral design skills and a passion for finding the soul in  things. 

Bringing you thoughtful, healing, arrangements, using only seasonal british flowers and natural techniques. 

 Nature is our greatest teacher so let's give back! Join Chris and become the voice that it so desperately needs. 

I'll be regularly sharing my journey on here and Instagram, and I hope that it will help to inspire, teach and get you involved. Like I said it is a journey, I am teaching myself, learning as I go along and I would love to hear from you! Let's work together. 

If you're getting married, having an event or would even just like to collaborate then please do get in touch. 

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kellymarieburdekin@gmail.com

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The floral arrangement above is made up of flora from my garden and foraged foliage. 

Narcissus

Narcissus the little star shaped flower of Spring. A cheery little plant with a delicious scent and a discretely dark message. 

The victorians described it's meaning as one of 'egotism' and 'self esteem'. 

We all know the tragedy of Narcissus and Echo. The fury of unrequited love leading to a bitter demise for Narcissus, wasting away with incessant love for himself. 

It is said that the Narcissus flower is his parting message to us. A subtle reminder to a modern culture of narcissists. 

When I first started researching the sybolism of the Narcissus flower my first thought of course went to social media, in particular Instagram.

With the new algorithm it seems that Instagram, once (in my opinion) the most humble of all the social media platforms, has now turned into yet another popularity contest. 

Struggling to be seen, using 'likes' as reassurance, living our lives through a screen. We are all guilty of this and we've all felt the anxiety that comes along with it.

When 'inspiration' turns to comparison, judgement, competiton and feelings of inadequacy.  Over sharing and thoughtless posting... What is it all really for? 

Social media is now so closely linked to depression and isolation that it has become a genuinely worrying epidemic of modern day society. 

Instagram for most people is about finding like minded people to share your interests, often leading to real life relationships.  The coming together of a collective consciousness that brings us hope in times of chaos and tragedy, reaching out and finding a market for our otherwise isolated and unusual business models, these are all positive attributes to a platform that has created an online community and sense of togetherness. 

I do think that the list of positives outway the negative aspects of social media but that doesn't stop the feelings of anxiety, unworthyness and comparison that come with a life online. 

If we are honest with ourselves a lot of what we're all doing online can be described as narcissistic behaviour, but I do believe that most of it comes from a place of low self esteem, not of genuine infatuation for ourselves! 

Our modern day version of narcissism is over sharing curated versions of our lives, perhaps lives we wished we were really, truly living. 

Over sharing ourselves, our bodies, our children, spreading ourselves so thin, that we loose our true identity in order to recieve instant gratification and outside acceptance. 

Worrying more about how the outside world perceives us, than actually staying true to our integrity and our own moral compass. 

So how do we go about getting the right balance?  

That's where the flowers come in!

In holistic healing 'Narcissus' or 'Jonquil' oil is used to help treat anxiety, frustration and to improve  self esteem! Used to help ground and bring people out of their own heads, into the present. 

 Dear sweet narcissus is teaching us is to come up out of our own heads!... All the way out, like when their cheery yellow faces first appear in early Spring! 

None of the answers are inside your screen. You might read this, or find something similar and decide to give it a go, but actually experiencing it will be the magic medicine needed to heal.  

It is absolutely no coincidence that our little star shaped flower has this ability. Nature has the subtle answers to it all! 

Giving us the message and the tools to heal the problem. 

You can never truly experience nature through your phone, taking a picture and looking at it later is not the same, neither is seeing it on your instagram feed! You're missing out on the magic, the whispers and the hidden messages you need to pay attention to.  

This is Narcissus's message to us. 

The only way to truly learn to love ourselves and to build our own self esteem is to fully engage with the life you're living. Sometimes it's not pretty but you need to look at it and be fully involved in order to make a change!

There is no reason why you can't make it as beautiful as the dreams you're creating inside that little square shaped grid, but you have to be FULLY engaged in it all...In real life.... #IRL

I'm sitting here writing this on my computer and later I will of course share it on Instagram, I am human and guilty of all of the above!

I am however safe in the knowledge that our little sweet smelling Narcissis flower has taught me a very valuable lesson.

We control the way we use social media, not the other way around! Balance is the key! 

"If you have a certain number of followers you're relevant. If you don't you're irrelevant. I just think it's nonsense. 

My response to people judging you on 'Likes' would be, 'Fuck that!' It's just bullshit. This notion that we are judged by clicks on buttons- we should resist that as a form of navigation.

There will always be people who recognise themselves as punk who recognise that technology is a tool not a lifestyle. 

All we can talk about is our devices. For the last decade society has been stoned on technology. If we're living through a screen, we're not doing anything. I thought a lot about the psychological effects of an office. People working eight, ten, twelve hours a day. Look up from that computer, look around you, and nothing has moved. Never in the history of the world have people worked ten hours and nothing moved!

At some point people will sit back and realise that this is a tool. And that real life-real life- is outside of it.

 I can accept it's a miracle that we're talking across an ocean, but fuck if i'm going to live in it. I wanna go outside, too!

 If you want to talk about real navigation, one should seek balance. If the right foot and left foot are out of whack then you go down." 

Ian Mackaye - Huck Magazine 

All floral design, props and photography by Kelly-Marie Burdekin

* Narcissus are toxic and not to be digested or taken internally. If you would like to use Narcissus oil for anxiety or grounding then simply dab some on the balls of your feet. *