Ikebana has a wonderful way of transforming one’s outlook on life. Two days into our summer holidays, my youngest daughter’s experiment with speed and gravity went slightly awry. At grey-hair inducing speed, she fell from her scooter and broke her arm. She spent the next few days sulking and exclaiming, with full melodrama, that she “… couldn’t do anything anymore!”
In an effort to prove her wrong, I suggested that she spend some time “playing” in my ikebana studio. I gave her free reign of the studio and the garage for materials. However, to safeguard some of my precious vases, I suggested that she take up the challenge of finding something in the kitchen to use as an ikebana ‘vase’.
To my surprise, she chose a silicone oven glove as her vase. From the depths of the garage, she found a structure made from recycled cocktail straws. Both vase and structure were light enough that they could be manipulated with one hand.
Once she had twisted the structure into a shape that she liked she carefully balanced it in the upturned oven glove.
She decided to add a just a single flower to the arrangement. The straw structure provided support for the flower, so she was easily able to place it in the arrangement without assistance. Once finished she was amazed at what she had been able to achieve with only one hand. From then on, her entire outlook to her recovery changed
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