My Nugget: Ikebana as a way to reconnect

I’ve recently had a few different challenges all happening on the personal front which meant I’ve needed to take time out to tend to my own needs. Luckily, about a month ago I had booked in for a local Ikebana workshop. Ikebana is the Japanese art of floral arrangement which is entirely different to the Western approach.

The origins of ikebana can be traced back to the introduction of Buddhism to Japan via the Silk Road between the 6th and 8th centuries.  An early form of ikebana involved offering flowers to Buddha, signifying a deep spiritual connection with nature. There are also influences from Shintoism, the indigenous religion of Japan, which holds all living things as equal and reveres the sacredness of nature.  This explains how ikebana embraces nature.

Our teacher Rie explained how every element (branches, leaves, flowers) is carefully considered and the arrangement is a representation of different things. For example, each element may represent a part of a landscape such as water, mountains etc… or past, present and future. She explained how in ikebana they looked at negative spaces, negative space being the empty space around and between the subjects of the arrangement. Where you decide what to take away, rather than adding more. She said in an Ikebana arrangement you don’t want the different elements to compete with one another and that you should only have one element that was allowed to be the prima donna.  

The whole experience was a wonderful way for me to reconnect to the beauty in nature and distilling it in a mindful and meditative way.

My Ikebana arrangement