Sunflowers – Loyalty and Devotion
There something wonderfully optimistic about a sun flower.
When Ai Wei Wei was conceiving his sun flower seed art work for the Tate Turbine Hall he said that “the Sunflower seed represented optimism during difficult times.”
The sunflower was much loved by Blake, Gabriel Dante Rossetti, Edward Burne Jones and William Morris, and I always thought it was their passion for art before Raphael that had bought it to their notice. Having just double checked, it appears that although there is evidence of sunflowers In Arizona and New Mexico From about 3000 BC, it wasn’t bought to Europe until the 16th century. In fact I can’t find a painting with a sunflower earlier than Van Dyke’s self portrait around 1633. (A challenge to you Church Chatters.)
They are heliotropic and while in bud follow the sun – hence leading to the symbolic idea of devotion, and the seeds do a spiral in a Fibonacci sequence suggesting eternity.
One Easter Ayla mentioned loving sunflowers so it was the obvious thing to do for her farewell, and our first main service together in church, since the beginning of lockdown.
I really wanted to decorate the gates to the church to welcome everyone, so I was thrilled that Tesco was doing a bunch for £4.00 . Unfortunately when I went to buy them I discovered they were discontinued that very afternoon. So I spent Friday afternoon on the 46 bus going to all their branches to get the end of line flowers. Finally hittting the jackpot in The little Venice branch. Seven bunches of sunflowers are surprisingly heavy but I got lots of smiles.
Sheena Ginnings, Marilyn Brooks, Jane Padkin and Jayne Gill and the very tall David James all helped make the church look wonderfully festive for Ayla’s farewell .
