How to make a Tahitian-style flower crown.
I have a newfound appreciation for this joyful and colourful Tahitian tradition!
My sister-in-law was married yesterday, and a Tahitian wedding is a wondrously colourful thing.
Brightly coloured fabric and prints are the overwhelmingly popular choice for outfits. Complementing these, nearly everyone will have a flower crown, a garland of flowers, or a single flower tucked behind the ear.
While you can buy plastic versions of everything, why would you? A handmade fresh flower crown (that not only looks but smells amazing) will set you back the equivalent of around $25AUD from the women who sell them on the side of the road.
Wearing flowers isn’t just for weddings. Any occasion will do; Christmas, heading to church, going for a picnic, having a drink at a bar.
A flower tucked behind the ear is common to see as part of everyday attire. However, one needs to be careful about which ear the flower goes behind; the right ear means single and ready to mingle!
Traditionally, women will wear open flowers, and men will wear closed flowers or just foliage.
Tiare Tahiti (a white flower with a beautifully delicate scent) is traditionally used for the bride and groom, symbolising purity. Both will wear crowns for the day and get draped with garlands once they’ve tied the knot.
This time, we tried to make our own.
We followed the instructions from this book, Couronnes végétales de Tahiti: Te hei upo’o no, by Tiarenui Ebb.
Yes, it is all in French. Yes, my mother-in-law figured it out herself and then taught me.
Unfortunately we were a bit short of flowers in the garden, but we collected what we could. Flowers, fronds from the red and green auti plants, little ferns.
Martin made ones with just leaves for himself and Emile, while Aurelie and mine were as filled with flowers as we could make them.
It took a really bloody long time. This is an art of patience. I have a newfound appreciation of the women who do this day-in-day-out, although I imagine you’d get a lot faster at it with practice.
Et voila! for the wedding, we had our wonderful, colourful, handmade flower crowns.
Make your own Tahitian-style flower crown
Reading, watching, thinking about…
We have some preserved garlic that’s gone blue here, and it’s so weird and cool.
A visionary from a young age, [William Blake’s] imagination was such that he was surrounded by angels made visible in his mind's eye, and he interpreted these visions through poetry, painting and engraving, and self-printed and published many of his own works. This gave him complete freedom to say exactly what he wanted.
Though he had a passionate faith in God, he also had a deep distrust of the church as an institution, and disliked the use of religion as a means of control.
"Restraining desire" and acting contrary to your own nature seem to be the only real evils for Blake.
He expressed his faith through a love of the world and the beauty in it. He saw "God" in everything, in all the wonders we have around us, and considered writers/poets and religious prophets as essentially the same, since they both have a connection to the divine, and express it through stories.
(Also yes, I’m still on Tumblr, sue me)