Happy Valentine’s Day! I feel like the staple emblems of this holiday are chocolates, hearts, plushies, and last but not least, flowers. So I thought I’d share my favorite flower with y’all and its meaning for my post this week. I have a lot of flowers that I really like and that have a special place in my heart, but if I had to choose a flower that I like in and of itself, separate from other people’s influences, I’d choose the chrysanthemum.
One of my teachers in elementary once read to us Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, and I loved it because I could relate to it. I’ve never met another person named Denneen before in my life, and most people haven’t either. I used to really hate my name because it seemed so weird and different. So this book helped me appreciate the uniqueness of my name and helped me let go a little of my dislike for it and shine a more positive light on it. Consequently, I was endeared to the chrysanthemum.
It’s also just honestly a really beautiful flower. It comes in all sorts of colors, like most flowers do, and I particularly like chrysanthemums when they’re in the middle of flowering, so the outermost petals have opened but those in the center are still a little closed and furled in. They have a really full appearance which I like, and are very popular autumn flowers, which is my favorite season.
It also has so many meanings: in different Asian cultures, it symbolizes vitality, life and rebirth, and also has imperial/noble associations. It is also believed to be a plant capable of cleansing spaces, and yellow varieties are praised for representing the sun. All over the world, chrysanthemums are also thought to represent joy, fidelity, friendship, happiness, and is overall a very positive symbol. It is tradition to drink chrysanthemum liquor on the ninth day of the ninth month in China for health and old age, and Greek superstition states that chrysanthemums can protect against evil spirits, hence why they’re often planted in graveyards.
However, they are also used in funeral floral arrangements to bid farewell to the departed and to symbolize a life well-lived. In France, Belgium, Austria, and some other European countries, chrysanthemums represent death and are given in times of mourning and are often found decorating gravesites. I discovered this while learning about French and francophone cultures while taking French as my language elective for 6 years in middle school and high school.
I really enjoy the duality of life and the cycle that the chrysanthemum represents, because to me it’s a reminder that life has so much to offer – you don’t even know the amount of happiness that you’ll experience in this lifetime, today or tomorrow or years and years from now. However, it is also short – so live life to the fullest, appreciate the people you care for, and grieve them wholly when their time comes. We have the pleasure of grieving because we had the pleasure to have loved.
So yeah – chrysanthemums are my favorite flower. At some point, I want a big chrysanthemum back tattoo piece done in the ukiyo-e art style, but that’s for later. As of right now, I’ll just admire them and wish you all again a happy Valentine’s Day. 🙂
