Day 2 - Mother and Child in Autumn Dew

This is the second day of my flower practice week. I went out hunting for flowers today but found that there isn't much left - autumn is definitely here. What I did find was a tree with really nice round yellow leaves and some Yarrow. To add a bit of colour a picked a few branches of Heather from the balcony. Studying the branches I saw that the yellow leaves had red stems that corresponded nicely with the grayish purple of the Heather. I was even more surprised to find what looked like small bean pods under the leaves - so I decided to strip parts of the branch to show off their bright green colour.

Naturalistic freestyle. Autumn leaves, Heather and Yarrow in a Sogetsu vase designed by Sofu Teshigahara.

For this arrangement I've used a vase that I bought on eBay a few years ago. It's a modern vase that could take an abstract ikebana, but I often find that autumn leaves look best in a naturalistic arrangement. The branches are so beautiful in their natural shape. Also the round shape of the leaves brings out the natural softness in the shape of the vase. Earlier this week I got some information about this vase from a Facebook discussion. The vase is named "Komochi" meaning Mother and Child, and it was designed by Sofu Teshigahara, founder of the Sogetsu School of ikebana. According to the person who gave me this information it can still be bought at the Sogetsu shop in Tokyo.

To get a feeling of "here and now" i sprayed the arrangement with a light water mist. This is often done in Chabana arrangements (tea-flowers) to add freshness. “The moment is the moment, and you can never recapture it.” My friend Margie Yap of the SweetPersimmon blog has taught me that one should also let the spray be seen on the walls of the tokonoma to show that the mud or walls of the tokonoma are accepting of the flower.

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