Tuesday, January 06, 2004

......Flowers are the keepers of our joy...I love flowers....What a life without flowers ....flowers always bring joy to everyone...a sick patient would smile given a bouquet of flowers....flowers displayed in the home would create an environment of life itself...In the Malay culture women has always been describe as a flower...Vibrant, delicate and colorful and always would bring a joy to those that handle it with care.....It is the color of flowers that create the pomp and splendor of a scene.... and the beauty that are portrayed would linger longer....and would remain fresh in the memory of one who had the opportunity to see at close range the varieties of flowers that create those splendor scene...Life is never dull with flowers....A sad occasion light up with the present of flowers....A gift of a bouquet of flowers at the hospital room would light up the room itself...What a way flowers do for the human feeling itself... its the flowers in the garden that bring about the insect to set forth the dynamism of the eco system....the birds, the bees.... would not visit the home of a flowerless person....it is the existence of the flowers that make the whole eco system became alive.... thus add to the color of life itself....we feed the plants with carbon dioxide and in return it give us back.... not only the flowers that color our life... but at the same time it provide us with the most vital of our daily needs...Oxygen...Flowers are indeed Godsend to lighten our life...In Bali the Hindu's Malay there use flowers in their daily ritual and never a place in the whole of Bali are without flowers......Put some petal of those colorful flowers in a bowl of fresh water.......for washing hand before eating in a Malay home... not only it add color to the plain water...it refresh the water itself with the scent of those flowers...It has been the tradition of the Malay to wash their hand before eating and then wash again after eating....how lovely is to dip one's hand in a bowl of water full of those colorful petals....a drop of the juice of lime in the bowl would add an additional freshness.... and the smell would linger on long after the hand are washed....I am never without flowers...in the morning I tend to those potted plants of colorful roses and collect the 'kenanga' flowers that bloom everyday of the years in front of the patio of our home...the kenanga plant....it flowers all around the year and the scent is smooth and soothing and at time it is use in the Malay tradition medicine....Sometime people would stop in front of our home and ask for this kenanga flowers...I would gladly let them pick it themselves and happy that others appreciate the usefulness of this traditional flower......if fact I have already 'wakaf' it in advance to anyone that love this flower to pick it if they need it...even without me around....'wakaf' mean it is a public property ...in doing so I have made it easy for those kenanga lover to pick the flowers...but most of the time they seek permission from me or my neighbour before picking this flowers...it is part of our custom that we alway seek permission before taking anything that belong to others...a great tradition indeed......any plants that are grown outside my gate is already a 'wakaf' ....my friends that is life......it should be shared....to add to the joy of living...a little gift of life...flowers goes a long way....

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