It says something about a culture when their national flower is the sunflower. Ukraine is also the world’s largest producer and exporter of sunflower seeds and sunflower oil. Turns out that because of the Orthodox Church restricting butter during lent, sunflower oil took off in the 1800s when the flower seeds were imported from North America, as did a love of this flower. Soon there were big fields of sunflowers all over Ukraine.
Explains Luba Rudenko, “You see sunflowers in the yards of village houses, they are woven into wreaths (venki) for girls to wear at celebrations. They’re embroidered on fabrics and painted on walls, wooden furniture, and household items in a folk art called petrykivka.” This is how we are tied together through a flower. North America to Ukraine. As Helen Keller said, “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. It’s what the sunflowers do.”
This week a flower has been a messenger for peace – as it often is – when a woman, confronted by a heavily-armed Russian soldier, offered him sunflower seeds — so that they might bloom when he dies. She is being hailed as a hero.
Then there were those images of Ukrainian female soldiers lined up for battle to defend their country and values. The brave women carefully put flowers in their hair consisting of the national flower of a sunflower paired with a blue flower – since the flag is blue and yellow. It is yet another example in history of how flowers are symbolic and relevant.
Read the complete article at www.flowerpowerdaily.com.