Wreaths are magic!
I began my floristry career making wreaths, and they put a spell on me, but why?
well….first we need to know where wreaths come from
Wreaths throughout history
We see them adorn doors at all times of the year….(Spring, Harvest, Christmas) and most modern historians will point to the depictions of flower crowns dressing the heads of Greek and Roman politicians as their starting point…..in reality, the practice of constructing wreaths is much older. The pagan art of floral weaving began hundreds of years before the “wise and powerful” wore them as status symbols.
The first record of a flower weave was for a young woman that just started mooning. Women in her community joined hands and fashioned a wreath made of medicinal plants, vines, and berries and placed it upon her head during a ceremony. Thus beginning the notion that they are symbols of fertility.
They honor the fertility of the farmer’s fields. Simultaneously celebrating the abundance of the growing season, and its final flush of grains. They were hung on the barn, as an offering to the Nordic goddess, Freyja…..a prayerful request for a fruitful new year.
Wreaths often dress the top of the Maypole. Young men, full of vitality, race to capture it. “Win” the maiden, stretching to be intertwined with her rhythms. It is but a prelude to the more elaborate fertility rights that would ensue as the sun went down. Planting both their metaphorical and physical seeds in fertile ground.
Fertility is only a small component of wreaths.
Wreaths represent life and death.
The act of flower weaving honors the continuous cycles of life. Not just the seasons of one’s personal life, but the seasons of the year, and perhaps, most significantly, the seasons of birth and death. The birth of a mother, but the death of her childhood. The birth of the plants, but their demise upon freezing. Much like the form a wreath takes, this circle goes on and on…..to infinity.
The Most Famous Wreath Ever Worn…..The Crown of Thorns
Christmas wreaths are undeniably the most popular wreath, but they aren’t the most famous. A holiday wreath is an emblematic nod to the crown of thorns. Evergreens are a sacred plant representing life’s hope and perseverance. Their color never fades…..much like the hope of humanity. This is why pine and spruce are the base of all Christmas wreaths. (and why you shouldn’t buy plastic ones ;0) It is no coincidence that on a day widely celebrated as the savior’s birth…. we use wreaths to pay homage to his death. Christians borrowed a wreath’s full spectrum of meaning from their pagan predecessors. Personally, I think the crown of thorns was a double entendre….. the Romans placed the crown of thorns upon Jesus’ head to symbolize not only the death of a man, but the death of a movement……..however, by completing the circle of the weave the spell was cast that hope would rise again and that nothing dead truly dies…..It is incorporated back into the great mystery it initially arose from.
Which brings me to why wreaths are super deep
Wreaths perfectly encapsulate the essence of life. Like two sides of the same coin, we can’t experience life without also experiencing death. When we weave earth’s beauty…. giving form with tight bonds, we are intertwining our lives with all of creation. We acknowledge our ephemeral time here by making wreaths with fresh plants that will soon dry and decay. We rejoice in seasons past, while we pray for the future.
There is no way to escape these seasons…..which is why wreaths are pure magic! They are a ritual proclamation that I belong in this circle, I am a part of it, I pick the ingredients, and I play a role in its construction…..I surrender to the seasons of my life, and how its inevitable death makes this moment and every moment in between worth celebrating.
