The Minimalist Guide to Transcendence

Floral arranging, what a bore.  Another line of thought, transmogrified.  Humorous, now floral arranging a desire, I have no skill at floral arranging.  Yet thought I did, during the decades it was a 'bore', yet never created floral arrangements.
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Innate arrogance?  Much?
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No budget for 'bought' stems/flowers.  Nor a belief in that trade, too harsh on the environment.  Stems, branches, browse.  My own property, or side of the road in the mowing zones.
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Pic, above, here.
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Floral arrangements, above, below, need no skill to arrange.
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Add clear glass marbles to the base of your pots.  Bags of them.  They're at most dollar stores.  They'll keep your stems/branches where you want them.
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Pic, above, here.
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Use Felco pruners, slight angle when clipping.  Once arranging, cut stem again, pound lightly with backside of pruner, at base of stem at fresh cut.  The stems will take up water more easily.
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Pic, above, here.
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A magnolia is on our property, its branches easy to arrange.
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With heavy arrangements, below, make sure your pots have fat bottoms.  Saw this magnolia arrangement, below, and first glanced down to the bottom of its vase.  It's fine.  Any narrower, and the whole thing would tip over if a cat brushed past.
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Pic, above, here.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Roadside browse, above.  Don't know if it is, but this is what my roadside browse arrangements look like.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Another option, above, for large arrangements inside.  The winter begonia or geranium.  Their promise of summer, with touches of winter's etiolation, a solid metaphor.  How are you taking yours, the metaphor?  Me?  I've grown longer to survive, but the season will change again, and I'll change with it.
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How many centuries of painters have captured exquisitely the etiolated potted plant inside at winter?
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Layers of goodness flow from these acts.  Detachment, transcendence, in the doing.  Enjoyment of the deed, for weeks.
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Aesthetics are not separable from truth & goodness, Sir Roger Scruton writes.  There is a beauty bias in Nature, and us.  Doing these arrangements, I am humbled at more than their beauty, their work of Providence.  Interwoven lives. 
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Before me, and after me, the same stems and branches will continue their work, drawing others with their goodness and truth.   Telling their stories.  Humorous, and a relief.
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Pic, above, here.
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From there, it's into the well trod path of a theological terroir.  If you're paying attention.  Once you do, you've joined a tribe, thousands of years old.  Same vein Rick Warren hit, "It's not about you."
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Bee to the flower.
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My urge to make these arrangements, no different.
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A large glass bottle, found at the dump, a couple of twigs cut from the roadside, placed inside, with prominence. Transcendence.
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T