We are all children of flowers and it’s not spiritual fluff

“Flowerpower” might sound like spiritual fluff but it’s very real. I would call it practical spirituality.

The first flower can be traced back to 140-250 millions years ago, and plants have been developed during millions of years before. It’s all part of the evolution that started with the big bang 13.8 billion years ago, when the universe was born.

For plants to start to develop flowers, to come up with all that energy, it had to absorb more sunlight. In order to absorb more sunlight, it needed bigger leaves. The whole development lead to a huge increase of oxygen in the atmosphere.

The appearance of flowers transformed the ecosphere, it created the conditions for humans, for homo sapiens as a species, to evolve. It followed by an explosion of the biodiversity, and the food chain as we know it was created. Looking at where our food comes from, almost everything that we eat comes from a flower.

An apple, squash, tomato, blueberry, wheat, edamame bean… they have all been flowers transformed into fruits, vegetables, berries, grains and beans.

So, we can say that we develop from flowers.

This is what we depend on to live, grow and evolve.

A sandwich idea with Neem flowers.

Add a touch of local wilderness by topping your sandwich with some neem flowers. I used hummus and olives as a spread.

Violá! Enjoy the flow from universe to your consciousness.

The young twigs and flowers of neem (Azadirachta indica) can occasionally be consumed as vegetables. The leaves and fruits can be eaten fresh or cooked too.

In traditional medicine (especially Siddha and Ayurvedic) neem are used as anthelmintic, antifungal, antidiabetic, antibacterial, antiviral, contraceptive and sedative. It’s common to use neem for skin diseases.

But there is a but. Short-term internal use of neem is in general safe, while long-term use may harm the kidneys or liver. For more info check out Pitchandikulam herbarium.

It’s pretty amazing to realise that when we are eating plants, we are consuming the intelligence that formed this planet. 

End note: A list of my main sources of inspiration and learnings.