Garden of Hindu Gods: Sacred Flowers for Emotional Healing

Words by Anandita

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In the 1920s, travel posters, made for steamship lines and airlines, became extremely popular. The style changed notably in the 1920s, to focus attention on the product being advertised. The images became simpler, precise, more linear, more dynamic, and were often placed against a single color background. They conveyed a sense of power and safety – basically, what travellers were supposed to feel boarding liners and trains and visiting new destinations. (Available now)

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Garden of Hindu Gods: Sacred Flowers for Emotional Healing

Bollywood actress Saira Banu immersed in the beauty of a Lotus flower

What I loved most about going to the mandir was the comforting presence of flowers. My mother would pluck roses from our garden to offer to God and spend hours making beautiful garlands to adorn idols. I didn’t know all the rituals by heart, but I kept a small bank of knowledge on the favourite flowers of who we worshiped: Lord Ganesha loves Marigolds, Goddess Laxshmi loves Lotus, and Lord Krishna loves Tulsi. As a child I often talked to the Divine but rarely felt an omnipresence in temples. I grew up communing with the moon and the stars and the clouds. Early on, my faith was birthed from a sense of awe and wonder for the perfection of nature.

Ecologists show us that each and everything in an ecosystem has a unique design which lends to its unique purpose. We see this in how a tree’s leaves pull in carbon dioxide and produce the oxygen we breathe. We see this in a bee’s quest to pollinate, which reproduces our crops and provides our food supply. But another source of earthly magic goes unappreciated - and it has the gift of nurturing our often-neglected emotional and energetic wellbeing. 

As a sensitive child, my energy was easily and swiftly impacted by others. Experiences from my past felt like needles, thorns, and punches to the gut. Although the memories date far back, the impacts formed deep roots that constricted how I held my body, how I felt within myself and held my voice captive. As I got older I found myself turning to some of the spiritual concepts I grew up on to gain a deeper understanding of how traumas were stored in my body and energy field.

Hindu karma philosophy presents the concept of Samskaras, or mental and psychological impressions that accumulate through heightened pleasurable or painful experiences. These experiences create imprints on our subconscious minds, and the imprints shape our actions and behaviours. Trauma produces negative Samskaras that colour how we feel about ourselves, how we perceive the world around us, and how we act based on those perceptions. For example, if one continuously experiences neglect in their upbringing, their subconscious mind is likely to anticipate and prepare for neglect in adulthood. This could lead to avoidant behaviours such as self-neglect and resisting the cultivation of new relationships. Consistent behaviors create a repeated experience of neglect, thus reinforcing the Samskara. And if it’s ancestral, it’s bound to be unconsciously repeated. To release some of my own negative imprinting, I turned to the healing power of flowers.