The Green Flower

During SUUSI on 2004 July 18-24, I wrote a song about a green flower. I have not completed the song and have not settled on a melody except that it is probably going to contain major 7ths. But it is interesting to look at the ideas which led me to write a song about a green flower.

My workshop leader, singer johnsmith, asked us all to do a free-association exerecise to come up with some kind of song that involved compassion. I thought about this and came up with the idea of giving my love something for her birthday. Right away I thought of a flower. But this was too conventional. All men give their significant women flowers of some sort at times. What's so special about giving her a flower? What's so special about giving her a purple iris, or a red rose, or a yellow daisy? I thought of all the different colors of flowers, then I found one that almost no one gives; in fact, there are hardly any flowers of this color, namely a green flower.

And so I wrote the song about trying to get a gift for my beloved. I said that I could give her an iris, but I have already given her the iris of love. I could give her a daisy, but I have already given her the daisy of happiness. And so forth. Then I concluded by giving her the green flower, because that is not any of those, but it expresses my love for her that is beyond rose passion, happy daisies, and serene bluebells. I give her a flower that is so rare that it expresses my rare love for her.

And that brings us to the concept of a green flower in the first place. When I mentioned the green flower to my group, they said that flowers aren't green. They were being literal. johnsmith said that it was a left-brain concept. I thought about that a moment, and realized that to some extent it was. I mentally listed all the flowers there were and found that there were no green flowers.

And why aren't there green flowers? The purpose of a flower is to attract bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other animals to them so that the pollen from one flower can pollinate another. It is nature's aboriginal advertising gaud. The flower therefore has to stand out from the green vegetation, so it has to be a bright color that isn't green. A green flower would not attract insects because it would be indistinguishable from the leaves. If there was a green flower, the leaves would be some other color, such as orange or red.

So the flower is built to stand out beyond mere vegetation. Well, I created the green flower to stand out among flowers. It is the one unique gift that I had not given yet. And as such it represents the concept of "beyond"; that is, one can go beyond any concept that that one conceives. The green flower is beyond flowers. So the green flower represents the ability to go beyond where one happens to be in life to go to the next stage, as in the memes of Ken Wilber's theories (e.g., the Theory of Everything).

There is one other color of flower that I never see, and that is the black flower. To me, the black flower represents either sexy sophistication or the mourning of the loss of a loved one, depending on the context. But I was looking for neither sexiness or mourning in looking for my flower beyond flowers.

So to this woman in my life, I give her the green flower. I will have the song written soon.