How to Make Beautiful Flower Arrangements

Japan’s traditional, female-dominated art of flower arranging is returning to its masculine roots, for an entirely modern reason: it’s become a way for male employees to prune away their stress.

Ikebana, or "the way of flowers", dates back more than 500 years and first blossomed among male artisans and aristocrats.

Aimed at creating harmony between man and nature as well as heightening the appreciation of the rhythms of the universe, arrangements are conducted in silence using only organic elements put together in a minimalist style.

And it’s this creativity and spirituality that has attracted thousands of Japanese men to reclaim the art form that has more recently been associated with women. Japanese society has traditionally put much emphasis on hard work and employees regularly put in long hours in the office, which increases the risk of depression, mental health organisations say.

The nation, which has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, even has a term for death by overwork — karoshi — making stress-relieving activities such as ikebana all the more popular.

Flower compositions arranged according to the traditional principles of ikebana are said to represent the relationship between heaven, mankind and earth.

Minoru Kagata, 61, an instructor at Sogetsu school who took up ikebana almost 20 years ago, said the art "gives life to flowers." It usually takes students more than two years to create beautiful arrangements with few natural elements, he added. For many male students, stepping into the ikebana studio is rewarding enough, regardless of how skillful they are.

"Flower arrangement adds that unreal flavour to my life and lets my mind roam free," said Koji

Otusbo, who has been studying ikebana for more than 15 years."At the same time, such an artistic hobby is like a bridge that connects me to the real world."

http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20100127/778/tod-flower-art-blooms-among-japan-s-stre.html
Edit: Heard it all before…i’m not saying anything!…but perhaps you’d be able to handle your stress better with flower arranging or any other such serene hobby..

playing blues on my guitar.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 8:23 am and is filed under Step by step flower arranging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.