The Language of Flowers in the Time of COVID: Finding Solace in Zen, Nature and Ikebana

In 2020, as COVID-19 spread from Asia to North America, Zen Buddhist and ikebana practitioner Joan Stamm was forced to cancel her long-anticipated trip to Japan, where she had planned to research a flower temple pilgrimage and learn the deeper meaning of flowers known as “little Buddhas”. But with lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, Stamm, who lives on a mountain on an island in the Salish Sea, sequestered herself like a hermit and turned to her own flower garden for solace and meaning as the pandemic engulfed the world around her. The Language of Flowers in the Time of COVID tells the story of Stamm’s life and spiritual journey through these difficult times. Using traditional Japanese flowers as seasonal indicators, Stamm speaks the poetic language of flowers to explore ancient flower metaphor as it relates to the pandemic and the many manifestations of impermanence in one of the most tumultuous years in American history.

Joan D. Stamm is the author of A Pilgrimage in Japan: the 33 Temples of Kannon, and the award winning Heaven and Earth are Flowers: Reflections on Ikebana and Buddhism. She is co-founder of Cold Mountain Hermitage, a Zen Buddhist study and practice group, and a certified teacher of the Saga School of Ikebana. https://joandstamm.com/. She lives in Eastsound, Washington.