When a Flower Becomes a Prophetic Language
I return again and again to the cycle of seed, curl and bloom because it feels like a living script, a language older than memory. In my work, botanical transformation is never just growth—it is a sequence of emotional signals, an unfolding that mirrors the slow clarity of intuition. Across Slavic, Baltic and Mediterranean traditions, people once looked to plants for signs of what was coming: a shift in the heart, a change in the season, a path turning toward or away from fate. When I paint these botanical transitions, I feel as though I am participating in that same quiet act of reading the world through nature’s subtleties. A seed becomes a question, a curl becomes a hesitation, a bloom becomes an answer.
The Seed as the First Whisper of Fate
The seed has always been a threshold for me. It is the beginning before beginnings, the moment when everything is possible and nothing is yet visible. In divinatory folklore, seeds were treated as small oracles. Their behaviour—floating, sinking, swelling, holding still—held meaning. A floating seed promised smooth travel; a sinking one warned of emotional heaviness. When I paint a glowing seed, I’m capturing that suspended instant when the future gathers itself in silence. It carries the energy of direction, but not the clarity of destination. The seed is fate in its most intimate form: potential holding its breath.
The Curl as the Gesture of Uncertainty
The curl, for me, is the emotional core of botanical divination. It is the shape of becoming, the moment when intention begins to move but hasn’t yet declared itself. In folk readings, the curve of a new root or the spiral of a budding stem revealed whether harmony or disruption was approaching. A gentle curve meant alignment; a sudden twist meant conflict. When I paint my curling forms—roots turning inward, petals hesitating before unfolding—I’m tracing the emotional labyrinths we walk while waiting for clarity. The curl embodies uncertainty, but it also contains determination. It is divination in motion, showing how the future negotiates with the present.
The Bloom as Revelation
Blooming has long been associated with prophecy, especially in rituals tied to love and relational fate. In Slavic flower-reading, the timing and shape of a bloom could reveal whether affection would deepen or dissolve. In seasonal ceremonies, the first bloom signalled the texture of the coming months—whether they would bring abundance, travel, or quiet. When I paint a flower at the height of its opening, especially with mirrored petals or luminous centres, I’m exploring that moment of intuitive revelation. A bloom is not simply beauty. It is a declaration. It is the moment when meaning steps out of hiding and becomes visible.
Petals as Signs of Emotional Direction
Petals have always carried coded messages. Their softness and fragility disguise how precisely they speak. In many traditions, the behaviour of petals—whether they fall, hold, tilt or twist—formed the basis of love prophecy. A petal drifting to the left meant return; a petal drifting to the right meant parting. When I build surreal petals into my compositions, I honour this emotional lexicon. A hovering petal hints at longing. A perfect ring suggests emotional alignment. A petal that refuses symmetry whispers of unpredictability. Petals become a form of emotional cartography, mapping outcomes that cannot yet be spoken aloud.
Love Prophecy and the Blooming Body
Flowers have always been intertwined with questions of the heart. I think of Mediterranean rituals where young women placed blossoms under their pillows, hoping for dreams that revealed their lovers’ intentions. I think of Baltic traditions where two flowers were placed together to see whether their stems would cross or separate by morning. When I paint blooms that pulse with inner light or fold inward with shadowed intensity, I’m translating these ancient practices into visual form. A bright interior becomes openness; a dark core becomes secrecy. Love becomes something readable through botanical metaphor rather than narrative.
Reading Seasons Through Botanical Atmosphere
Before clocks and calendars, people read the seasons through plants. A late bloom could signal a difficult year. A premature leaf could foreshadow unexpected events. The rhythm of nature was seen as parallel to the rhythm of human life. I carry this seasonal logic into my work. A perpetually dusk-coloured plant feels like a period of confusion or suspension. A bloom edged in early-spring green suggests renewal. A root dipped in cobalt blue signals transformation not yet complete. These atmospheric choices are my way of acknowledging that fate often speaks through cycles rather than moments.
Botanical Transformation as Emotional Ritual
Divination, at its core, is a way of making sense of uncertainty. When I paint the stages of a plant’s life, I’m not illustrating botany—I’m translating emotion into ritual form. A glowing seed becomes the tremor before change. A curling stem becomes the negotiation with doubt. A blooming flower becomes the arrival of understanding. These stages carry the emotional frequencies of hesitation, longing, clarity and renewal. They feel both ancient and contemporary, as if they belong simultaneously to ancestral intuition and to the quiet internal processes we navigate today.
Why I Continue to Read the Future Through Bloom
I return to botanical divination because it allows me to create images that hold mystery without confusion, symbolism without rigidity. The transformation of a plant mirrors the transformation of the self. We begin as seeds of instinct, curl through uncertainty, bloom into whatever truth we can finally name. Through glowing seeds, spiralling stems and luminous florals, I explore the way the future whispers before it arrives. Divination through bloom is my way of honouring the belief that nature is not separate from us. It reflects our inner weather—our questions, our contradictions, our beginnings—and it invites us to read its signs with tenderness and attention.
