Floral Offerings by Caprilicious

Hello everyone, it's great to be back with you today. The summer has almost ended and it was a pretty poor show this year. However, the garden is green and the flowers have all come out due to the amount of rain they have had, so I guess we shouldn't complain - there's always next year to look forward to.
When I last messaged you I was about to host the staff barbecue and for once, the sun shone on us, the weather forecast said categorically that we weren't about to be rained on from a great height and I cancelled the marquee I have begun to order in recent years after a number of my barbecues had to be moved indoors due to the rain.  

Life has been extremely hectic and yet I managed to hunt down a beautiful Ghau box that came to me all the way from Tibet. It is a simple silver tone box, with a little window, containing the image of Kwan Yin engraved into a back plate.  
​I thought about how this beautiful Goddess is worshipped and an offering of flowers came to mind - a Pushpanjali; which in ancient Sanskrit means the offering of flowers with folded hands.
Anyone who has visited a Buddhist or Hindu country has almost certainly seen offerings in the form of handwoven baskets of flowers, floating flowers with candles, garlands that are worn around the neck, or colourful clouds of petals which are scattered around a deity.
​Flowers and offerings have gone hand-in-hand in Asia since time immemorial. It's no coincidence that flowers are an established and important daily part of making offerings.
When I was growing up, the first task of the day set by grandma for grandad  was to pick flowers from our garden for the morning prayers. If one has flowering plants in the garden, it is common to find neighbours stealing a few in the early morning (before the owner wakes up) for their own offerings - everyone turns a blind eye, and no one believes that they might be doing something wrong. The rationale is probably that the flowers are for an offering to a deity, and who knows, it might be that the neighbours' God might be more powerful than the one at home - a bit of reflected good luck might come your way from not administering a good bollocking to the flower thief. 

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Pushpanjali

Pushpanjali is the offering of flowers to the Gods with folded hands. 
The coral beads around the image of Kwan Yin resemble petals and the necklace, a garland of flowers put together with contrasting blues and pyrite chunky nuggets which had sat in my stash for ages.

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I've also been sewing away every day at a pendant I'm making with a few misshapen orphan pendant beads - this project has run away with itself somewhat, and is now painstakingly coming to the end. It has loads of little pearly beads between the slabs in the picture, and a deep fringe - but I'm not sure I'm done with it yet. 
I need to finish it and add a necklace - it is going to be a very flamboyant piece for a brave woman - one who likes her statement piece of jewellery, and of course, Caprilicious Jewellery is the place to go to for your statement necklace! 

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That's me for now folks, have a wonderful Bank Holiday weekend, and I'll catch you soon.
Until then
​xx