NARRATIVE OF A PETAL PUSHER

I’m a long time lover of arranging my own flowers. Something about the process of building my own floral masterpiece and showing it off to friends and family makes me proud and warms my cold heart.

I stumbled upon the idea for Postal Petals in early May while trying to convince a flower wholesaler to reduce his minimums in hopes of getting a small shipment of flowers for me and my friends so that I could host a little virtual flower arranging session over Zoom while we sipped wine and chatted during a quarantine hang. While talking with the wholesaler, I realized that there were no real options to access fresh flowers (real flowers, not week old grocery store bundles) during the pandemic. Recognizing the opportunity to create a new way to receive and experience fresh flowers, I went right to work developing a business outline and strategy for what is now Postal Petals. What I realized in the process of building the business is that this wasn’t just a business; it was a much-needed mental refuge from the heavy emotional toll of the pandemic on both my personal and work life.

When I say that flowers have provided a much-needed mental refuge, I mean that I found the flowers to be healing and meditative at a moment when all I wanted was peace and calm.

A side note about my real work life: Flowers aren’t my day job. Creating and implementing tangible, quantifiable action strategies to combat systemic social injustice is my real job and my everyday life. So as I’m sure you can imagine, with two pandemics, the Rona and racism, ravaging our communities at the same time, my stress levels have been at an all time high.

When I say that flowers have provided a much-needed mental refuge, I mean that I found the flowers to be healing and meditative at a moment when all I wanted was peace and calm. I started to notice that whenever life or work would get hectic, I’d instinctively stop everything and work on something relating to Postal Petals just to reset my mind. When I would begin to stress about life in quarantine, focusing on the flowers gave me peace in the midst of the turbulent storms. When I would become frustrated over the lack of support being directed to already oppressed communities whose suffering only intensified in the wake of Corona, focusing on the flowers allowed me to center my mind and channel my thoughts and energy in a productive and intentional way.

When my emotions were raging after the murder of George Floyd, focusing on the flowers helped me to step back from the overwhelming feelings of outrage and allowed me to calm my spirit and organize my thoughts in a way that was productive and actionable.

I’ve heard people talk about gardening having similar benefits, but it never occurred to me that flowers could have the same effect. As I read up on it, I found that creativity is a proven stress reliever and that flower arranging can be an artistic form of meditation. It clears your mind and encourages creative and spiritual expression.

It combines nature with human touch and teaches the appreciation of nature through seasons and all stages of life. The act of carefully and intentionally placing each stem in an arrangement to maximize its effect in concert with the others quiets ones thoughts and sooths the mind. In times such as these, we should all be doing what we can to care for our hearts and minds in addition to our bodies.

Postal Petals is more than a farm-direct delivery service for your DIY flower arrangements. It’s a sweet escape to a world of beautiful fresh flowers, creativity and mindfulness. I hope the beauty of our flowers will brighten your space and that arranging them can help to bring you the same peace of mind that it’s brought to me.