January: Ultimate Love, Through the Hands
January invites a deeper softening.
The idea of ultimate love has been lingering with me this month — love not as something we strive for or protect, but something we surrender into. When we loosen our grip, love expands naturally. It doesn’t force. It doesn’t rush. It allows.
This understanding feels deeply aligned with January’s work, and with the quiet wisdom of the snake — a creature that sheds what once protected it the moment it no longer fits. There is no drama in the shedding, no judgment of the old skin. Only instinct, trust, and release.
I’ve felt this energy move through my hands as I’ve been designing throughout Capricorn season.
I’ve been drawn again and again to grounding, structural materials. Pine branches have become the backbone of many January arrangements, filling the studio with that clean, steady winter scent. Quince branches, still bare, carry the patience of what has not yet bloomed. Protea brings strength and presence without excess, while amaryllis open slowly, revealing themselves over days rather than moments. And thistle, with its soft armor, has felt especially symbolic this month — resilience paired with tenderness.
These are not fleeting flowers. They ask to be lived with.
I design January arrangements with longevity in mind — choosing stems that evolve, dry beautifully, or reveal themselves gradually. As petals fall and forms shift, they remind us that release is not loss. It’s an opening.
Shedding the Snake: A Threshold Made Visible
As January deepens, this work of release begins to take shape beyond the studio.
In celebration of the Lunar New Year, I’ve been collaborating with 11th Hour Gallery on a floral installation exploring transition, shedding, and renewal. Lunar New Year marks a collective threshold — a moment to close one energetic cycle and prepare for the next.
The image of the snake — shedding its skin to move freely — has been guiding this work. The installation is impermanent by nature. It exists for a moment, then releases itself, echoing January’s invitation to soften, trust, and make space for what’s coming next.
As we move toward the fire and momentum of the Horse, this shedding becomes essential. We cannot carry old skins into new motion.
Holding What Endures
This same intention lives in how I’m thinking about flowers this month.
Some arrangements are meant to evolve and disappear. Others are meant to endure. Forever Bouquets hold flowers that have already completed their cycle — a reminder that beauty doesn’t require urgency, and that love can exist without grasping.
Alongside them, January Astro Bouquets are created as living rituals — grounded in Capricorn’s structure, opening into Aquarius’ vision, and designed to stay with you throughout the month. They are intentionally simple, intuitive, and made to shift, dry, and change as you do.
Together, these offerings — the installation, the bouquets, the flowers themselves — become quiet companions for a season of shedding. Invitations to release without force, to love without armor, and to step toward February lighter than before.
