What Ikebana Teaches a Patient on Their Cancer Journey

My love of flowers was cultivated when, as a little boy, I stayed with my maternal grandmother while my parents were working. My grandmother had a beautiful flower garden in her front yard, and I would often help her as she tended to the flowers. I can still remember sticking my nose in a rose to smell that fragrance, as well as the wonderful aroma of the hydrangeas. Obviously, this was a time when the glorious fragrance of roses filled a room. Unfortunately, that’s not the case today.

There is a lot I could say about ikebana and its placement of three parts: tall, middle, and small elements. However, I won’t go into those different schools or traditions.

Instead, I want to focus on what ikebana can teach those of us going through a cancer journey. In my case, my cancer journey involves chronic lymphocytic leukemia and idiopathic thrombocytopenia.

In ikebana, we must work with what the season gives us. In winter, we use bare branches. In spring, we see delicate buds, and in summer, we have a flurry of gorgeous flowers. Fall is the time of transition when leaves are changing their colors. Being a cancer patient is like living in the season of fall because we are constantly in transition from great days when we feel good and are celebrating our health status, to the days in between when we are just so-so, to the poor days when we barely have the energy to get out of bed. But the good news is that we continue in a state of metamorphosis, so that the color returns in our body, mind, and spirit to help us make it through another day!

The key is using what’s in front of us… our resilience. We don’t have to be perfect. We just have to create beauty with what we have in our hearts. Then we can stand tall, like the branches in an ikebana arrangement.

In ikebana, there is a concept known as “ma.” This is the intentional use of empty space. The space between a branch is not symbolic of absence, but rather, it is a part of the composition. That space allows the other elements in the arrangement to be seen, to breathe, to matter.

Living with cancer has taught me about space too. All of us experience pauses between our treatments. These pauses give us an opportunity to recover from radiation and chemotherapy. If we experience serious side effects, a pause in treatment gives us time to recover from them and to heal.

In the quiet moments before our appointments, we may learn that we have an opportunity to calm ourselves and to deal with whatever anxieties we’re facing. So, when we meet with our oncologist, we aren’t a bundle of nerves but rather, we are as collected as we can be.

These pauses are not voids but are part of the path we walk in our individual cancer journey. They help to give meaning to our lives.

When I arrange flowers in my home, I’m not trying to hide the bent stem or force a bloom to face a certain direction. Ikebana honors asymmetry. It accepts the art of impermanence or wabi-sabi. Each arrangement I make is temporary because I know the flowers won’t last forever. This is just the truth of the matter.

Some days, I am strong like the tallest branch in the arrangement. Other days, I am as fragile as a bud. Ikebana teaches us that in flower arrangements, as in dealing with our various forms of cancer, what’s required of us is presence, intention, and courage to arrange what we have been given into something meaningful. We are called to take our cancer, whatever it may be, and use it to bring beauty into our lives.

That is all we can do, really. We must arrange what we have, what we have been given, and honor the spaces in between. Then we must trust that we can find beauty in our lives and those around us.

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