The irises are falling all over themselves with the weight of their beauty. It’s banner year where they’ve gone beyond simply showing off to flinging their gorgeousness at us with IMAX screen intensity. For the last 15 years, I’ve cut and bundled them carefully in a cacophony of vases in a large box. Then I placed the box carefully between the driver’s and passenger’s seat in my car, Kelley Hunt on one side, me on the other, calling out, “Have iris, will travel!” as our motto as we headed to Brave Voice.
This year of cancellations, postponements, mask-making, and stay-at-home directives means we’re not going deep into the Flint Hills to welcome people from across the country to this 6-day retreat of writing, singing, art-making, prairie-wandering, and magic-manifestation. I woke up this morning distinctly sad about this. While I’m counting the weeks until our rescheduled Brave Voice for Sept. 20-25, I’m missing this deep spring immersion into community, imagination, and prairie. At the same time, I realize many of us are missing events as well as people, places, ordering some extra hummus at a restaurant, or casually walking into a friend’s house and plopping down on her couch.
But the irises are blasting headlines across my heart about this particular event not happening because the iris is surely the Brave Voice floral mascot (we also have the cougar and pineapple, but those are other stories). Every year, we place overflowing bouquet of iris in the center of our circle where we gather to write about a time we experienced a miracle or sing in a 3-part-round with what could easily be 7-part-harmony “Breathe in…..Breathe out…”. We bring armloads of irises with us to place in the cabins and on tables, most from my yard, which increased in its iris population as I kept planting more each fall so for Brave Voice each spring. The camp often has its own herds of iris blooming, and everywhere, there’s the scent and promise of this resilient flower.
Irises look so delicate with their almost transparent-thin petals and complex bends and curves, but they’re powerfully strong. Put a bunch of iris in a vase, and with enough water and care, they can easily last a week or more. Plant an iris bulb, and it will reproduce itself underground, burrowing into the dirt to gather all the nutrients it needs to send up sturdy shoots while multiplying over time. Even when the weight of their tops makes them fall over, they keep opening their buds. They can survive horrid winters and mind-melting summers. They can find a way around stones or, as in our front yard, wayward kayaks blocking their usual trajectory. Even in a time of drought or harsh conditions, they still come calling, blossom and all. In short (although they’re tall), they’re brave.
I also think of irises as vibrantly musical. Synesthesia is when one sense takes on the qualities of another, and irises to me are synesthesic creatures. Their scents and shape sing to me, and not in a whisper kind of way, but full-throated, putting it all out there. If we could translate them into sound, I think they would belt out tunes like the love child of Laura Nyro and Josh Groban. Their brave voice is velvety and resonant, occasionally lilting through high notes while also encompassing us in a raw warmth that says home is so much more mysterious and alive than you can imagine.
So here we humans are, out in the wind and the rain of a pandemic, trying to stay upright and rooted enough. But we’re as beautiful in our vulnerability and propensity for music and magic as the iris. Let us keep remember, even celebrate, our brave voices at this time. Let nothing impede the courage that comes from digging down deep, soaring high, and opening our hearts completely.
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