In Victoria today, our premier has outlined the rules to the extreme Stage 4 lockdown, ordering thousands of businesses to close. This will be the cause of a great deal of readjustment. I’m feeling blue. What a strange expression when blue can be so beautiful. Just look at the cornflower.
“The Cornflower (Centaurea cyanis), also known as bachelor’s button is a native annual/ biennial plant from Mediterranean Europe. It got the name cornflower because it grew as a weed in corn fields. Representing positive hope for the future, the Cornflower is a humble reminder of nature’s simple beauty and the fullness of life’s cycle.”
A lovely reminder at the present time. So how can blue represent sadness?
I read that the use of the color blue to mean sadness goes all the way back to the 1300s. Having read some Chaucer in my time, it was interesting to discover the claim that Geoffrey Chaucer was the first author to write the word blue. He wrote “Wyth teres blewe and with a wounded herte” in his poem Complaint of Mars from around the year 1385. Nowadays, we would write with tears of blue and a wounded heart. This could mean that from its very first appearance, blue was connected with sadness.
In Australia we have a wonderful organisation called Beyond Blue. Beyond Blue provides information and support to help everyone in Australia achieve their best possible mental health,
I really love it that cornflowers appear as a blue flower in the popular computer game Minecraft!! I wonder how many of the 126 million Minecraft players would recognise the flower in real life.
AT PATHO 
I’m adding more blue to my gardens for upcoming years. It is odd to think of blue with sadness…why not brown or gray? In these times, it’s hard not to feel “blue” but to me it’s definitely a soothing color, not a sad one.
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Yes , I’ve got to admit it’s an odd turn of phrase. Nothing better than a clear blue sky to life my spirits.
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