Sunflowers

by Sue Johnson

I remember fields of them in Tuscany, faces turned towards the sun. They are happy flowers, like fleabane, dandelions and daisies. They all remind me of miniature suns.

Yellow is the colour of the solar plexus chakra – the ‘city of jewels.’ It is the colour of empowerment. That’s why one of my novels featured a girl in a yellow silk dress. The colour is like buttercups or sunshine spilling across a meadow.

I collect crystals. On my desk I have citrine to encourage creativity. I wear a topaz ring I inherited from a great aunt.

At birthday parties when I was a child, we used to play ‘Oranges and Lemons Say the Bells of St Clements’ and you were asked if you wanted to be an orange or a lemon. I always said ‘lemon’ because the taste always seemed more positive. I have a passion for lemon cake, limoncello and the lemon groves of Italy. I travel there in my dreams.

The colour yellow from primrose to sunflower never fails to cheer me up. It is full of light and energy. However, I never wear it because – whatever the shade – I look worse than my passport photograph.