Color of the year brought tears to my eyes

Who would’ve guessed that a color of the year announcement would evoke tears of deep personal emotion to my eyes and full body goosebumps. I resonated with how this color has been all around me, literally for over a decade? The exact 10 years I’ve been grieving my son. It’s also a hue I wear many shades of, color my hair with and often paint my toes with.

A fun little thing I like do since I started designing with all the colors of the flowers I grow and researching for my book Flower Power is to predict what Pantone Color Institute color of year will be. 

I love color and how it makes me feel and I’m always curious about how healing color can be. You’ll even notice my floral aesthetic is not only flower heavy, it’s rich with vibrant color. Always.

This year however, I was so busy with our extended season into October and our Dahlia tuber sales to take time to even think about the color for 2023.

Besides after last year’s Very Peri purplish pick, I didn’t have high hopes of it being a color choice that even came close to being my favorite. Which if you’ve followed me for any length of time you know is purple..

But I have to tell you I know 2023’s color was chosen for the world after coming out of isolation but I can’t help feeling somehow it was picked just for me.

The Pantone color of choice to represent the next year is call Viva Magenta, the color of the very first dahlia that started me on my flower healing journey.

Further, what is even more interesting is the meaning of the dahlia and the color magenta are closely intertwined. 

Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of Pantone Color Institute says. “Viva Magenta galvanizes our spirit, helping us to build our inner strength.”

The full meaning of the dahlia is.

Dahlia’s bring meaningful blessings of enduring grace. The dahlia is a symbol for inner strength and standing strong in your sacred values. In particular they activate emotional resiliency, stamina especially in times of extreme emotional stress and in times of grief. 

Seems to me if Magenta is the color for 2023, Magenta Dahlias are the flower of the year. They are definitely mine. 

Nice for you to catch up to what I’ve known. Magenta is an incredible life changing color.