A Victoria man is planting hope, arranging a display of hundreds of flowers matching the Ukrainian flag in solidarity with the war-stricken country.
In Fernwood, Sahasi Erven’s garden bed at the corner of Princess Avenue and Chambers Street, a refuge he calls Oneness Heart Park, is now in full bloom.
“It’s really mesmerizing,” 64-year-old Erven told Victoria Buzz.
“For 15 years, we’ve been making the park the most intensely beautiful place on earth for its size—10 metres by 1 ½ metres. It truly is spectacular for six months of the year, starting right now,” he said.
But it was earlier this month when the new unique idea sparked for Erven.
“I woke up with this beautiful flag of flowers in my mind’s eye. So I just went, ‘Wow, I should do that.’ I phoned up a few neighbours and said, ‘I’m going to do this, do you want to help?'”
According to Erven, his neighbours were more than willing and helped to plant around 500 blue and yellow primulas purchased that same day. They also added some white ones across the center to spell out Ukraine.
“I picked up three truckloads of those flowers and started the endeavour,” he explained.
“The neighbours were very inspired. When you see it and the Ukraine colours, it just fits all real nicely. It’s what I call ‘divinely inspired.'”
“It was just a message of love.”
Erven continued, “Everybody walks by it, and they go, ‘That’s the flag there.’ And then they look at it and realize Ukraine is spelled right in the middle of it. It just gives people a lot of joy.”
When turning on his TV, Erven finds watching the news to be “such a bummer,” especially amidst Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s prompting him to opt for positivity and spread it around.
“Humanity is evolving; we’re evolving. And I’m very optimistic about the future, I really believe the oneness of humanity will become greater and greater, and these wars will disappear,” Erven added.
“I sort of expected this outright carnage would disappear by now, but you see it on the news and it’s a downer. So you go outside, look at the park, and you smile and feel good; you feel like you want to help.”
“You feel hopeful.”
