The power of words
I just realised that I had a mental block when I used the terms: Ingredients, Flowers, Plants, Foliage…
Somehow, for me to refer to them as ingredients make me work with them from a subconscious scarcity mindset; that I have to conserve every single itty bitty part of them. It’s not like I am wasteful and disrespectful to these living/once alive organisms to begin with, it’s just that it somehow keeps me so restrained and overly precious, that I might as well not create anything with them at all. In some ways, I don’t want to be wasteful, but I've now realised it's at a level of hoarding and thus controlling.
But the moment I started referring to them as "materials", it just flips this switch in my subconscious mind and unlocks a specific kind of flow in my body: being able to approach the creative practice with a much more explorative and experimental openness, connection, and an easier time of surrendering to the process and trust.
I get the connection of "ingredients". But there's just this deeply ingrained root of it being so tied to food and consumption for me, that I just couldn't bear to buy some produce to experiment with creating, especially as someone who loves her vegetables and fruits.
When I use the term "materials", the possibilities start opening up. So I now personally refer to ingredients as materials instead.