Forget Me Not Necklace

The dainty ‘Forget Me Not’.
They evoke memories, often of childhood or of the wild places they grew that captured our imagination. Their calming soft blue. Their small stature that invited you to wonder. To know them better you had to get close, become intimate. Because of their name they seem to invite reflection about memory and forgetting. One of my favourite writers, John O’Donohue, explores the concept of ‘absence’ and reflects on memory in this way:

“There is a place where our vanished days secretly gather. Memory, as a kingdom, is full of the ruins of presence. It is fascinating that, in your memory, nothing is lost or ever finally forgotten. … Sometimes the needle of thought finds its way into a groove of memory and suddenly an old experience that yo no longer remembered comes back almost pure and fresh and intact in you. So memory is the place where absence is transfigured and where our time in the world is secretly held for us. … In a certain sense, memory keeps presence alive and is always bringing out of what seemed to be absent new forms of presence.” - John O’Donohue

A few years ago I found a fascinating book titled ‘A Primer for Forgetting’ by Lewis Hyde. He writes:

“Many years ago, reading about the old oral cultures where wisdom and history lived not in books but on the tongue, I found my curiosity aroused by one brief remark. “Oral societies,” I read, keep themselves “in equilibrium … by sloughing off memories which no longer have present relevance.”

“We live in a culture that prizes memory: how much of it we can store, the quality of what’s preserved, how we might better document and retain the moments of our lives, how best to keep at bay the nightmarish prospect of losing all the experiences we have accumulated. But what if forgetfulness were seen not as something to fear … but rather as a blessing, a balm, a path to peace and rebirth?” - Lewis Hyde

All this from a miniature flower.

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This one-of-a-kind necklace is hand fabricated in sterling silver. 

Materials:
sterling silver

Measurements:
The pendant is 2cm at its widest point and 2.5cm long. 
The chain is 19 inches long and closes with my handmade hook clasp.