The Smile and the Rose is a small myth for the Smile Eonomy, weaving together Saint George and the dragon, the Catalan Sant Jordi exchange of roses and books, and a modern circle of gifting between readers, schoolchildren and older people who are lonely.
It gives names to two kinds of value: - A **flower** is money, work or material support. - A **smile** is a story, time or loving attention.
The story explains how flowers become smiles, and how smiles, when shared, turn back into flowers for learning.
The first part of the exchange is about flowers.
The second part of the exchange is about smiles.
The Trigger: - From Buds To Blossoms
The Gift Of Books And Learning - Gift of Learning
# Uses And Possibilities The Smile and the Flower pattern can be remixed in many ways. - **Local loops** where a neighbourhood bookshop supports a nearby school and a nearby care home, keeping all three in friendly contact. - **Global loops** where readers in one country plant flowers for schools in another, while stories travel the other way across languages and borders. - **Festival loops** where special Sant Jordi style days are used to focus on dragons and roses, loneliness and stories, making the invisible work of care visible and celebratory.
In every version, the core remains the same. - **Flowers** are the quiet, structural support: money, time, infrastructure. - **Smiles** are the living pulse: acts of attention and imagination. The legend of Saint George and the dragon becomes less about a lone hero and more about a whole network of small actions, where every reader, child, elder, bookshop and club can be both knight and gardener in the growing bush of shared stories.