The Glory of the Flower

Earlier today I needed a break from the computer and phone so I stood, stretched, and fixed a cup of tea.  Since the house was chilly I wrapped in a sweater.  Then, sipping the beverage I looked beyond the dining room window to what is now a familiar Narnia-like frosty world. 

I always get itchy around this time for the scent of mulch, freshly turned earth and spring rain, so it’s not a surprise that such a feeling is coming over me again. It’s particularly intense this year due to an unusually difficult season filled with record snow falls and freezing downpours. In fact, I just heard that up to 16 more inches are expected early next week.  

Longing for lilacs, English stock and hyacinths, my brain began to wander. ’Maybe I should check the stores for some paper whites…they offer that great heady scent, and they last for weeks.’  In the midst of this notion a tiny surprise gift from last spring flit through my mind provoking me to reflect back…

The pollen had landed everywhere so I’d been hosing off the patio when I’d noticed a tiny stray summer flower in an early bloom. It had found its way out into the sunshine through a crack between the patio and the siding of the house.  Wandering seeds drift on the wind all the time so it wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence. Still, it was a lovely surprise.  The organized facet to my being wanted me to try to dig the flower up and plant it in a garden patch.  Fortunately, the element to my personality that connects with nature gave me permission to let it grow in the home it had created for itself.   That hearty little sprig brought me so much pleasure. It grew, spread and lasted well into the fall.

So today I drank my tea and gazed far beyond the snowy landscape as I mused on the glory of that flower.  No, it wasn’t the obvious splendor of its shape, scent and design that held my attention. It was the purest sense of consciousness that enabled the flower to simply BE a flower.  It didn’t compare itself to other flowers or ever find itself lacking. It lived in a completely unstructured, moment by moment consciousness enduring rain, insects, animals, chilly nights and humid sunny days. It allowed the creativity of the universe to surge through it, and it grew to its full splendor, manifesting itself to its greatest aspiration.  From the splitting of the seed, to the travel above ground, along a crack in concrete, it found its own stride. 

It reveled in and orchestrated its own unique existence

… yet it dwelled within the flow of the divine.

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