Before I moved to the Mendocino coast, I thought there were maybethree different kinds of fuchsias. Now I know better. There are literally over 3,000 varieties.
When I was younger, there were a handful of careers I imagined I might have: ballerina, artist, religious hermit, auto mechanic, sculptor of internal organs and ornamental plant breeding research scientist. Every vocational test I took always suggested the same three jobs: fine artist, nun and florist, in that order.
My interest in flowers has never faded, and although I’ve only done backyard pollination experiments to encourage fresh colors and patterns, I continually appreciate those who have created new varieties of ornamentals.
Perhaps that is why I never tire of finding and photographing fuchsias. The weather here is perfect for them. I’ve even discovered two types growing in my own front yard.
Who will ever see every fuchsia variety that exists? Probably no one. But anyone who stops to appreciate even one bloom will receive a gift—the gift of awe, beauty, amazement.
Each one of us is unique—and even if another human isn’t appreciating us at every given moment, God is.
We may not have become all that we set out to be, but God thinks we’re perfect just the way we are.
All photos © Sondra Sula.
If you like these blogs, you’ll most likely enjoy my daily devotional book, Meditations on Mendocino by Sondra Sula. Available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle versions. Now also available at The Mendocino Book Company in downtown Ukiah, California.
I was walking on a path with my sister when we came across a tuft of lavender-painted grass and a forgotten string of gold baubles. Pretty girlie stuff.
We recalled a memory from childhood involving blue glass beads. Although we could both visualize the glittery beads clearly in our minds, our recollection of the events surrounding them differed. When this happens, which it regularly does, the sister with the most detailed memory is usually deemed the most trusted source of information.
A bit further on more girlish items came into view: a pink posy, a plastic keychain and a polka-dotted bag that surely had contained something sugary sweet.
My sister brought up another memory, but this time the only portion I could recall was that we liked ballerinas. A lot. In fact, I was sure I was going to become one.
We passed a blue grid—the color of my sister’s tutu. As toddlers we “danced” at a nursing home and reveled in the generous applause, which only fed my belief that ballerina stardom was in my future.
As an artist, I see beauty where others may merely see garbage. A trampled cup becomes the billow of a miniature kimono blown off an invisible Japanese doll.
A metal cocoon encloses a silver butterfly, waiting to spread its wings. And a seed packet, torn and discarded, has already spread its seeds. The most lovely flowers are on the verge of blooming somewhere.
Did you ever have to pinch yourself to make sure you weren’t dreaming? As my pant legs swished against tall grass I came upon a beetle whose appearance elicited pinching. Did it really have two rust-red globules protruding from its head? Was that a metallic gold stripe on its abdomen? Before I had a chance to be sure, it’s armor parted—revealing delicate wings—and it flew away.
I continued on past old fence posts, fabulous weeds and colorful carpets of low-growing flowers. I rubbed my eyes. Yes, still awake.
A blue blossom bush caught my eye, and as I looked up and over it, crisscrossed layers of taupe, sage, yellow, green and cyan created an artistic tapestry. At its feet, wild cucumber wound its way through the thick grass, opening pillow-like buds into fanciful white skirts tinged with green. Do the flowers dance at night while we dream?
Three coastal buttercups evoked an image of buttons securing earth’s green jacket over a belly of sandy soil. A fat bee with ragged wing edges rested on a leaf. Was the bee contemplating the physics of its tiny wings supporting its furry-sheathed frame?
On one side of the path mule ears beckoned me with their bright countenance, on the other, cat ears drew me in to touch their hairy white-purple petals. I chuckled, then silently asked: Do you both like being scratched behind your “ears”?
My “dream” was coming to an end. Mendocino paintbrush daubed color on the cliffs, as did dazzling ice plants. I wondered: Do plants dream in technicolor as I do?
Have you ever felt as if you’ve entered a dream world, yet know you are still planted firmly in this one? That’s how I felt when I came upon a little aquarium housed in a small nature center near a lighthouse in Caspar, California.
When I looked closely, mere inches from the glass, I entered a world of snails, anemones and sea urchins. I floated in a watercolor of pale hazy lemon, dusty green and orange.
A starfish resembled a chenille bedspread caught in a sea surge, its tubular fringe waving wildly in its unexpected underwater home. I waved back.
I peered into the mouth of a snail, its crackle-glaze lips pulsing as its giant foot inched forward along the glass. My own lips parted in an “Oh!” When I pulled away, I shook like a wet dog. I was surprised to find myself dry, standing in a tiny room.
I walked outside into the sunlight. Had the dream ended? At my feet was a deceased larva—its pale segmented body and spindly feet curled inward. It was just as beautiful and bizarre as its fellow creatures inside the aquarium.
Sondra Sula's Blog: The Nature of Spirituality 