Creation is spectacular, ever changing, and cyclical. As I began to walk outside in the natural world day after day, month after month, year after year, I noticed certain colors stood out more than others during any particular month. August shouts bright yellow and lush, vivid green. Even insects join the chorus: metallic emerald sweat bees dust themselves with golden pollen, a saffron-and-black patterned beetle traverses taxi-cab-yellow petals to its next stop.
“Exploring” by Sondra Sula
How can I remain glum when I see brilliant rays of sunshine extend from a flower’s center, inviting me in for a closer look? How can I focus on my problems when I’m busy following a long-legged spider’s journey across the forest floor’s bouquet of blossoming underbrush? How can I cry when the jewelweed’s glistening tears reflect globes of tranquil beauty?
Recent spiritual readings have brought to light that joy hangs in the air like humidity, always available for breathing. Even when I’m sad, or feel distant from God, joy is still present. I can see that when I look around. Perhaps joy is yellow.
Everything is moving. Some things, such as dragonfly wings, are moving so fast we can barely see them, and other things, such as rocks, are moving so slowly, they appear to be stationary. Have you ever been standing outside and thought: the earth is moving me right now, rotating me from day to night to day? Well, it’s true!
“Teasel Layer Cake” by Sondra Sula
A mighty wind was present today as I walked with great confidence on the surface of our spinning planet, completely unaware as to whether I was walking with the movement or against it. The wind allowed me access to insects that would normally be too speedy to photograph up close because they were trying to shelter themselves. I was also able to see plants moving: petals fluttering, flowers sailing, and leaves bracing against bursts of air.
“Queen of Spades” by Sondra Sula
When I get stuck and feel like I’m going nowhere, it helps me to remember that the whole earth is moving me. The dark night will turn into day even if I’m standing still. And if I defiantly run counter to the rotation, I will eventually feel the sunlight on my back anyway because I can’t outwit a movement that’s been happening long before human existence.
“Backyard Delights” by Sondra Sula“Cut” by Sondra Sula
Feeling low, I knew a walk along the ridge would elevate my mood, if only slightly. I was looking forward to being cheered by the summer flowers, many reaching up to my elbows. But when I turned the corner, all the vegetation along the ridge had been erratically mowed down leaving frayed stalks, muddy tractor tracks, and piles of desiccated brown plants.
The devastation echoed my feelings of late: crushed, torn up, gouged, wounded, flattened. But why? I am in good health, have a loving spouse, a roof over my head. I have plenty of food—perhaps too much as I’ve foolishly turned to it for comfort over the past few months.
When I returned home, I decided to check the flora in my own backyard. The first flower I saw, a yellow-throated red-violet daylily, held a curious Kelly green visitor. A katydid nymph? Its body was flat on top with tiny wings much shorter than its body. Powerful back legs were thick in the thigh and led to pure white “shins” capped off with pale brown gripping hooks. Long antennae sported stripes that gradually became longer towards the tips.
“Daylily and Thistle” by Sondra Sula
More daylilies dazzled with glimmering petals and bright, airbrushed hues. Even an errant thistle didn’t disappoint with its purple candle-like protrusions lit in pastel blue. All these wonderful discoveries revealed themselves when I looked inside the flower. Was there a lesson here?
I was trying to make myself feel better by going outward for inspiration, but perhaps what I needed to do was tap my own inner reserves. A voice inside told me nature would find a way to triumph over the devastation, and so will I. Though it was a reasonable voice, it was not the voice of reason. It was a voice beyond reason, in the thin place where intuition and God meet. A place that can’t be razed.
"Sowthistle, Prairie Dock, Mullein" by Sondra Sula
“Sowthistle, Prairie Dock, Mullein” by Sondra Sula
These days I’ve been waking up and asking myself: why bother? Am I doing anything that’s actually contributing to the world? Does my life matter if I only touch a handful of people? Is my mere existence enough?
Whenever I ask these questions, God is quick to answer (if I bother to listen) that simply existing is plenty. I’m shown this over and over in nature. Do I ask a flower why it bothers to bloom? Do I demand it give me a reason for its existence? Yet when I behold its gracious petals, complex textures, and surprising colors I am stunned into silent worship. Am I not as precious as a flower, here today and gone tomorrow?
I decide I need a Gratefulness Walk. In less than an hour I pass five fabulous flowers that capture my attention and give me hope to meet the morning.
“Back-to-Back Sharing” by Sondra Sula
The first is a common sowthistle, its brilliant, shaggy petals radiating out like a glorious sun. Within the blossom’s central curly threads, a metallic green sweat bee is curving its body to glean what is necessary for its own absolutely worthwhile existence.
I then encounter the slender, fast-growing stalks of the prairie dock, already towering over the tall grasses. Their bulbous green, alien-like globules create expectations of bizarre-looking blooms, but the flowers are quite ordinary, mimicking yellow daisies. God already knows what’s wrapped up in my “package” and so there’s no room for disappointment as I bloom.
Moving farther down the path, a furry mullein catches my eye, and as I peer closer, I note its petals are subtly veined, like my skin. The entire lemon-hued cup is really one piece, and the sense that the petals are separated is only an illusion—a perfect illustration of my connection to God.
What’s this? From afar I see only a golden spray of petals, but as I venture closer, a bouquet of tiny blooms forms the center of this pale-leaved sunflower. A hoverfly, and a leaf-legged bug that hints at transformer capabilities, stand back-to-back willing to share their prize. I learn from their wisdom.
Before my walk ends, I spy an Echinacea pushing its prickly central whorl outward while its pale purple petals arc back as if pressed by wind. A minuscule particle of yellow pollen contrasts against the maroon and emerald spikes, drawing me in. Sometimes revealing the tiniest part of oneself is enough to offer to the world.
There are times when I feel like my life has gone fallow and a layer of winter ice has obscured my vision of tomorrow. I cannot fathom any sort of spring or renewal in the days ahead, but I can imagine slowly slipping backwards on the slick ice.
Then suddenly one day a crack forms and spreads apart. The frozen water melts just a tiny bit along the brittle, lacy edges. That is when I glimpse the unfiltered sun in all of its gold-drenched glory. That is when I find small green things have been secretly growing underneath the ice all along. God has been working inside the dormancy, much like the very center of a tulip bulb gathering energy during the winter so that it is ready to pierce the soil when the time is right.
I suspect we all need a time of rest, a time of Holy Waiting. And this time might appear like a rut, or a dreary, ongoing listlessness. Yet to know spring is inevitable, and no matter what I do or say cannot change that fact, gives me hope. Fresh growth is simply waiting to burst forth.
“Four” by Sondra Sula“What Lies Beneath” by Sondra Sula
Sondra Sula's Blog: The Nature of Spirituality 