I’ve loved flowers for as long as I can remember. I often wonder if my amniotic sac was actually filled with petals, pollen and honeysuckle nectar rather than its traditional fluid. To my mind, flowers are creation at its most exquisite.
Plants eat light. How cool is that? If I could chomp on the sun’s rays and feel satisfied, I’m pretty sure my weight would regulate itself. Leaves convert light to food and push it out in the showiest way imaginable—the flower.
Flowers offer subtle colors and brilliant hues. They twist, turn and come in shapes from tubes to pinwheels.
Even an onion bursts into a flower head filled with dozens of delicate blooms once its papery sheath splits open. And tulips with ragged edges can erupt into flames of light.
Which sun-hungry flower would you choose to be?
All photos © Sondra Sula.
Today is Good Friday, a day I normally spend hours upon hours in various churches. I thought about my recent visit to the Mendocino Presbyterian Church, which hosts many cultural events in its adjacent building, Preston Hall. I was there to hear a trio of musicians and walked outside during intermission.
The small area around the church was festooned with flowers—large and small. Purple buds flung themselves wildly about on wiry stalks looking alien-esque against a whitewashed wall.
Tiny clumps of flowers beckoned me closer to see their detailed petals and smell their subtle fragrance.
I heard the shuffle of feet, the rustle of clothing rubbing against limbs. Intermission was almost over. I looked down to see a fiery orange blossom dying on the pavement. Although its life was short, its striking death brought undue pleasure.
Hurrying back, I almost tripped over a geranium whose hairy stem had reached beyond its garden boundary to caress my ankle. I stopped and noticed how the emerald leaves had ruffled red edges. The entire plant seemed to glow from within.
Before I reentered the hall, a pot of pink and yellow tulips shouted: Easter! I suddenly realized that Good Friday was just the intermission.
Sondra Sula's Blog: The Nature of Spirituality 