This is an acrylic painting I did almost three decades ago and a piece I wrote to go with it.
None of the daisies saw the field the same way. Some watched the sky, some watched the birds, some gazed at the leaves in the trees. Some talked with the tiny flowers next door, some chatted with grass and some with clover.
Some bent to the east and some to the south, and others looked every which way in between. Some were tall and peered from the top of long stems. Some were wee, barely knee-high to the others.
Some were awake, and some were dreaming. Some laughed at the tickle of bees gathering their pollen. Some giggled at the tiny ants that climbed on their petals and leaves.
The Great Yes wants to experience life from every possible perspective, you see. That’s why there are countless stars and snowflakes. That’s why there’s eternity. Even a month full of daisies, stretched as far as the eye can see, are but a flicker of the whole. And yet, the Great Yes wouldn’t be what it is without them, every single one.
Every now and then, as if to reassure us, the sun slides through an opening in the clouds. It keeps us from falling into pits of gloom as we slog through this endless spell of rain.
If you grab one of those precious sunny hours and walk the path, now deep with wet grasses, that runs between the meadow and the woods. you find that the wild things are thriving.
Flowers bloom, buds burst, plump seeds prepare to fly. Grasshoppers hop; butterflies float from blossom to blossom. The leaves on the trees are washed and shining. And across the creek tilled fields sprout emerald rows of corn and beans.
You can’t stay long, of course. Already clouds are gathering for another blow. And besides, you’re soaked up to your knees. But still, you’ve seen the rain’s work and it’s good, and your mouth tastes of fresh sunshine.
A forest of ferns stretches deep into the woods past the birches with their white, papery bark, and the others, familiar, yet not the same. It’s the ferns that draw my attention with their height and their strong, straight fronds, so different from the soft, lacy ones that cover the hill to the south of my home, yet dancing into the forest in the same way. And the forest is different, too, the trees here cousins to those outside my door and growing on flat land, not climbing the slope of a hill. It ‘s as if the earth suddenly changed clothes just to delight in the differences and to celebrate the theme.
The gardens sing a different song each day. I tiptoe out to see them in the morning as if I’m sneaking down the stairs on Christmas Day, eager to see what surprises arrived in the night, never doubting that surprises would have, indeed, appeared. I take it as a fact, like the sun’s floating up right over that hill, right there, still earlier every morning. Sometimes the surprises stop me in my tracks, make me suck in a lung full of air and hold it as I stare, wide-eyed, at some new wonder. This week, for instance, the blue ruffled irises got me. But look here, at today’s gift, a scattering of polka dots that make it impossible for me not to laugh. I stop and thank them for being such a happy patch of smiles.
I’ve been enjoying my gardens this week. Because I live surrounded by woods, I lack the sunshine to grow anything that requires more than an hour or two of sun. But the shade-lovers I have, and a few precious flowers, are doing splendidly. So are the so-called weeds that grow among them, the wild ones who traveled up from the meadow below or ambled down from the wooded hillsides that surround me. The raspberries, the phlox, the chamomile, the yarrow and forget-me-nots and buttercups and ferns.
I have to admit it; I love weeds. Without any help from human hands, they do pretty doggone well. And personally, I confess that when I watch them grow, I think they have more fun than their cultivated cousins.
They seem freer somehow, less constrained. And let’s face it; they’re definitely hardier.
I think when nobody’s around they laugh. I think they just plain like what they are, that they don’t take themselves too seriously.
They grow lightly, with no silly need to be something special. They just pop out their leaves and buds and flowers and berries according to whatever pattern nature provides, schmoozing with their neighbors, making the best of whatever resources happen to be at hand.
And somehow it all turns out beautifully.
There’s a lesson there, I think. Maybe it’s that we ought to be more careful what we label a “weed.” Maybe it’s that you don’t have to be all fancy in order to please. Maybe it’s that old advice to bloom where we are planted – and to do it with abandon and joy. I don’t know. I just know that they delight my eye and make me smile. And these days anything in this world that can do that is just fine with me.
Have yourself a happy little week. I hope you happen on a weed or two, and that it makes you smile.
You have to do it every now and then – get away. It’s a survival tactic, demanded by circumstances, by your mind, your soul. One of the best ones is the one where you gather with friends, aged as fine wine or a worthy cheese is aged, and walk telling stories, sharing bits of wisdom gathered along the way, noticing the foliage, the flowers, quietly laughing, bathed in memories, making fresh ones to carry you from this day in early June into all the days to come. Yes. I’ll take this one.
I knew you would be here. The peonies have opened. I’ve noticed that you always come at the same time. Secretly, I think of you as their guardians somehow. It has something to do with your alertness and the way you keep watch over them. When I was a child, the mothers told us that you were called sewing needles because you would sew up the lips of too-noisy children. It didn’t work. You only gave us another excuse to squeal our delight when you and your friends darted by, your iridescent bodies shining. We shrieked for our gladness for every living thing that flew or floated or crawled or grew, glad for sunshine and cool water, glad for our very selves, bobbing on big black inner tubes on the green sparkling waves of the Saginaw Bay, damsel flies nearby, poking through the air like needles.
It’s not “official,” but there’s no doubt that summer has arrived in the area—full force! People greet each other in the morning saying, “It’s gonna be a hot one.” And their words prove true.
It was too hot yesterday to do much of anything outdoors, except to savor the sun and the luxurious green, and the constantly changing sky-show overhead. For a while, I found myself drifting back in time to my childhood summers.
Remember how, when you were a kid, you’d stretch out in the grass watching the clouds and see a whole menagerie cavorting across the sky?
Remember how the fire-breathing dragon would morph into a pony or bear?
Oh! The stories that could fill the sky on a summer afternoon!
Funny how it’s always the clouds that catch our gaze, and not the endless blue on which they float, isn’t it? How we’re built to see the figures and not the infinitely deep and mysterious space in which they float?
It’s how we live our lives, fixing our gaze on the thoughts and memories that drift by, on the stories we make up to give shape to the passing events. It’s how we create meaning for ourselves, and from that meaning, how we make our decisions. Imagination is a powerful thing.
But every now and then, it’s good to remember to notice the sky – the deep, formless context in which we live our lives, the space from which all our thoughts and perceptions arise, the infinite consciousness that teams with the invisible life force that powers our very being.
The dragon in the clouds seems so real as we stare at it, imagining its fire-breathing snout, its wide-spread wings, its sharply clawed feet. But moments later, it is no more; it dissolves into the mystery of sky.
Our problems are like that, too. Our interpretations, our plans, our dreams all seem so real. And then they are gone, and new ones come to replace them. But we ourselves remain, because we, at our core, are more sky than cloud. We are the vessels through which the story-clouds, the dream-clouds, are created and experienced and lived. We are the meaning-makers, dancers in the mystery.
May you dance with joy, and spin wondrous clouds as you go.
I know that June is at the door and that you must be leaving, And I suppose it isn’t fair of me to ask, considering the countless marvels that your minutes here revealed, considering the beauty you bestowed upon my world. But the time has passed so quickly, and each hour was so sweet, that ask I must. My love for you demands it. Oh, May, May, May! Couldn’t you stay? Couldn’t you stay?
May’s parade of flowers held me captive all month long with its radiant colors, with its scents perfuming the breeze. They filled my winter-famished soul and quenched my thirsting spirit. Meanwhile, in the woods, May bathed the earth in emeralds. The trees stand knee-deep now in an ocean of leafy green. All that was dead and drab is gone, the woods transformed into a palace for birds and bugs and critters galore, every inch of it alive and singing in joy.
