THE FLOWERS OF CHANGE

Flowers are unusually abundant and colorful this spring.  I first noticed this several weeks ago in Cottonwood and Sedona.  Ocotillo cactus, yucca, iris, roses and many whose names I don’t know were in outrageous abundance. Then we went home to Taos for two weeks fearing the wind and sparseness of last year’s spring but instead everything was lush.  There were flowers blooming in places I’d never seen flowers before and all overtook any display of previous years.  

The red rose bushes on the side of the house almost died last winter and I noticed that even the lavender, usually indestructible appeared traumatized but recovered quickly with some culling and water.  When we left yesterday, the abundant buds were about to pop out. The wild rose at the south side of the house also came close to biting the dust from drought last fall but is now blooming profusely even though much of it had to be trimmed back.  In addition, there are several species of wild flowers along the Taos bypass that I’ve never seen before and even the bindweed is beautiful this year, looking more like its domestic cousin the morning glory. 

There has been much publicity about solar flares, occultations, the Venus’ transit of the Sun plus the potential disastrous effects of the Mayan calendar’s expiration that I am wondering about this human fondness for playing Chicken Little .  Yes, there are earth changes and global warming (the winters of childhood were much colder and longer) but we often forget that Mother Earth has a life plan of her own and we are just uninformed kids.  The earth transforms constantly and probably always will.  We are in the midst of an ongoing creation process.  Although disasters come in many forms, there is also a compensatory effusion of life and renewal.

Whether on the scale of the cosmos or a personal garden, destruction, creation, life, death, defeat and compensation appear to be the dynamic duos of the universe.  Maybe it is because we can’t imagine being anyone or any way other than our familiar self-image but of course, we are all part of the continuous unfolding of the earth and universe.  As individuals we aren’t even the creature we were as children but adulthood is a change we usually anticipate.  Having faith that we exist beyond our familiar form is another matter.

When we tell ourselves stories and make prophesies we seldom think of ourselves as active participants in the creation of our planet’s own makeover and future.  Nevertheless, as nature changes and compensates regularly we are an active part of this dynamic not merely helpless passengers on a dangerous ride.

 I don’t believe most of us necessarily create our own reality in the conscious personal sense of this New Age term but I do believe we have a chance to choose intentional participation in the unfolding creation of our place in the universe.  This time has been very unpredictable for my husband and I.  Nothing in our lives is conforming to plans or time scales but we are merely moving wherever the tides of creation are taking us.  We have plans nevertheless.  It is just that we’ve discovered that getting to wherever we’re going is not going to happen in the habitual ways.   It seems that something has altered the familiar outcomes of our plans, probably permanently.  There is no use attempting to predict what will evolve out of unfamiliar or difficult changes in our earth but its just possible that we will bloom profusely if our current form survives a cosmic season change.