The meaning of flowers

That spring I received a card from a friend.  She had stuck a slip of paper inside with a quote  on it by Mary Howitt: "He is happiest who hath power to gather wisdom from a flower."  I immediately thought back to the daffodil bulbs in my garden, to the wisdom God had offered me through their yellow petals.  And yes, it did give me cause to be happy.

Sue Monk Kidd in her book "When the Heart Waits:  Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions"

I have always been drawn to flowers and their incredible, otherworldly beauty.  The annual spectacle of pink, red and white azaleas in bloom has entranced me each March and April since I was teenager growing  up in New Orleans.   The wonder of intensely blue hydrangeas, which we have in abundance in our garden now, and which I delighted in seeing as I mowed a neighbor’s lawn each hot, humid summer weekend during the 60s never ceases to delight and amaze me. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/camas/5770263257/).   

But it seems that in recent years, as I have taken more interest in photography because of my digital camera, I have been especially captivated by the flowers in bloom all year round at Magnolia Gardens and elsewhere on my walks in downtown Charleston.   Saturday was no exception as I wandered the garden paths looking expectantly for the blooms.   I am never disappointed.   I photographed an array of late-blooming azalea and irises, and, of course, hydrangeas.  But now it’s the time of year for day lilies to shine, and were they ever magnificent!

For me, flowers that I see at the garden calm and relax me;  they help me transcend and rise above the outside world’s noise and clamor, crowds and harried pace, especially on a big holiday weekend such as this.   It was a beautiful, sunny, partly cloudy day Saturday with some isolated thundershowers.  The light was perfect late in the afternoon for picture taking.   I relate perfectly to what Sue Monk Kidd said in the passage above.   Just as the profusion of daffodils two months ago at Magnolia had me stopping every few minutes to t ake a picture or look at them closely, so, too, did I find contentment in looking deep into the heart of the lilies this past weekend.   Therein lies a world we cannot know, but from which we can derive so much joy  merely in glimpsing briefly this miraculous portal into Nature. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/camas/5770801318/in/photostream

A set of flower photos taken in the last two weeks of May.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/camas/sets/72157626830112236/