Love Variety
“When
you walk through a beautiful botanical garden, you feel open and
light. You feel love. You see beauty. You don't judge the shape and
placement of every leaf. The leaves are of all sizes and shapes and
they face every-which-way. That's what makes them beautiful. What if
you felt the same way about people.”
Michael J.
Singer (The Untethered Soul, p. 177)
I love walking in
botanical gardens. I used to go almost every day and walk on paths up
into the woods and down into a pristine Japanese garden. There is a
big flat rock on a back trail that was my wailing wall. I sat on it
many a day to cry about things going on in my life. There is a small
pagoda in the Japanese garden with various types of bonsai
trees—maples, oaks, birches—all familiar, all tiny and perfect.
Their little leaves turn brilliant in autumn and fall, just like any
other. My particular fascination is with the multitude of seed
pods—from the diaphanous tufts of the milkweed floating on air, to
the woody sculpture of the lotus standing high above the water. Their
abundance and diversity amazes me.
My former mother-in-law
owned many acres of land that included a large flower garden. But she
grew the same flowers every single year. Zinnia, cosmos, coreopsis,
cone flowers. Her borders were marigolds and ageratum—always. While
I love all these flowers, I wondered, with all this space, why not
grow a wider variety. Why not experiment with some roses, some
gladiolas, maybe dahlias or phlox. So many varieties, so many colors,
so much beauty. But, she wanted her garden to be predictable. She
didn't want any surprises.
Sometimes we're like that
about people. We don't venture out, we don't want to feel even
slightly uncomfortable or awkward. I get that, but I also find people
from different backgrounds and ideologies interesting and
provocative. They educate and inform me; they stretch me in
unpredictable ways. They make me think about my own assumptions and
prejudices. That is how we grow. Like the flowers in a botanical
garden, we see that some of us are variegated, some are plain, some
have lacy edges. It is the variety makes us beautiful.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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