in time of daffodils
(who know the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why, remember how...
in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek (forgetting find)
and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me, remember me
Flowers have incredible power. Their fragile beauty and brief life can teach us to enjoy without attachment, to experience deeply while knowing full well the experience is temporary. It is the same with all life... On the spiritual path it is not the pleasure we want to renounce, it is the attachment to the pleasure. Life will have its joys and its sorrows; to live fully we must live from the source, without attachment to either pleasure or pain.
If you wish to make anything grow, you must understand it, and understand it in a very real sense. ‘Green fingers' are a fact and a mystery only to the unpracticed. But green fingers are the extensions of a verdant heart.
The Bishop's day was full to the brim with good thoughts, good words, and good actions. Still the day was not complete if cold or wet weather prevented him from spending an hour or two in the garden before going to bed... He was alone with himself, collected. Peaceful, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with that of the Other, affected in the darkness by the visible splendor of the constellations, and the invisible splendor of God... Without seeking to comprehend the incomprehensible, he gazed at it. He did not study God: he was dazzled (by God).
Prayer is that divine seed whose roots draw food from earthly existence. Like the lotus flower that does not bloom in arable ground but in marshes, prayer thrusts its roots into human misery as if into mud. But the lotus flower does not show any trace of the muddy water from which it drew life; turned toward the sky, it blooms.
"It always amazes me to look at the little, wrinkled brown seeds and think of the rainbows in 'em," said Captain Jim. "When I ponder on them seeds I don't find it nowise hard to believe that we've got souls that'll live in other worlds. You couldn't hardly believe there was life in them tiny things, some no bigger than grains of dust, let alone colour and scent, if you hadn't seen the miracle, could you?"
To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.
Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!
When we are at home in the garden, tending and nurturing all its plants, animals, and minerals, living with them through all the seasons and days, then healing comes upon us like a gift and makes us whole.