Sunday Sabbath: Tiny Desert Flowers

“When I’m alone the flowers are really seen…They are felt as presence. They live and die in a few days; they keep me closely in touch with process, with growth, and also with dying.” –May Sarton

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.” -Jack Kornfield

“She who loves roses must be patient and
not cry out when she is pierced by thorns.”
–Olga Broumas

(both in Open Mind by Diane Mariechild)

Mariechild goes on to observe that the joy and beauty of flowers may well rest in its fleetingness: “The ghost of death blows through each bloom.” I’ve previously shared my semi-religious experiences with tiny flowers:

Tiny flowers know
that hope blooms eternal
pushing the way
through cracked stone

reclaiming
repopulating
rebirthing the Earth

What is a seed
but a miracle
right in front of me

What am I
but a miracle
to be seeing this right now…

via Woodspriestess: Tiny Flowers | Theapoetics.

On our recent trip to California we went tourmaline mining in the desert outside of Carlsbad and we also went to Pismo Beach. At both locations, the tiny flowers of those ecosystems caught my eye. Different than the tiny flowers of the “temperate forest biome,” that I call home, but perfection just the same:

At the tourmaline mine.

A bee! Seeing bees on tiny flowers does my heart a double good.

On the rocky dunes at Moonstone Beach

At Montana De Oro

Montana De Oro kind of semi-succulent beach/dune/rock flower.

And, a bee here too!

There are few things better than flowers growing miraculously out of rocks.

Or out of sand!

This was outside a house, so who knows if it is native or not.

When I got home to my own ecosystem, my big rosebush was laden with flowers!

And, something lovely planted by Nature herself is getting ready to bloom too. I’m not sure what this is–I thought it was butterfly weed, but it looks too pink.

My grandma’s memorial blue hydrangea was blooming when we got home too! The little doll is her little travel doll, Hitty, and I felt it was appropriate for Hitty to visit the hydrangea.

Like flower growing from rock
the world is full of tiny, perfect mysteries.

Secrets of heart and soul and landscape
guarded tenderly
taking root in hard crevices
stretching forth
in impossible silence.

Sleeping
resting
waiting
watching
knowing

that all one needs
is a crack in stone
and a seed of possibility…

via Woodspriestess: Stoneflower | Theapoetics.