Dear Friends,
In the spring, my daily walks are longer, more frequent and later into the evening. My eyes are often down and searching the forest and desert floors. I’ve been obsessed with wildflowers since moving to the Mesa. Not the names and classifications, not even the colors and beauty. I’ve been obsessed with the particular recipe of seasonal climatic adjustments that are so perfectly suited for their special appearance each year.
This year I was surprised to discover that the little orange globe mallow buds were the first to bloom, even before the Indian paintbrush. This simple and strange timing nearly blew my mind. How did this happen? And yet, I shouldn’t be surprised at all. The wildflowers never fail to amaze me.
Why did the tansy aster bushes that the bees love and grow out of the gravel in my yard explode last year? Was it the long drought of winter that called these resilient beings back?
How come two summers ago the mullein appeared in full force like guardians to the ether world? Their tall stalks suddenly arrived from seeds planted two years prior. Why didn’t they appear again last year?
Three years ago, there were bushels of mauve milkvetch everywhere across the forest floors. Was it the amount of rain that arrived in May with the weeks of dry cool days? Why did the sunflowers explode there years before. Was it the unbearable weeks of heat followed by massive monsoon rains?
What’s the precise timing of rain to sun to season to heat that causes one flower to flourish and another to stay dormant.
I think I love these ideas so much because they so deeply and simply reflect my own psyche. Why am I so passionate about collage or poetry or running for several years and suddenly lose interest? Why am I always changing and altering in inexplicable ways? How does the season shift within me? How does culture, hormones, companions, all affect what blossoms within me?
Nature gives permission to always be changing. In a society that rewards consistency and mastery, this programming has been embedded in us to believe that is the “right” way to do things. But my constitution disagrees. My right way is to follow my interests, my heart, the weather perhaps. Like wildflowers, I bloom when the conditions are right to do so and no number of external forces can change my perfect timing.
What about you? Are you like wildflowers? Or do you prefer the consistency of a domesticated bloom?
Take it easy,
Johanna
So beautifully written. 😍
I’ve gotten so much pleasure by jotting down when things appear in a notebook. After just a couple years, you really see patterns! Connections between bugs and birds, or flowers and hours of daylight. It isn’t an exhaustive list, just what I happen to see when I happen to see it.