They Weren’t Ratty Weeds After All
Surprise! They’re brilliant wildflowers
Monday’s Prompt: “dancing with my wildflowered heart”
There are always flowers for those who want to see them
– Henri Matisse
As I pulled out from my neighborhood in early spring, I saw small yellow flags on two-foot stakes. The stakes butted up against the easement between the sidewalk and a tall hedge of pyramidalis. They were strung together with a heavy-duty string for a half block. Since the city has been doing gutter work, I assumed the stakes were the work of a surveyor. Or another cable company.
Spring lengthened into summer. The marked-out space started to look rattier by the day. But, of course, I didn’t think much about it because everything has a rundown look about it this summer; the nasty love child of a hot summer coupled with heartbreaking wildfires.
Then. Last week as I turned the corner, I was greeted with wildflowers!
What I thought were ugly, pesky weeds were instead a rainbow variety of multicolored blossoms! All that time, though I never caught a glimpse of the gardener, the seedlings were carefully guarded and tended and intended to gift the neighborhood. Tears of gratitude came to my eyes. Tears for spontaneous comfort. Tears for lessons hidden in the landscape. Tears for unseen generosity.
The wildflower vignette instantly came to mind when I read the prompt for today.
This weekend I watched an interview with Dr. Joe Dispenza. He talks about effecting change through the power of our thoughts and feelings.
I’ve studied and practiced his methods before, so it’s not as if it was brand new information. But it might as well have been. I’ve been in and out of the slough of despond for a while now. I’ve had many circumstances go sideways. I’ve allowed the skewing of skewed events to disturb my personhood. Though I know I can “change my world if I change my thoughts,” I’ve not consistently practiced that truth.
But today is a new day. So as I turn my thoughts and emotions towards a brighter me, I see her: a young woman, laughing and twirling as she sows her seeds.
And soon. Very soon. I will be joyfully dancing with my wildflowered heart among the lilies and daisies and bachelor buttons of the field. What I supposed were weeds in my journey, all along have been brilliant flowers in the growing.
All of the adversity in our life is to initiate us into greatness. It’s to call out something greater in us — Dr. Joe Dispenza