I sat yesterday morning, on a deck, watching ducks do their zany antics across a small lake, more of a pond really. I guess “pond house” just doesn’t have the same ring as “lake house.” There were about 6 lotus flowers at my end of the pond. Which were completely pulled in tight. To my untrained eye, I assumed they were new, just going to gradually unfurl in due time. Time that I would miss due to the brevity of my stay...
But since I have not spent enough time with Lotus flowers...I had no idea.
They awaken. Every day. They hold tight to themselves through the night. Cuddled into their own sanctuary that only they will ever know. They envelope themselves, steady to whatever nightfall might bring. As the sun rises with the dawn, in the safety of light, revealing all that might be poised and threatening, they begin to slowly open, allowing their petals to fall open in an unfolding that can only be classified as intimate.
So as my own morning unfolded with phone calls, meditation, prayers, yoga and writing, I watched each Lotus, on its own timetable, grant me access to their interior.
I was transfixed. I kept going over and looking at each one with the same amazement I had when the first one opened. They were all on their own schedule. Not hurried or hastened by the other blossoms, they just each had their own path and they were true to it.
One opened quite dramatically. The others took their time. It was a morning of unfolding, that seemed to rise and fall with the sunlight’s fading presence. The cloud cover appeared to have impact to their gradual awakening which I could relate to; I too rarely unfurl myself into the day when there is threat of rain. I keep mostly to myself...and hold quite a great deal back.
I am sure I could look up the properties and behavior of the Lotus on the internet, perhaps In so doing, pop my own bubble of optimism and amazement. However, that feels like an improper is not the proper appreciation for miracles. And the lotus’ opening is nothing short of miraculous.
I wonder if they tire of opening and closing all day every day? I do. I am at a point in my life where I am just so tired of feeling safe enough to open up all the way and then, due to circumstances I should be able to see given all my years of experience, I am shown, once more, that perhaps I would have been better served to have kept it all held back to begin with.
But what a wasted life of a Lotus bloom that never opens. Such rich beauty withheld and wasted. And I can see my own similarity to that blossom, it isn’t a hard analogy to follow...
I find myself in that place again, where I feel like my delicate petals have been bruised by the rough handling of others. That my own integrity is mangled a bit by all the opening and closing I have done. I feel the desire, the urge, the compulsion to pull myself in tightly and hold myself there, forever. Tired of all this opening and closing business. And after all this time, I am never, ever sure if it is the opening I dread or the closing. Each having their relative merits and lack thereof.
I am weary. I want life and loving to be easier. With just a final opening, and then the safety to remain that way in perpetuity. Is that too much to ask?
I asked the Lotus blossoms but they told me I would have to figure it out for myself. Apparently their secrets are theirs alone. While I can observe and draw all the analogies I would like, I am no Lotus blossom. And I shall only be an observer of their majesty in this life. But, to be clear, communion did persist.
I do envy their self directed opening and closing and my observation that there opening and closing Is more about the light and dark, but perhaps that Is what mine Is about as well. Each one deciding for itself when to open, when to close, how quickly to do each task. Mine feels so much more other dependent and complicated while also being tied to the light and the dark, of dawn and dusk, of good and bad. If it were completely up to me, I would just be open all the time. But it is you and all your treachery and heartbreak and hardship that demands and insists a constant opening and closing if I am to survive this whole living endeavor at all...
Perhaps I must learn the lesson of the Lotus...the opening and closing is my choice. The fact that I seem to make it all about you, is the pain I create for myself. And perhaps the opening and closing should be based on nothing more than the dawning of a new day or the cessation of a day well lived.
Maybe I did learn the Lotus offering afterall...
Kommentare