Beauty and Wisdom

Leucojum -- Summer Snowflake

 

The flowerbeds are popping. All of a sudden flowers are blooming--crocus, iris reticulata, and leucojeum. Morning temperatures still drop into the 20s, so the bloomers seem to be hugging the ground for warmth. Even leucojeum (summer snowflake), which is generally 16 inches tall, is blooming at 4 inches.

"Youth is wasted on the young," they say. Youth is beautiful and naive and takes health and wealth (e.g., an allowance) for granted.

Iris reticulata

Our young gardens are beginning to bloom into heart-opening beauty. Perhaps we take the health and bounty of our flowerbeds for granted at this season as we begin to plant our dream garden.

Wisdom has the equanimity of enjoying beauty and at the same time seeing that the body is just a bag of stuff, that beauty ages and shrinks. How could it be otherwise?

We may be old ourselves, but we can bloom with wisdom even as we hug the ground.

Iris photo from ellishollow.remarc.com