Beautiful Flowers

Daily Meditation 969–10/28/2024

A cool, autumn wind rasped and whipped through the dry, dead, yellow leaves and stalks of corn as my wife and I made our way through the corn maze. We were looking for 14 playing cards hidden in one maze and 10 antique objects in the other.

As we rounded another corner of the maize, where every corner and every “wall” was indistinguishable from the other, she pointed out an interesting, dead flower that had once made its way up along with the stalks. The now petal-less heads were a sort of glistening brown, a fragile bulb upon a stiff, desiccated stem.

Today’s meditation is about how things are beautiful from start to finish.

As a seed, the flower held potential. That was beautiful.

As a flower, it fed bees and insects and some birds. That was beautiful. (and flowers, of course, are inherently beautiful)

And in its dead form, it will dissolve into the soil to nourish another generation. This will be beautiful.

Beauty is all around us and in all stages of all of creation.

While a spider or a snake, to some of us, may not seem obviously things of beauty, their webs or shed skins in their near perfect symmetry are clearly wondrous to behold. Their capture of “pests” like mosquitos or mice could be considered beautiful, sometimes. The colors of their red hourglass or bright green and yellow scales.

In closing — beauty is all around, but sometimes in just a layer (or two) deeper than what is obvious to the eyes.