Friday, February 20, 2015

February 20th

Beauty



Lavender roses.
Incarnate fragrance,
Priestly hue of dawn,
Spirit unfolding.
Even on the road to hell, flowers can make you smile. They are fragile, ephemeral, uncompromising. No one can alter their nature. True, you can easily destroy them, but you will not gain anything; you cannot force them to submit to your will.Flowers arouse in us an instinct to protect them, to appreciate them, and to shelter them. This world is too ugly, too violent. There should be something delicate to care about. To do so is to be lifted above the brute and to go toward the refined. When we offer flowers on our altar, we are offering a high gift. Money is too vulgar, food too pedestrian. Only flowers are unsullied. By offering them, we offer purity.
The tenderness of flowers arouses mercy, compassion, and understanding. If that beauty is delicate, so much the better. Life itself is fleeting. We should take the time to appreciate beauty in the midst of temporality.

Personal Interpretation


There is great beauty in fragility. Flowers are a poignant reminder of life's uncertainty and its potential for wonder, a symbol of hope and determination in many senses. Flowers return after the bitter winds of winter have killed the blooms of the previous year. They offer a splash of color to our often dismal world. They awaken our instinct to protect. When we offer flowers, we offer something soft, yet determined, something that nurtures the spirit the more it is nurtured. Our world and our lives are finite, and it is because of this that they are beautiful. Perhaps it does us all good to take a moment and contemplate the beauty by which we are surrounded. We can come to reflect on how we too are part of the intricate network of beautiful things that constitutes our existence.

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