Tulips and Appreciation

Reading from Wednesday, February 6, 2013 yoga class

From the website of Charlotte Bell... good stuff... great yoga teacher. 

"I wish tulips bloomed all summer.  Two weeks of glory is far too little.  During their spring performance I find myself making excuses to sit among the tulips lining the walk leading to my front door.  I can't resist shooting tulip photos year after year, hoping to preserve them, somehow, but knowing that two-dimensional images can never do them justice. 

I love everything about tulips--the simplicityof their form, their unabashed brightness.  I love their tenacity, how their leaves lance the near-frozen ground in the gray days of February to begin their annual emergence.  They appear reliably each year as if by grace, often having multiplied.  Walking out my front door into their chaotic color reminds me of all there is to appreciate in this world. 

Perhaps if tulips bloomed all summer their presence would become less special.  Perhaps I could walk right past them without noticing, let alone marveling at their wide-open gullets singing to the sun.  Perhaps I would no longer admire how their silken petals fold into themselves like a fine kimono each evening.  Maybe they would become as pedestrian as the sight of grass or asphalt. 

During the past year a good friend left this earth unexpectedly from a heart attack.  A few months later another dear friend died suddenly while taking a leisurely walk in a canyon.  Another succumbed to ovarian cancer.  My beloved cat, Cleo, passed away a few months ago.  My mother fell and fractured her pelvis in March.  Like the tulips, our glory days are fragile, our lives all the more precious in their brevity. 

Recently a friend emailed me about her relationship with her three 15-year-old cats, who serve as her friends and confidantes as only four-leggeds can.  Each morning my friend greets her cats by saying, "Good morning.  Look, aren't we lucky? We have another day together."  This moved me deeply.  What a wonderful way to relate to those we love.  Instead of living in fear of someday losing them, why not be grateful for the time we have with them right now?  Why not greet those we love with genuine appreciation rather than worry, or worse, indifference?

Appreciation has become a practice, one that has brightened my world.  I suspect it may also have some effect on those I love--human and non-human.  I know that appreciating the tulips won't stop them from withering, but it does keep my heart from withering.  Look at your life and the blessings it holds--friends, family, community.  Enjoy what is here and now.  What flowers are blooming in your life?"


What wisdom... this piece touches me deeply.

May you be safe.  May you be healthy.  May you be happy.  May you live your life with ease.