Mystery Unfolding

Sometimes, but only sometimes, a random happening of the right sort takes place in one's life and at the exact moment when she needs it. On Thursday morning, I was scheduled for a necessary medical protocol, and I managed to get through it without whining, wincing or wimping out, but the treatment knocked the wind right out of my sails this week. I've been too tired (and a tad nauseous) to do much since except totter around the house and go through the motions of what needs to be done here, simple meals, very little weeding and few household chores. Last evening, I granted myself a night off and toddled away to bed early with a good book (Diane Ackerman's splendid "Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden"), a pot of green tea, my favourite mug and a porcelain vase containing a few flowers from the cutting garden behind the little blue house.

This morning, I lurched out to the garden at first light and discovered to my astonishment that what I thought was a thistle a few days ago is actually a gorgeous prickly poppy with flaming petals and a lush and velvety heart. The new resident is a rather unusual creature and I haven't seen anything quite like it here before (it's huge for starters), but what a balm it was for this drooping spirit. The discovery made me smile, lifted me up and restored my temporarily flagging sense of wonder. I needed a poppy this morning (although I didn't know it), and there it was.

So, a little musing on prickles and petals. . . . Occasionally, dogged determination and unrelenting tenacity are required of us in life, and there are times when we need to rattle our thorns and spines (and make noise too), but such states of necessary prickliness hold out some interesting possibilities. When prickly creatures bloom, they seem to do so gloriously, in surprising colours and with a full heart — they hold out great and astonishing gifts for our rapt attention. "Just look", said the universe this morning, "here is a magnificent poppy."