The Lotus - arguably one of the most-celebrated flowers - is also misunderstood by westerners who romanticize the notions of "purity rising from the mud" but who rarely see it in situ, during the dark, torrential & stormy monsoon days.
This week, in monsoonal Thailand, I have been in dialogue and learning from just ONE lotus flower, right outside my front door.
I wanted to share my learnings.
The lotus stays in bud what seems like forever. Well over a week it just stays tightly closed, and one prays with each torrential deluge that THIS flower will make it. Many don't. The strong storm fronts snap their stems and their drowning head-bowed buds become convenient rest stops for the army of frogs that rule the lotus pond. In a day or two, the pristine possibility is just one more factor adding to the pond murk, it's hope forgotten.
The same big leaves that create tiny little drinking havens for birds and frogs, limit the oxygen and light and choke the fish beneath. Nothing is good, or bad. It just depends on where one is viewing it from.
When the lotus pond is clean and pretty, the lotus plants struggle and rarely flower. It is when the pond is choked with slime and weed and a gerzillion tadpoles, that the real magic happens.
The lotus doesn't flower and thrive despite the murk, it thrives BECAUSE OF the murk!
The short brief moments of HOT HOT sun between deluges cause the flower to open, and live to its fullest, for only hours. Its beauty is gone in a moment.
This flower? Despite waiting for it through its budding for nearly 11 days, it was finished with its flowering in 4 hours on a hot Monday morning. It had no fragrance during the day today, but now, as the moon rises at nearly 9pm on a hot tropical night as the frogs sing, there is a trace of the magic healing aroma left. Just a trace.
Embrace the murk and know that it has value. Celebrate the budding, for it is magical, albeit drawn out and seemingly forever. But when someone, or something near us bursts into bloom, STOP EVERYTHING & wonder. Simply enjoy the moments of delight, explosion, beauty, creativity and magic. For they are fleeting.
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