Resurrection

Jun 10, 2013 by admin

I’m not a green thumb … not by any means.  In spite of that, I do care for a couple of house plants who are presently living and thriving in our home, almost in defiance of my historic inadequacies.  We won’t even talk about outdoor plants, so filled with creepy crawly things that unless they water, prune, and fertilize themselves stand little to no chance of survival in my backyard or on my balcony.  And yet, I love plants. They liven an environment and contribute elements of vitality in rooms otherwise filled with inanimate and purely functional things.

I recently purchased a plant, the name or kind of which I do not know having chosen it a Home Depot because its label read something like ” needs shade.” That’s important in a place like Seattle where we have plentiful amounts of that.  Shortly after I re-potted it, it began to wither and brown.  Whole leaves, formerly wide, waxy, and green, started to curl gray around its edges like burned paper.  I talked to the plant, watered the plant, and hoped it wouldn’t die.  I didn’t want to feel like a failure, nor did I want its death on my conscious.  It wasn’t its fault that it had been chosen by me and not a bona fide gardener.

I had all but given up on it when, in my attempts to remove its yellowing parts, whole roots easily released themselves from the soil at the gentlest tug.  But, I just couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, so I continued pruning it, and watering it, and talking to it, and wishing it the best.

One day as I stood over my ill-fated plant, I noticed little curly shoots spiraling up from beneath the brown soil. I excitedly removed the brittle stems from around them and drew in a quick breath.  Life.  There was life rising.  Over the following days I watched the plant, careful not to over or under do anything, and it continued to grow.  It has occurred to me that, while I had been fretting over the life dwindling before my very eyes,  it hadn’t been dying after all, it had been being born anew.  The original plant, unable to make the transition from Home Depot to home, had wilted away … but not before it had made room for a new and able version of itself to come.

This new plant, the one who rose from the ashes of the old, had adapted to me, my care, my environment. It has found a way to be.  It has bloomed where it has been planted.

Wherever you are in your life, whether in a season of dry withering, reaching up and grasping for air from beneath your own dirt, or with your dreams spread open and laid bare to the world around you, be encouraged. You’re in some state of renewal, rebirth, regeneration. Bloom.  Bloom right where you’re planted.

Peace and Blessings,

Nicole Y. Walters