Seeds of Joy--Finding Beauty in the Buds and Blooms

Seeking Beauty—A Conscious Choice

Seeds of Joy—Sunflowers Reflect the

Face of Beauty on Earth

Sprouts. Sunflowers germinating. What can be more beautiful than the possibility contained in a single seed?

The Burpee seed package noted: Packed for 2006. Sell by 8/06. Origin Germany. Aged six years, I doubted the seeds would do anything, but I didn’t properly dry the seed heads from my recent sunflower blooms, so they molded and festered. The outdated package and another (more-outdated) were all the sunflower seeds I have. Yet, I wanted a continuous bloom of sunflowers in the garden this summer. I also didn’t want to purchase more seeds because I have admitted to having a problem with buying seeds. Far too many visions of gardens dancing in my head have pushed me to the checkout line, little envelopes of promise in my hands. Then, I suffer the guilt when I must compost those dead, dried vessels once they’d passed the point of germinating—ever.

Admitting the problem was a beginning toward doing something about it. Sowing the sunflower seeds I have (aged, outdated though they may be) was a step in doing something about that little problem.

Sow, indeed, it was with some trepidation that I poked those aged pods into seed-starter mix and waited.

Germination still fascinates me...

This group is ready to go into the garden.

A few days later, a pair of them poked tiny leaves above the soil surface. Ah . . . the miracle of growth. It surprises me with joy every time. I feel like a gestating mom as I watch the seeds progress until its time to plant them. Like a mother hen, I cluck, cluck, cluck over them, watering and fertilizing until they present me with the ultimate gift—blooms!

Mr. Bee ensures we will have future blooms.

Seeing and experiencing the emerging seed to sprout to flower is one of the great beauties and joys of our Earth.

Thursday, June 7, 2012: I am focusing on seeking beauty each day and at the day’s end, deciding what experience, thought, or view awakened beauty most in my psyche. I hope this focus on beauty will enrich me and awaken the idea of beauty in others.