Slipping Towards Winter

This year in the spring, I planted a flower bed next to the art barn and guest apartment. Purple sweet peas, orange nasturtiums, pink and white cosmos, burgundy pin cushions, and yellow sunflowers made for an untidy extravagance of life and color. But the season is shifting, and the sunflowers have lost their jaunty cheer to a sagging slump of yellowing leaves.

I set about cleaning up the bedraggled flower bed and found abundance where I hadn't expected. The faces of the sunflowers tipped down towards the ground, weighted with seed, which is food for me, the birds, and the chipmunks.

We all have preferences. I prefer the hope and green of spring when everything seems possible. But there is beauty everywhere and in everyone. Just look a little closer to see beyond personal desires and predilections. We can all become preoccupied with our preferences, and they can blind us to what is here—the abundance of the moment.

The sunflower seeds are drying in the barn, and the light is slipping towards winter.