Today, I realized that I’ve been looking at the flowers all wrong.
The ones that have filled the wood aisles of Parque Juarez for the annual Candelaria Festival. Nearly every pathway is filled with flowers, succulents, cacti, saplings, herbs, seeds, soils, exotics, and verdant things indescribable by a casual traveler like me.
This isn’t my first Candelaria, bucko.
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Late last night as the light drizzle kissed the courtyard foliage, a lone Calla Lily peeked its chaliced bloom through the broad green leaves.
It has been dormant for some time, so this was a delightful surprise as has been this late season rain.
The beaded drops upon the velvety white bloom were irresistible. As dark as the night happened to be, I had to risk taking a shot. It seems to have worked out okay.
I read that the Calla Lily in Mexico is associated with death and funerals and in Greek and Roman times with festivities. How appropriate as we approach Dia de Muertos. The flower’s symbolism serves our times and culture well.
And the Creator said, “epiphyllum oxypetalum, you shall be a cactus, though you do not look like one. Once a year and only at night, you shall bear forth beautiful flowers while the world sleeps. Before dawn your flowers shall wither away, but only before being ravaged by bats.”
The epiphyllum oxypetalum did not understand this curious fate but it knew better than to argue with the Creator.
Perhaps the Creator felt a little guilty because later, the epiphyllum oxypetalum was given a lovely and pronounceable name: Queen of the Night.
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“Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden — in all the places.” — The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
It is easy to get lost in a garden,
No matter how small it might be.
There you are, sitting in full possession of your mind
Ready to conjure great things that will soon become
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The Night-Blooming Cereus is putting on quite a show in our Colonia San Antonio courtyard tonight.
One night only, folks. By morning these beauties will be withered old crones, bereft of the intoxicating scent currently filling our home.
Rose spotted the — what shall we call it? — the chrysalis of the Cereus earlier this afternoon. Raul our gardener was just as excited to see them — there are two. We missed the blooming of several of the cactus flowers earlier.
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And I turned to you and I said No guru, no method, no teacher
Just you and I and nature And the father in the garden
–VAN MORRISON, “IN THE GARDEN”
So I sit here in the garden, in the early summer light
A cup of coffee grows cold beside me
In the stillness that morning brings, fleeting stillness
The workers next door have not yet stirred to break the silence
With their hammers and saws and boisterous shouts.
There is still room for the birds in the dense green
To sing their songs, perform their magic,
Find love among the branches.
I don’t know the geography of this garden by name,
Only by the heart, defined by what my eyes take in:
The delicate flowers, the flirty birds, the twisty vines,
The shaded coolness of the branches. So many voices
of green, vying for my attention. I know
Only that it is too beautiful for me to rise and exert my will
Where it is unwanted, unasked for, upon another day.
An empty bag awaits upstairs with a ticket to somewhere far
And I only know I don’t want to leave the garden.
I want to sit here in the peace, in the coolness,
Listening to the plants breathing ever so lightly
Parsing out their secrets ever so lightly
Unlocking a state of grace ever so lightly,
Grace I can not achieve no matter how hard I try.
Outside, mothers and fathers walk their children
Hand in hand to school as church bells chime,
A touch of grace all its own.
I see their shadows pass on frosted windows,
And I sit and listen to the plants.
And listen to the birds.
And listen to the silence.
And my coffee grows cold for I dare not move
I can not move,
I don’t want to move.
I want only to become one
With the stillness.
In the garden.
While there is still time.
I have so many pictures of the flowers and plants that fill our courtyard that I want to share with you. This oasis. This sanctuary. This place where we find peace and solitude during the global crisis.
This home in Colonia San Antonio, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Flowers speak for themselves. They don’t need words to make themselves more beautiful. Unless the words are contained in a song.
Flowers and songs work well togther.
And no song is better than Van Morrison’s “In the Garden.”
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Let’s enter the garden through this secret passageway. You can only see it when you truly need to escape from the world to a place where you can be safe and relax while time around you stands still. The real magic is this: The more you need to get away, the easier it is to open this door. Right now it seems almost impossible, doesn’t it? That’s good. It means you are doing just fine.
You can’t call it a back yard. When I think of a back yard, I think of a decent swath of green grass — enough for a few kids to at least play catch or toss a football — and maybe a garden.
No, it has none of that. But it is quite beautiful. If you were to look for a retreat, a place to hang out for a day and just sit and think, this would suit you well.
Not quite a back yard but bigger than a typical patio. Not a piazza, but maybe a courtyard (If you don’t immediately think of a Motel 6 courtyard). A courtyard that feels like an atrium. That will do. Continue reading
Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 