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Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Fri 7/16/2004 3:53 AM
Random Thought: "I Don't Like Camelias"
Can you believe it. Here I am, sitting on pins and needles
waiting for the arrival of Jaqueline Danielle, our third grand-daughter,
and I'm thinking about the forlorn, neglected camillias in the front yard.
It's one of those time you just don't ask. I never think of my camillias,
except when I have less than nice thoughts about cutting them down or
"accidentally" killing them. Maybe it's the remnants of conversations about
some attitudes towards disadvantaged students I had with some neat people
during that workshop on learning communities that I presented a workshop
this past Monday in Miami. Anyway, about the camillias. It wasn't that I
chose to plant the camellias. I had no choice except what to do with them.
When we moved into the house thirty some odd years ago, they were just
there in the front yard. Two flanking the entrance to the house; four
acting as an eastern border to our property.
As I developed my green thumb, it didn't extend to the camillias.
I "grrrrrred" at them. I don't know why. I just wasn't grabbed by them
and I didn't allow myself to grab them. "I don't like camellias" meant "I
won't accept them into my garden." It translated into "I won't do what it
takes to nurture them." It meant "I'm not going out of my way for them."
Every time I saw them, I would do everything I could to ignore them. My
hands would clench into fists of frustration. For me, they were a blight
on the beauty that I was creating. I've had interesting discussions with
my defending, Green Party Susan about cutting them down. And, I've lost
every one of them.
You know blinding, deafening, and paralyzing a "grrrrrr" and
clenched fist can be? A grimacing "grrrrrrr" won't let you smile. A
clenched fist won't allow you to offer or accept an open, helping hand?
Did you know that love measures our stature? The more we love, the bigger
our heart, the bigger we are. Someone once said that there is no smaller
package in all the world than that of a person wrapped up in him/herself.
Boy, when it came to camillias was I wrapped up in myself. It was more
about me than them. I didn't bother to prune them as they should have
been pruned. I didn't bother to spray the leaves with an oil to protect
them against fungus or spray a chewing tobbacco concoction against white
flies. And, when the leave got spotted, "white flyish," cankered, brown,
or wilt, I say to my environmentist Susan with a pointing finger of blame,
"See, those camillas are dirty, ugly things, ugh. They've got to go."
Didn't work.
Then, this morning I imagined myself as a camellia. Mysterious.
"What if I could see me?" I asked myself. "If camellias could have eyes,
how would I look? What would I see?" So, I looked sharply. Not a pretty
picture: ugly, uncaring, unsmiling, combative, unloving, unappreciating,
disrespectful, distant, and cold. It's startling how I looked to me when
I looked at me with the frightened, disregarded eyes of a camillia.
I look as ugly to the camillas as they look to me. I saw an inner
wilt that was expressed in my disdain. My attitude toward camellias
boomeranged right back to me. And yet, I always say that each flower is
unique. When we compare a rose with an autumn rudbekia or an echinecea or
a camillia in terms of more or less beautiful, we're messing with Mother
Nature's agenda. For in that comparison, there are the "winners" and the
"losers," the tended and the discarded, the noticed and the ignored, the
"beautiful" and the "not so beautiful" or the "not beautiful." Yet, each
flower is a vehicle for awakening. We should treat each carefully as
such.
The next time, starting todya, I start to complain about
camellias, I won't listen to me. "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrs" will be replaced by
"aaaaaahs," fists with handshakes. I'll not plant those pessimistic seeds
in me and nurture them into strangling vines. It's easy to be critical of
those camillias and make them feel unwanted. Anyone can do it. It doesn't
take a drop of sweat or an ounce of energy. What does take effort, time,
and skill is nurturing them. I should have known better. The exuberance
of life, any and all life, is manifested in the decision to plant and
nurture, to work and create, to rejoice and dance. It changes the person
into an "entheos," that is, someone inhabited by Nature's excitement.
Nothing great and truly creative is ever achieved without such a powerful
influence. The next time I feel a whine coming on I'll have to concede
that it's all about me and nothing about the camellias.
As a gardener, I can tell you that sometimes you have to rake
through a lot of winter's mulch to find that sprout in Spring. Each
sprout is good. Each is great. Each discovered seedling should be
welcomed, for each is a messenger of hope. And, each day in the garden is
both good and great. Each flower can help you acquire a pure awareness
and a bold alertness. You have to feel as if you are an adjunct of each
flower's presence as if each flower was speaking on your behalf with
Mother Nature. I'm reminded of something Rumi wrote. To play on his
words, a garden is never quiet, with all the messages coming through.
It's merely a matter of being aware what messages of hope are springing up
from each and every individual flower in the garden all around you. If
you walk through a garden, not noticing all the hopeful sounds in the
garden, for you, at best, the message is incomplete. If you ignore all
the hopeful sounds, it is a dead place.
There's a lesson here for all of us teachers. Teaching, like
gardening that draws us in to look deeply at ourselves and others is
spiritual. Such gardening, like such teaching, accepts all the pests and
diseases and wilting. With time and effort, with love, with faith and
hope and belief the teacher, like the gardener, transforms each and every
flower of a student into affirmations of beauty, and discovers that each
is no less than greatness.
My camellias just helped me help myself in the continuance of my
awakening. Starting today, they'll bring life into what was otherwise an
unadmitted dead spot. It's a lesson that spills over onto my campus, for
it's not any different with each and every student.
Telephone just rang. Got more to say, but Jaqueline is on her
way. Susan's grabbing at me. Gotta run to the hospital with my camera!
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