Do you ever stare at flowers? Like get your face right in their geometric little starbursts and try to comprehend every fold and overlap? I have to admit, I do.
On a walk with my dog Luna recently, I sat down on the edge of the trail and beheld a bee balm (monarda fistulosa) in all its intricate majesty.
I did not pick this one, because I was not set up to harvest and employ it. It was particularly leggy. A real twiggy specimen. The colors ranged from the softest whisper of pink to a deep magenta that if you were to wear a dress made out of this color, would shock your high school 20-year reunion into wondering what it was you’ve been up to for the past two decades.
There was also the vibrant spring green of the stem and leaves. The hairy little stamen reaching out for any hungry pollinator. They wear the most perfect pyramid which beckons the casual watcher to “come closer please, participate in my depth of form.”
The unfolding of these sacred geometrical wonders, never planted by human hands, has me climbing the steep inclines of my mind, attempting to find an outlook of understanding.
How can something so magical and strange just offer itself up like this? How did the bee balm have the audacity to evolve into such a fantastical shape? Maybe it did not question itself. Maybe it just realized that the more outlandish it looked, the more likely the bee would stop by, no matter how laden its legs already were with puffs of pollen.
Does the bee balm wildflower give us the permission we all need to slough off the drab winter coat of social acceptance?
In order to survive and thrive, we must become wholly ourselves.
In order to attract the electric energy of the honey bee, we must stretch our limbs out in their current state not caring whether we are “flawed” or “unacceptable”.
We must show up as our most authentic selves with all our strange grandeur, blast forth into the sun, and thrive, just like the wildflowers are doing right now.
