(c) Justice Bartlett 2009
Roses fade….It's true and inescapable. But first they open. They begin as small barely significant buds, and are coaxed by nature into unfolding into something that inspires awe and love from the human heart. The delicately folded petals unwrapping and unfolding as they open into the glory of their existence and the fragrance of their essence comes into its own.
This is it. This is their only purpose in life, to open. Every mechanism that supports this unfolding is already imprinted within them, from the time they are a tiny seed they know what they are supposed to do.
They open.
Everything that they need is already built into their environment their entire design contained in their seed, in the soil all the nutrients that they will ever need and as loving parents the sky and sun, earth and rain. They even emit their own divinely inspired essence so as to attract the bees that will carry on their legacy.
This is their life. They open, emit and return from whence they came expressing perhaps the sweetest of their fragrance as they are preparing to fade. In nature their petals drop to the ground mingling with the dirt that nurtured them in the beginning.
In our domesticated cultured world we pluck them place them in vases, add preservatives to their water and try to capture the simplicity and wonder of what they represent. We adapt their purpose for our own means without ever really understanding what it is that we wish to capture.
And then…they are gone. One day we awaken to find that the special water that we had placed them in has dried up. If they are rotting and molding we give a sigh and then toss them out, if they are dry then we perhaps try to prolong the bit of enjoyment that we receive from them by hanging them for a time and then placing them into yet another vase to fluff our vanity and draw out our unrecognized need.
And what is it that we need? The recognition and appreciation of our own mortality not in some fatalistic, fear filled inescapable doom either. Are we not just asking ourselves to take time to realize that even as we are growing working and emitting, we are fading.
I realize that immediately for some this little train of thought becomes morbid, but why? As vital living beings we feel that we are not meant to focus on death that it is better to keep that shadow at bay than to accidentally see it hiding around the corner. But the truth is it is there. It is always there.
In the time we live in there are numerous ways to extend our youth, both from the natural realms, herbs supplements vitamins and minerals, as well as the not so natural route, botox , plastic surgery, liposuction and tummy tucks. We have with our technology found ways to replace failing organs, blood and tissue, delivering mankind from deaths grip and placing more and more of our destiny into our own hands.
It’s true we have become most excellent builders and some would say gods in our own right. We are capable of constructing great towers that stretch into the sky, towers that at one point would have been constructed, like the tower of Babel, to further our attempt to reach God. But these towers are nothing more than a garish statement to the testament of our own superiority over nature.
We are excellent accumulators as well and in this country more than any other have set the precedent for physical wealth and belongings. Stuff…it’s all about the stuff. House, car, wife, husband, children, job even going so far as to deem some of our most precious gifts as commodities. Must have the perfect spouse, that new car and that big house and God forbid if I do not have a socially redeemable career.
I am not saying anything against the modern marvels of our society or against the joy of having material wealth. I love money and cars, houses, vacations and sparkly stuff. I’m merely pointing out that something is missing. We become so obsessed with doing and accumulating that we forget who we are and what we are here to do.
And in steps our friend the rose. Are we really so different? Like the rose we already contain within us all that we really ever need. Unlike the rose we are not so obviously rooted in the cycle of nature and in our ability to move around we can entertain the illusion of forgetting. However, like the rose we are here for a time. Despite all of our amazing technology we are going to fade. It is inescapable. We can’t take it with us, any of it. And for those whose hearts we have touched they will not remember us for our houses, cars fine jewelry or jobs.
So what will we be remembered for? I like the line from the Wizard of OZ where the Wizard is talking to the Tin Man, who so badly wants a “human heart”. As the Wizard hands him his token he says, “Remember, the size of a heart is not measured by how much you love but by how much you are loved in return.” This is our legacy the only thing that really lasts, the most intangible substance that somehow permeates every nook and cranny of our existence, love.
For those of us that are left behind when our loved ones are gone, is this not what we cling to? When we search for a meaning in the midst of death, sickness, disease or poverty, is it not this unfathomable feeling that gives us sustenance?
The rose has one purpose, to emit her essence as she opens up. And the joy we take in that presence is the gift that she offers; it is the one goal of her existence. Now I ask you, as humans, are we really that different?
