A lot can happen in two short weeks. I just made the image above this morning. It still amazes me how quickly this amaryllis flower grew and opened.
Photographing and watching my amaryllis bulbs grow has reminded me once again about how powerful and mysterious the
Life Force
really is.
A tiny seed becomes a plant that can break through a blacktop path. And a bulb planted deep underground in the fall pops up the next spring to become a tulip plant with vivid red blossoms. Seeds are nothing more than tiny packets of DNA wait in the ground for the right conditions. When they break open they send up a sprout and reach down into the earth with roots. How do they know which way to grow the roots and which way to grow the sprout? It’s an ordinary miracle that happens again and again.
Say you could view a time-lapse film of our planet: what would you see? Transparent images moving through light, an infinite storm of beauty.
— Annie Dillard, A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I’ve seen a new plant break right through the center of a fallen leaf from the year before. The plant stands like a spear piercing the center of the leaf and wearing it like a skirt. How does it do that?
Watching these miracles occur regularly you may become blasé and miss the miraculousness of it all. I try not to take ordinary miracles for granted because noticing them fills my life with wonder and joy.
Here’s another ordinary miracle already happening. My amaryllis bulb is sending up a second bud that will probably bloom just before Christmas!
Sharing the miracle
Today I’m sharing photographs (not one for every day of the two weeks these photographs span, but almost every day) of my largest amaryllis plant growing. Can you see the wonder of it all?
Beginnings…
The bud begins to split open a little bit…
And a little bit more…
And the bud begins to show the separate flower buds within and a slight tint of color…
A bit more color showing…
Wow, more color, more definition, lovely curves and shapes…
All three flower buds are visible and petals are beginning to curl open a bit…
And a bit more…
More amaryllis changes — still more color and definition…
It’s happening… the dream of life unfolds, an infinite storm of beauty.
Keep watching and keep your eyes open my friends. The life force is all around us waiting to be seen.
May you walk in beauty.
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