Fading Beauty

Sometimes I find as much beauty in dying flowers as in bright brand new blossoms. There is something about

that calls to me. The fading beauty of flowers is a constant reminder of how fleeting life is and how quickly the cycles of life turn. Instead of turning away or denying this truth, I embrace it. There is beauty and truth in the fading folds of fragile petals.

“Everything turns in circles and spirals with the cosmic heart until infinity. Everything has a vibration that spirals inward or outward — and everything turns together in the same direction at the same time. This vibration keeps going: it becomes born and expands or closes and destructs — only to repeat the cycle again in opposite current. Like a lotus, it opens or closes, dies and is born again. Such is also the story of the sun and moon, of me and you. Nothing truly dies. All energy simply transforms.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun

The thing that captivated me the most about these flowers was the translucence and delicacy of the fading petals.

It is difficult to remember the fresh blossoms so I look back at my photographs of the flowers in their prime. Can I see the buds and just-opened blossoms in the midst of the fading flowers?

Slow contemplative photography fits my mood this week. I’ve been feeling a little creaky, stiff and sore recently despite my best efforts at eating well, exercising, and strengthening my body. On top of that my gut seems to have a mind of its own and recently its mind is in a very cranky mood.

On days like today I feel like the flower at the top of this post. Other days I feel like a flower bud getting ready to bloom. There is so much more beauty I want to express in this world, so much more I would love to learn. Walking outdoors under blue sky and bare trees I look forward to the birth of another spring. How many springs do I have left to walk in this wonderful world? I could have twenty springs or more or I could have two. Fortunately I don’t get to know the answer to that question. So let me soak in every moment of every day that I have.

“He wants to tell her what he has learned about the miracles of light, the way a day’s light fluxes in tides: pale and gleaming at dawn, the glare of noon, the gold of evening, the promise of twilight — every second of every day has its own magic. He wants to tell her that when things vanish they become something else, in death we rise again in the blades of grass, the splitting bodies of seeds.”
― Anthony Doerr, The Shell Collector

Perhaps the reason I spend so much time finding beauty in the fading flowers is because I want to find beauty in the aging process that I am experiencing.

The seasons turn. Blossoms bud, burst open and fade. And everything feeds the life that is yet to come. Let me pay forward grace and caring and hope for all who come after me.

May you walk in beauty.