Weed or Wildflower?

Maria Doherty

As I drove home from our son??™s school this morning, it rained as it has rained for the last few days. The world seemed fresh and new, even the colours of the spring were enlivened, sharper, brighter. All the yellow tones stood out like sprays of sunshine lighting the dimness of the day. The subtler softer bronzes, pinks, darker greens took on a quiet intensity that radiated their own energy out into the world of form. I smiled all the way home, my heart filled with peace and love.

As I pulled into the driveway of our home, the giant chestnut seemed to reach down and envelop me in a manly tree type hug . The long pink flowers or candles, stand out from the fresh new leaves, like the flames they take their name from, flickering softly like beacons welcoming me home. They are also the promise of hundreds of dark green spiky cases which will be cracked open by the busy squirrels for their life sustaining shining brown seeds. A few small boys will also benefit from them to prove their conker prowess. How blessed can a life be when the world is filled with beauty like this.

I walk beside the upper garden borders and I spot a strange plant thriving where I know none was planted. It is a weed about to flower. I gather it in my hands and prepare to pull it out of the earth. Then I look at its softly spreading shape, the colour of its leaves, the little golden flowers about to appear, and I stop. One more day or maybe two; I will let you live to give your own beauty to the world. This may not be where I intended you to be, but here you are and for a little longer you may stay.

In the garden of the soul, wild things sometimes grow and as long as we are aware of them, we may let them flower a little longer, just to see what form they take. Sometimes they are weeds that may choke the love and goodness from us and we may have to put all our strength into pulling them out before roots go too deep or worse still they seed and create further darkness in our lives. A careful gardener watches and waits then make timely choices. Sometimes what we think is a wild, wayward weed, turns out to be the most beautiful flower, an unexpected, unanticipated gift, perhaps even the answer to a prayer. It is all in the observation and the timing of our actions that we make the right choice of what we allow to grow and what we decide to root out from our lives.

There I go meandering in my thoughts again just as I meander through my garden. Such stray gifts are precious things. My wild seedling is my writing, my ability to reach into my heart and my soul and reflect it out onto these pages; to feel joy and bliss and spill these feelings out into the world through my words; to experience the energy of healing flowing through these hands and to step aside and let it out into the world through what I write. For years, I left it languishing in the darkness, not recognising it for the potent beauty that it is, not understanding that this is the flower that this life of mine was flowed into form to bring to the world. Here in this gift is love, here is peace, here is the fulfillment of this life of mine. Here in the garden of my soul, I bloom and I am a writer.  

Maria Doherty

mariadoherty@blueyonder.co.uk