Eternal Spring

The camellia is in bloom, though likely not for long. A slight breeze or a spring rain will come and the blossoms will easily shed, dropping softly onto the garden bed creating a soft pink blanket of petals. The camellia knows that her outer beauty is temporary. She readily sheds this temporary visage to reveal her heart, a place where her creativity springs and her sap is clear and sweet. This is her center; original, unflappable, honest, calm and quiet.

In friendship, it would be lovely if we could become like the camellia blossoms, delicate and tender, dropping our petals easily, and opening to honor and share our true selves with the slightest encouragement. This could be thought of as some sort of surrender, a shedding of form. A friend said this was like our old self dying as we let go of some outer quality that is no longer useful. Opening, we become unattached to form, instead merging into formlessness, embracing the wondrous reality of the divine Beloved in our core –this lover that with us all along but with whom we continually learn new depths of intimacy. Let us persuade one another to open our petals, however slowly, so like the lovely camellia, we can see and hear and witness the divine mystery within each of us more and more clearly.

The fragrance of the camellia blooms lingers long after the petals have been shed. The lingering memory of her divine nature comes to us on a breeze. In this fragrance we shall open and dance and sing in honor of these lovely flowers of pure consciousness that exist in an eternal spring.