The Daffodil Principle
The Purple Hat
Shell Free
Beauty There
The Daffodil Principle
by Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards
Several times my daughter had telephoned to say. "Mother, you must come and see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. Going and coming took most of a day--and I honestly did not have a free day until the following week. So we buckled up the children and went out to my car. "I'll drive," Carolyn offered. "I'm used to this." We got into the car, and she began driving. We parked in a small parking lot adjoining a little stone church. From our vantage point at the top of the mountain we could see beyond us, in the mist, the crests of the San Bernardino range like the dark, humped backs of a herd of elephants. Far below us the fog-shrouded valleys, hills, and flatlands stretched away to the desert. On the far side of the church I saw a pine-needle-covered path, with towering evergreens and manzanita bushes and an inconspicuous, hand-lettered sign "Daffodil Garden." We each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path as it wound through the trees. The mountain sloped away from the side of the path in irregular dips, folds, and valleys, like a deeply creased skirt. Live oaks, mountain laurel, shrubs, and bushes clustered in the folds, and in the gray, drizzling air, the green foliage looked dark and monochromatic. I shivered. Then we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight, unexpectedly and completely splendid. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain peak and slopes where it had run into every crevice and over every rise. Even in the mist-filled air, the mountainside was radiant, clothed in massive drifts and waterfalls of daffodils. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter yellow. In the center of this incredible and dazzling display of gold, a great cascade of purple grape hyacinth flowed down like a waterfall of blossoms framed in its own rock-lined basin, weaving through the brilliant daffodils. A charming path wound throughout the garden. There were several resting stations, paved with stone and furnished with Victorian wooden benches and great tubs of coral and carmine tulips. As though this were not magnificence enough, Mother Nature had to add her own grace note -- above the daffodils, a bevy of western bluebirds flitted and darted, flashing their brilliance. These charming little birds are the color of sapphires with breasts of magenta red. As they dance in the air, their colors are truly like jewels above the blowing, glowing daffodils. The effect was spectacular. It did not matter that the sun was not shining. The brilliance of the daffodils was like the glow of the brightest sunlit day. Words, wonderful as they are, simply cannot describe the incredible beauty of that flower-bedecked mountain top. Five acres of flowers! "But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn. I was overflowing with gratitude that she brought me -- even against my will. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. "Who?" I asked again, almost speechless with wonder, "and how, and why, and when?" "It's just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house, my mind buzzing with questions. On the patio we saw a poster. " Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman, two hands, two feet, and very little brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958." There it was. The Daffodil Principle. For me that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than thirty-five years before, had begun -- one bulb at a time -- to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top. One bulb at a time. There was no other way to do it. One bulb at a time. No shortcuts -- simply loving the slow process of planting. Loving the work as it unfolded. Loving an achievement that grew so slowly and that bloomed for only three weeks of each year. Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world. This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created something of ineffable magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principle of celebration: learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time -- often just one baby-step at a time -- learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world. "Carolyn," I said that morning on the top of the mountain as we left the haven of daffodils, our minds and hearts still bathed and bemused by the splendors we had seen, "it's as though that remarkable woman has needle-pointed the earth! Decorated it. Just think of it, she planted every single bulb for more than thirty years. One bulb at a time! And that's the only way this garden could be created. Every individual bulb had to be planted. There was no way of short-circuiting that process. Five acres of blooms. That magnificent cascade of hyacinth! All, all, just one bulb at a time." The thought of it filled my mind. I was suddenly overwhelmed with the implications of what I had seen. "It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years. Just think what I might have been able to achieve!" My wise daughter put the car into gear and summed up the message of theday in her direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said with the same knowing smileshe had worn for most of the morning. Oh, profound wisdom!The Purple Hat
The Purple Hat Age 3: She looks at herself and sees a Queen. Age 8: She looks at herself and sees Cinderella. Age 15: She looks at herself and sees an Ugly Sister (Mom, I can't go to school looking like this!) Age 20: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall,too straight/too curly"- but decides she's going out anyway. Age 30: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall,too straight/too curly"-but decides she doesn't have time to fix it so she's going out anyway. Age 40: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly"-but says, "At least, I am clean" and goes out anyway. Age 50: She looks at herself and sees "I am" and goes wherever she wants to go. Age 60: She looks at herself and reminds herself of all the people who can't even see themselves in the mirror anymore. Goes out and conquers the world. Age 70: She looks at herself & sees wisdom, laughter and ability, goes out and enjoys life. Age 80: Doesn't bother to look. Just puts on a purple hat and goes out to have fun with the world. Maybe we should all grab that purple hat earlier.Shell Free
by Susan Dane Ten thousand pecks they say to break the shell and wiggle free, wide-eyes blinking. Nothing to be done to hurry things. It needs 10,000 pecks to build the beak. What must it think? At 10,000, beats one peck at a time, blind, until the darkness cracks and a different air wraps its flapping cold around it. Light dazes in a rush of smells and greens. Are we too breaking free bit by bit? Certainly there is much that closes us in our own invisible porcelain: the hourglass, and sleepless nights, and lives with sand walls sliding, and everywhere the tight jacket of desire keeps us wrapped around ourselves. Still I wonder if the metaphor itself is not half-cracked. The question never asked: Are we the tiny embryo pressing to be born? Or is there something far unknown fighting for its breath in us-- against us-- cramped, curled and nerve pinched, its oxygen receding? Are we the chick or shell? The cage or caged? Or does some mystery make one of two? That with 10,000 pecks this dark sufferer splinters all our little hardnesses; And then this folded over doubled thing, crammed and squeezed, breaks free and when it does, God Himself wriggles out, ever so fragile, hesitant, still wet, but bodied! And the mystery! It doesn't leave us behind, like some broken thing, an empty shell, but brings us on its frangible wings to a new home, that is precisely wild, and we, clumsy but unfettered, climbing, climbing!Beauty There
by Rev. Carol M. Winkfield
This song reminds me; In all the seasons of your life, in all thy ways, acknowledge God. As a Child, I naturally took much delight in discovering the world around me. My wide wonder and pleasure at life is a prayer: World so big, world so wide; Remarkable to my young eyes; In land and sea and air... I see Beauty There. Oh! The joy of finding just the right rock to add to the collection; Just the right color ribbon for my hair; The right answer to the question just before the bell rings Signaling "time's up;" just the right date for the prom. My innocents and freedom and zest for life is a prayer. World so grand, world so filled with all things wonderful that will Supply all needs everywhere... I see Beauty There. This song reminds me: In truth, we, a people, are abundantly provided for; Infinitely loved. We are complete and sufficient at every moment, even where we are right now. In our forgetfulness we fear. In our imaginings we think the joys and pleasures we experience in the world. Are supplied by the world. We forget our delight is really in the Father and the Son, and we bring it with us to the world. The world, you see, is a neutral thing; And the beauty that I see, is the beauty that's in me. The world serves as God's perfect plan to call us to remembering. And this song calls me to remembering. My recognition, observation, and acceptance of this plan is a prayer. World so secure it could, be grossly misunderstood; Seeming at times hard to bear; misperceived in pain and fear. But judging rightly, not what appears; And looking through, not at the tears; I see Beauty There.
