Morning Glory in Meditation

Every year, I push the base of a wooden trellis into the fresh dirt next to our stoop. I watch as the small seedlings from the previous autumn poke their way through the earth and unfurl. I weed the bed and I water them reverently. As the vines grow, thin and spaghetti-like, I teach them to move towards the trellis. They grow thicker, covered in short fuzz. The leaves grow bigger, shaped like hearts. The larger they get, and the deeper the color, the closer they are to budding.

I spend each morning in a gentle meditation, wrapping the sweet vines around the trellis, and watching them catch on over the days, until they wind themselves, in and out. The trellis becomes a loom where nature and I create beautiful art together. Over time, the vines become a green wall, offering a sense of privacy.

When the buds first come, it is a morning treasure hunt to see where the blooms have hidden themselves. They are tight little spirals, growing bigger each day. When I can see the color threaded through them, I know they will open the next morning.

The flowers are full and thick and brilliant at dawn, staying to the shadows. The beautiful heart-shaped leaves act like umbrellas, extending their lives by shading them. At the right time, mid-morning, the blossoms glow with a luminescence that makes them seem otherworldly, tiny portals opening from within. This is my favorite time of day to be in the garden, to be sitting on the stoop with a book and a notepad, stirring my own creative juices in their wake.

 

 

I watch as the bees frolic and pollinate, leaving tiny dustings of pollen on the petals.

As the day lengthens and the sun climbs in the sky, the morning glory blossoms grow weaker, their petals more translucent. The softening flowers tear easily and stick to the leaves around them. By mid-afternoon those that have survived curl in upon themselves. At dusk the day-old flowers drop unceremoniously to the ground below.

Every day in the world of the morning glory is a new beginning, a new life. Their beauty doesn’t last because nothing lasts. The nature of life is that it ends. That is the magic of the morning glory for me. They are dead when dark descends, but tomorrow, there will be more.

In the fall, when the garden withers, small buds of seeds are left behind on the browning vines. They will dry and shrink and loosen their eggplant-colored seeds into the ground. There, they will slumber through winter, waiting to emerge come next spring. So even in their seasonal ending, there is hope. There is always hope. But for today, under the summer sun, there is still beauty and joy.