Perennial Delights

These beautiful, almost fluorescent orange and purple, Echinaceas (aka Coneflowers) began blooming in our yard recently. One day, it was just a bed of green, mostly mint, with these flowers hiding in the camouflage, and the next these outrageous and delightful colors were dancing around on top of the green sea.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. We planted these flowers several years ago now. They come up every year. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was. Just like it is every year when this happens. It’s a delight to the eyes and heart that we gave to ourselves. We found the plants, bought them, brought them home and planted them, and waited a full year for them to make these kinds of flowers.  It’s a delight that keeps on giving, not only every year (because they are perennials) but in what they do as they complete their cycle of life each summer. They show these beautiful colors most of the summer, and then the flowers turn to round, black and brown seed heads. Once they are hard and dry, the goldfinches show up and begin dive bombing the seed heads. All summer long, the assault of colors were dancing here on the greens, and then the color rains down from the sky in these little yellow and gold birds. 

All of this becomes a gentle metaphor for me. Time invested in life, in lives, in the life of community, in the life of the earth–in all its forms–comes back to us in so many ways. We are making perennial investments in life all the time.

~Bob Patrick