Do not Pluck the rose

People give flowers as presents because flowers contain the true meaning of love. Anyone who tries to possess a flower by plucking it from the soil will have to watch its beauty fade. But if you simply look at a flower in a field, you will keep it forever, because the flower is a part of the evening and the sunset and the smell of damp earth and the clouds on the horizon”. I love this sentiment from Paulo Coelho in his book “Brida”. I think in our world we wish to possess things to give us sense of meaning, like possessing affections from others perhaps to validate our existence. But ultimately like the flower we plucked from the ground, it loses its beauty and begins to fade as we removed it from its source. Is it possible to never possess anything but to have everything?

The ancient scholars tell us so repeatedly in spiritual and philosophical text and the meaning is lost in the modern world. We cling to relationships that have died long ago, we hang onto old beliefs that have not served us in decades, but we seem unwilling or unable to start anew. I am seeing more and more clearly now as time goes on that in order for me to have everything I desire, I must first let everything go. Like the flower blooming in the field, I watch my child grow up and my role is to love them, nurture them, but never try and pluck them out of the ground and own them. What if we were simply the gardeners of the lives, and our sole purpose was to give them right environment to grow, but let them do the growing?

Romantically I think it can work the same way, for isn’t it the issue of losing our identity that often crushes the spirit of love, when we pluck our love out of the ground and claim ownership over it, rather than nurture it, love it, but never claim ownership of it and let it grow into what it was meant to be. Like the flower in the field, we are born with a seed of promise, the potential to grow into a beautiful thing, but to do so we must have love without ownership, affection without expectation, and trust in the divine order of things that what will be will be.

C. David Gilks Your Fellow Traveler