The Dancer and the Tomato Plant

Our backyard is a wild and free form place, where flowers meet bushes and bushes meet trees in a pattern reminiscent of a jungle. I really like that. This morning, as I was checking the plants in the greenhouse, I noticed a beautiful big white Morning Glory whose vine like leaves and tendrils were wrapped in the exuberant height of one of our cherry tomato plants. The trumpet like shape of the opening Morning Glory was stretching up and past the confinement of the tomato plant, struggling to get the light and sun it needed. The flower looked like a delicate dancer, determined to apply all the strength needed to reach its full potential and goal, so it would be able to fully unfurl its large, creamy white petals and display its pale blue star pattern and soft yellow center. The flower was surrounded by tomato vines, but somehow it pushed past the obstacles its fellow plant presented. It was a touching sight. The delicate yet strong flower working past challenges by which it was surrounded. I took a photograph to remember the moment, and the picture shows very vividly the flower's circumstance. It seemed a poignant and relevant reminder to me about life as it presents itself. Life is seldom a straight forward path. We are often surrounded by challenges that threaten our petals to be shredded or torn, so to speak, by events or people more dominant than our own resources or strengths. Often it is a matter of determination and will to overcome both, and some well thought out strategy and plan. The flower reminded me of a dancer because dancing requires strength as much as a lightness of step and feet to achieve its intended both effect and purpose. Observing the flower's struggle gave sense, in a very quiet sort of way, to my own challenges. I felt it added a measure of dignity and poetry to my own life, seeing this beautiful flower trying its hardest to make sense of its unintended environment. I know in a flower, survival is instinct, but to me that only reinforced the idea that going with your intuition, your gut, so to speak, is often the way to get through challenges, big and small. The flower was fighting for its life, and was succeeding. It was a cool thing to witness and to learn from on a hot summer day.