Lilies and Life's Transitions

Recently I posted comments on someone’s hub which he strongly suggested I publish as a stand-alone hub. He felt it had wider application and might be useful to others.

For my comments, actual lilies here on my coffee table lent themselves to expressing my response to his searching poem, - basically concerned with unwieldy transitions occurring in his life and possibly what seemed an unclear path ahead.

I’ve written comments with threads of thought on others' hubs before but have never attempted converting any to stand-alone hubs, so I lack experience.

I think I’ll just post this one pretty much “as is” so you can decide its merit for yourself.

I would gladly acknowledge the hubber inspiring it, but prefer he do that himself if it is his wish.

I started the comment off with these lines I wrote in November, 1971:

I need to be unassigned

A function,

Free to be

What I am, best,

Whatever that might be.

Also:

I like a few loose ends,

Don’t you?

____© Nellieanna H. Hay

This one was not included there:

Paradox

We try

To explain

Where we are

When we

Want to get there.

When we arrive

Where we're going -

We'll still be

Where we are.

The journey

Is the thing.

____© Nellieanna H. Hay

In transit, which all of life is, one experiences everything from vertigo to moments of sublime clarity. From it will come the awareness that it's ALL being "there". That's what it IS. Life is in process, on the move. One's feelings about it are all valid feelings, even the confusion. Accepting the nature of life and one's own nature is reaching a vital balance and discovering the essential core where one IS and where it is possible to experience it all fully without becoming unglued by it. Every moment IS a startup to some degree. What seems contradictory is simply life doing its thing.

I bought some lilies at the grocery store today - well, Saturday. I always swear I won't buy more flowers, but then I see them the moment I walk in the door and always buy some if I’m out of them at home. I guess I’m incorrigible.

I’ve kept fresh flowers on my den table for about 6 years now. When I started buying them, they were 3 bunches for $10. Now they are $5 a bunch. This time I bought a bunch of yellow ones and a bunch of rosy ones. The yellow ones had a 11-30 sell-by date; the others, a 12-4; hence the difference in the following stages, probably. I'll manage to keep some for two weeks.

So here these are before me on my coffee table. A few of them are still little green buds, while other buds have grown fatter & longer but are still green, just a little lighter green.

Some of the buds are now starting to take on the colors of the lilies they'll open up into.

Some of the buds which will become yellow have become mostly white replacing the green, some are becoming ivory colored. Some have opened up to their full yellow glory. The rosy ones to-be vary from white and a touch of pale color on their ends to almost all the pale color. None of the rosy ones are opened up, but I know they are to be rosy because some of the bunches just like them had a few opened flowers. I picked this bunch because it seemed healthy and potent.

The leaves are also in transit. They’ll gradually change from their bright green to duller and then yellow creeps into them and they turn yellow. Some will fall off at any stage.

So which are the "perfect" lilies here? Which of them is more of a lily? Buds in various stages of developing? Flowers fully opened?

Within their stay with me, the blossoms will gradually become more transparent, then some of their petals will begin to fall off on the table. Some of the petals will dry, perhaps. And a few of the buds won't make it open at all, some will turn yellow but stay tightly closed. I’ve even seen the dark stamen through their tight fists but the flowers just didn’t open normally.

I'll keep nursing the different-stage survivors along till I may only have one or two flowers and a struggling bud or two, and some greenery, but I'll trim off the ends of their stems, back to the healthy parts, put them in clean water in a smaller vase with a little fresh-flower food and they will give me all they can for as long as they can. Sometimes if I take the buds which develop without opening off with very short stems and put them in their own small vase, they will at least survive awhile and may even open more.

I even sometimes gather the fallen petals if they are lively and put them into a short vase of water and “build” a lily - which lasts a day or so! Add a fallen green leaf or two - and it’s an amazing concoction! Fun to have on my kitchen windowsill to see when I’m working there.

In the process of developing, the lilies’ stamen will become very dark and if I happen to touch them, the pollen will stain my clothing. I've learned that I can brush it off with a dry clothes brush but if any water touches it, it will be almost permanent. A lengthy soak in Oxyclean is the only hope then. LOL. I really do try to avoid this!

But how dramatic a life-show they are! Even cut and confined to someone's den table in a vase, the lilies (and other flowers as fit their natures) still go through their normal life stages, though with the barest of life-support. No bees or bugs to cross-pollenate them, still they put out their pollen. The blossoms burst forth with their beauty to attract the bees, just in case. They give pleasure in return for my coaxing them along. Is life amazing, or what?

So I thank you, my friend, who saw value in my words ~ and for any others of you who do.

Hugs, Nellieanna