I Call This Love
Spring in March
8-ish in the morning.
I’m picking dandelions for a brew, brushing fingers on the sword-like amaryllis leaves that have sprung up 3 weeks ago.
A shower of dry, golden leaves fall on my head.
I look up to find a Greater Coucal navigating the bare branched white powder puff tree.
It comes to roost in the morning sun, perching majestically on a high branch.
I saunter and amble in the garden for a few early hours, before I do anything else.
The sheer enterprise of it all… the soil, sun and water birthing shapes and colors and fragrances… astounding. Only waiting to be perceived, looked at, watched. It’s enough to douse anyone in reverie.
Smell of flowers, dewdrops on grass. Buzzing of bees. Cacophony of the birds, fleeting flights of the butterflies.
I extend my palm gingerly towards a drifting honeybee. It alights for a few seconds, its buzzing wings sending a ripple of thrill down my spine. It flies away to the nearest cornflower.
This season the garden is hosting a wildflower meadow.
It’s exquisite.
And that’s an understatement.
The humans did basic management, nothing out of the ordinary.
Nature worked it out for everyone, by itself.
Extraordinary things happen so very frequently around us. We are so used to them that we simply perceive them as ordinary.
A friend quipped that you can spend an entire day appreciating the routine and antics of one ant.
Much of my friend circle are flower lovers, many have green thumbs.
Some stare intently at plants. Few also notice the ecosystems.
My personal sphere of naturalists.
I notice a new variety of poppy blooms. It’s dreamy, I can’t help but caress the petals.
I didn’t sow any seeds. They came up last year by themselves, and have re-emerged boisterously this year too.
When a poppy bloom emerges from its sheathed bud, it’s all crinkled. Almost immediately honeybees flock to it.
They’re madly in love.
In an hour or so, the petals straighten out, and the garden hosts a resplendent flower, only for a day. By next mid-morning… a pretty maraca pod is all that remains.
One of the philosophical arguments in favour of God’s existence is something called the Design argument.
It says that since everything is so perfect in form and function, it must have been the work of a divine being… just like a well designed watch is the work of an expert watchmaker.
The argument fails due to a few reasons (like weak analogy/failure to prove monotheism etc.), but — I’ve often found myself thinking along the divine designer lines.
It can’t be helped!
‘Evolution' is unthinkably extraordinary and complicated. To think that all of this — is the working progress of 4.5 billion years of evolution — that’s an immense scale to comprehend on an everyday basis.
The admiration and amazement that things big and small evoke in me when communing with Nature border on fanatic love.
Only love, can summon love in return.
I call this love.
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