Floral Apostles

A dear friend helps me with my flower beds. He was here today, and after he ripped vines out of trees (a very cleansing endeavor, even for me as the watcher), we were looking over the garden and marveling at a three-inch tall zinnia blooming happily; a tiny dianthus of the same height had a sweet pink bloom; and probably the most surprising, a marigold seed had taken hold, giving us a beautiful little plant with numerous joyful flowers. And then the most amazing thing happened: a large flock of geese flew overhead, raucously honking in the most uplifting way!! We laughed, we cried, and it was good … 

Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver

“You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting  

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.” 

Written by Mary Oliver

“The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons. The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns naturally towards the light.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 240:6-9

“Now let a new perception come to me. Father, there is a vision which beholds all things as sinless, so that fear has gone, and where it was is love invited in. And love will come wherever it is asked. This vision is Your gift. The eyes of Christ look on a world forgiven. In His sight are all its sins forgiven, for He sees no sin in anything He looks upon. Now let His true perception come to me, that I may waken from the dream of sin and look within upon my sinlessness, which You have kept completely undefiled upon the altar to Your holy Son, the Self with which I would identify.”

“Let us today behold each other in the sight of Christ. How beautiful we are! How holy and how loving! Brother, come and join with me today. We save the world when we have joined. For in our vision it becomes as holy as the light in us.”

A Course in Miracles W-313.1:1–2:6