“The flower opens, and lo! another year” — does this (Chinese proverb) not epitomize spring? It is all so familiar, such a common occurrence, yet cosmic in its impact. The flower is the crown of the plant’s growth, yet can we say that all this extravagant beauty is created merely to give life away in the bearing of seed? We need but think how necessary flowers are to our well being, not only in practical ways, but to uplift and nourish the soul. What greater proof of divinity than these brave messengers from nature’s finer worlds, masterpieces of color, form, fragrance, and precision of design; simple in basic plan, yet infinite in variation. The marvel of flowers alone keeps alive one’s sense of wonder. Tennyson believed that if he could understand what a flower is, “root and all, and all in all,” he would know what God and man is.
– Ingrid Van Mater, from A Flower Opens
Or perhaps Tennyson would have understood the nature of the universe . . . as above, so below . . .
Do we really need to look beyond the flower?
Jillian
Jillian Page 
It is lovely that we can appreciate flowers, but we should not try and convince ourselves that flowers evolved or were created so that we could appreciate them. Flowers have been around far longer than we have, and probably will be around long after we have gone.
Flowers are no more a proof of divinity than anything else in our experience is. That we have come to appreciate the colours, smells and forms that have evolved to attract insects to spread pollen was not part of any intelligent design.
We tend not to be so appreciative of the corpse flower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphophallus_titanum), but it, too, is a flower evolved to fill its own niche.
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Oh, dear skeptic, perhaps the flower is a symbol of the universe itself . . . You need only to study a flower to understand the universe . . . Smiles . . .
As for age, yes, I am a mere 21 . . . (winks)
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Thanks for the “dear skeptic” (or even “sceptic”, but I only know that because my browser has a spelling checker).
You have a lovely imagination, with the beginnings of the universe being an ejaculation of sperm in a womb, and the universe itself being a flower… though you are mixing your fauna with your flora.
My analytical left-hemisphere dominated brain doesn’t cope with such metaphors particularly well. However I recognise that you more creative (right-hemisphere dominant) folk love such flights of fancy.
It takes all sorts, and I am so glad the world doesn’t just consist of folk like me (Myers-Briggs “ESTJ” by one means of distinguishing us from one another.)
As for age… my body might be 55 I can’t say that mentally I feel much different now to how I did when I was 17. I try not to act my age 😉
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Further proof that the spirit is timeless and immortal . . . Many old folks have told me they don’t feel any different, mentally speaking, than they did when they were teenagers.
Here’s a quote from another timeless soul:
“That which men call death is but a change of location for the Ego, a mere transformation, a forsaking for a time of the mortal frame, a short period of rest before one reassumes another human frame in the world of mortals. The Lord of this body is nameless; dwelling in numerous tenements of clay, it appears to come and go; but neither death nor time can claim it, for it is deathless, unchangeable, and pure, beyond Time itself, and not to be measured.” – W. Q. Judge
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