The Delicate Flower

Writing about a recent dream reminded me of a couple of others I had many years ago. I'll only bore you with one of them right now, especially since my cat has chosen to 'help' me with my typing by lying by the keyboard.

Anyway, many years ago, for various reasons, I was suffering through a deep depression over a task that I had failed at.

This was a task that I identified with very strongly with on an emotional and spiritual level and as something that would help define the very person that I am. And it was part of my personal life, but it would grow to affect other parts of my life, such as work and I how I performed there.

Looking back, with some bit of age acquired wisdom, I can see that I was very young and didn't have all of the tools I needed to accomplish the task in the perfect fashion that I had envisioned. I did complete what I had set out to do, but I felt the execution was flawed, that I had not performed to the best of my abilities. Worse, there were others that depended upon the work that I did and I felt that I had disappointed them, and provided an inferior performance that let them down and made tasks for them much, much harder.

Because of my disappointment and some other life changes, I fell into a deep depression for several months. I kept playing back, over and over and over, the scenes of my failure, until I finally started to block them out. But the pain of that failure beat at my mind, like a relentless hammer, until I finally had to remember and I did.

I wept over the memory of my loss, a loss trivial in this world, yet so weighty in my mind, that I could bearly live with the memory of it. But those tears broke through the pain and while I still carry some of the pain, it no longer masters me.

As I began to come out of the dark hole I was in, I had dreams that seemed to come from outside of me. And, here is one of those dreams:

I was able to see a meadow and only a tiny patch of a meadow that had a wetlands within it. I was totally focused on this one area where a small plant was growing. As I watched, I could see the plant grow and a flower bud formed. Somehow I knew that the flower that bloomed would be very beautiful and this one bloom would brighten the patch I was seeing beyond description

But it was not to be, because something happened to the plant before it bloomed and it fell over and lay dying on the ground. I felt sadness at not seeing the flower bloom.

I continued watching and I saw the plant break apart and become part of the ground where it lay. And another plant like it started growing from where the other had died. I was partly afraid for this new plant and I watched fearfully as it grew upwards. I saw the flower bud grow and become bigger as time passed.

Then the flower bloomed and it was gorgeous! And I somehow thought that it was even more beautiful than the first flower would've been if it had bloomed instead of dying, which seemed very sad. The new plant was built of the old one, which never had a chance to finish what it was meant to do

At this time, I had another thought, that didn't seem to be my own. It was the thought that the second flower owed it's beauty to the sacrifice of the first flower. And because of the extra bit of something from the first flower, the second flower owed it's beauty to the first flower.

I saw then how I had learned from what I viewed as a failed task and how my life had changed. And how, I hope, other lives had changed because I now worked to do better and support others in their work. Perhaps my sacrifice will be forgotten, but others who learn from my mistakes will be that much better because I was there.

And enough of the morals, I will let you take away what you find in my dream.