Do not despise the decaying or ugly parts of life. They might be your most fruitful places.
I have completely renovated my front yard over the past year and it has been a joy to share with the numerous neighbors out walking and constrained to a smaller outlook by the lockdown and Coronavirus.
As the summer draws to a close, I’ve been eyeing the echinacea/coneflowers and thinking I should deadhead them.
But I held off, knowing the decaying, blackening seedheads were a significant draw for birds and I’m really trying to create a bird and pollinator haven more than a perfection of tidyness.
Today, my vigilant cat, perched on the typewriter table and taking his authoratative glance over the neighborhood, stiffened with the sort of alertness that told me something unusual was out of the window.
Two brilliantly yellow birds (if goldfinches, very tiny ones) were hanging from those coneflower seedheads, dangling upside down and almost doubling the flower stalks to the soil as they pecked and gathered. The cat jittered and jabbered with excitement at the potential prey. I marvelled and was silently glad that the ugliest remnants had brought the most beautiful of visitors.
Do not despise the messy areas of your life, the parts that might be in decline. They could be where the most interesting seeds are maturing.
“Decline is also a form of voluptuousness, just like growth.
Autumn is just as sensual as springtime.
There is as much greatness in dying as in procreation.
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