Wednesday Wisdom #4 - Moon Flower

A few days ago Marc and I were about to climb into the wood burning hot tub at the back of the garden when I noticed one outlier amongst the morning glories: a huge white moon flower! As it was evening, the morning glories were closed; the moon flower reigned supreme, triple the size of any one of the other blooms growing up the trellis.

I had started moon flower seeds at the same time as the morning glories, at the end of the spring, but they never really seemed to take off, and I went the whole summer assuming that none had grown. This one had managed to covertly climb the fence and then blossom in late summer with literally no attention from me after that initial planting.

I had a friend who used to say “life will find a way” when we would come across a plant surviving without any water on a Moroccan rooftop. And indeed, life does often find a way, in less than ideal circumstances, started at the wrong time, in the wrong soil type, ignored by the gardener.

Some ideas grow wild and free like morning glories, and some sneak up on us and bloom. It’s not always clear why one thrives and another merely comes to fruition. In our society we want to control the process, know why things go the way that they do, blame ourselves every time something fails, or succeeds. But the truth is that we have limited impact on the success of any one of our endeavors. We are responsible for what we plant, but the force that propels a seed to sprout and grow is (thankfully) beyond our control.

This week moon flower is reminding me that sometimes the best thing for our ideas is for us not to tend to them at all. Planted in good soil, under the warm sun, some seeds will reach for the sky.