This collage was inspired by my neighbour’s garden. I looked across there and was mesmerized and thrilled by what I saw. I couldn’t resist the urge to go there and admire all the beautiful flowers, especially the lilies. This was late yesterday afternoon. We have some lilies in our garden but hers are truly splendid. What a beautiful gift a garden is! I realized that I don’t have to go very far to see beauty – and that I didn’t have to spend any money. All I needed were the eyes to see.
Nature does not stop providing us with opportunities for a free show. The first lilies of the year are usually the Easter lilies and then when summer comes along, we have another batch of lilies to enjoy. Here’s some information on the lily that I found:
“LILY”
“Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin.”
Book of Matthew, VI, 28
The lily’s name has pre-classical origins. It was the Greek name leirion and the Roman name lilium from which the name “lily” was derived.
Legend tells that the lily sprang from Eve’s tears, when upon being expelled from Eden she learned she was pregnant. Other folklore tells of lilies, unplanted by any human hand spontaneously appearing on the graves of people executed for crimes they did not commit.
On the whole, lilies imply purity of the heart. While lilies come in a variety of colors, most people readily associate lilies with white, meaning innocence and sweetness.
These lilies are not the white variety but a bright pink – what a beautiful colour! I’m reading a book now that I borrowed from the library called “Beauty” written by John O’Donohue and I couldn’t resist sharing this. If you’re interested in the subject of “Beauty”, this is a good one to read.
“We are creatures fashioned to behold colour because the soul loves beauty. Plato stated this elegantly in the Phaedrus. He suggests that our present love of beauty is an awakened echo of our earlier life in the eternal world. There we knew beauty because we lived in her grace: ‘But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her there shining in company with the celestial forms; and coming to earth we find her here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense … But this is the privilege of beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight.’
Enjoy the visual images of the beautiful lilies and be grateful for the sense of sight too. A collage just for you from the heart of a Late Bloomer.