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Desert Flowering

by Jenny Archard

CA Month-Long, June 2017


Arriving in the sacred Inyo Mountains I am greeted by an unexpected profusion of wildflowers.  A sea of purle, pink, yellow and red, scattered beneath the pinion pine and junipers.  A testament to the hidden ferticility held deeply in this dry place.

As we come together in community of people and land, I dig into the dry places whin my soul.  The flowers guides me, I follow their lead.  Some days I draw one, determined to learn its name and the bones of shape, colour, form.  Mountain larkspur, wild heliotrope, segolily – my companions.

The people dive together into teachings of four shields and the land, the trees, the flowers all mirror back.  For me these flowers are my new friends and the purple Nevada daisies lean into me as I struggle to nourish and water the dry places inside myself.

 I see seeds fall into the hot dry earth, as one flower fades and another comes.  The flow of life is here.  And I feel the turn of blood from my hot, wet body reaching into this sacred ground.  The ground of my body touches the earth, becoes part of hte cycle of wet-dry, life-death, flower-seed.   The flowers teach me of simply being.  Vivacius, colourful, beautiful, unexpected.

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