A Hidden Present Succulents
I confess. I have a new secret passion…hidden presents. Things, people, places, scents, sights, scenarios around us that we might take or granted or perhaps never focused on. I am finding that taking the time to be present in the moment, to really see a leaf or a person at a ticket counter, or listen to a wave or a voice can make time stop but also elongate. Each post will have a hidden present. See if you can find it .
Okay, here’s an example. I spent time with an amazing hidden present this week.
Hints: This Present Is -
Stashed in sacred spaces - natural hot spots and surreal TMZ-haunted hot clubs.
Hardy. As in – Bring it, drought! It will meet you at high noon and we’ll see who’s tough.
Resilient. – Cut off a piece of it, I dare you. Guess what, it’ll just sprout up again, badder than before.
Good for the eco-system. Well, not much competition these days. But it doesn’t drain the water everything needs…hello, 60 percent water humans! And it cooks up homeopathic, organic health cures.
X-treme sun-worshipping but in the safe sun sense. It feeds, doesn’t fry. Hey, it makes its own aloe.
Dirty. Always down with desert dirt.
Sometimes psychedelic, sprouting in subterranean and surreal shapes. Ask Aloe, when she’s ten feet tall.
Mindful for many. Just ask people meditating in succulent gardens or Facebook meditating on sucking out so many millions.
Inspires fabulous artistic colorful creations…Georgia O’Keefe, Diego Rivera.
Completely, in its heart of hearts…SUCKS, and yet is sought after. We often want things that are bad for us, but this seductive sucker, which only hurts to protect itself, is-
The Succulent Plant … An other-worldly gift from the ground with names like Tequila, Butterfly Bush, Velvet Elephant Ear, Jade Hobbit, and Sticks on Fire.
On a sunny SoCal day, a wandering succulent beckoned me. It was in a round pot- hanging in a parking lot, dangling in a display near recycling supermarket bins. I wheeled my meandering shopping cart over, hung the young succulent where I used to deposit my succulent (nursing) baby daughters. The check-out woman admired the succulent dangling from my cart. A mom behind me in line, with a cart full of pampers, shared: “I love the way they look.”
Me, too. I have noticed that women seem drawn to succulents. Maybe it has to do with these plants’ abilities, like those of my girlfriends, to survive on little if necessary, to preserve, adapt, nurture, heal, expand others’ consciousness, and increasingly blossom into unique presences. Some of us become, like the succulents, sticks on fire - fierce, self-protective.
For my birthday, my older daughter and I found a succulent nursery through which to amble. As we stopped together to gaze at a beautiful succulent vertical garden wired into a wooden frame, time stood still. I had unwrapped a hidden present - sucking in a maternal moment.