We Always Come Back

Aeoniums are monocarpic, meaning they have “one body”. They grow, make flowers, produce seeds, and die. It’s a beautiful method of flowering.  It is also a manner of describing life.

I love the Aeonium.  They are Merlin’s plants and they dot the landscape of our southwest garden. Prolific, they remind me well of the life process.  When they begin the process of flowering, I sense a powerful change.  I am reminded of all the offshoots this succulent makes that support its continuance.  I don’t hesitate to take these “children” elsewhere.  Somehow, someway, the Aeonium will continue.  What dies is reborn.

Nature reminds us often that surrender to the loss of life is a road to its rebirth.  We think we have failed only to discover with perseverance and faith we can find a way to make it all work.  Others will question  our strategies, but they don’t know where we have been and what we hope for.  We are the Aeonium, ready to die, ready to bloom, if only for the next show of our existence.

Never forget that you matter and that the force of your dreams have relevance.   Giving birth is a profound experience but its timing is often unexpected.  It occurs in that unsuspected sublime moment of wonder that catches us by surprise.   Like the Aeonium, we renew our place in time as if to say:  I fell away, but I came back.  We always come back.