DUKES FANS
"ADD is not a Dis-ability; it is a Different ability."
One
of the things I love about being ADD is that my mind makes connections
and finds new links and also recalls old links to plenty of things that
can bring me pleasure, wonder, and joy. I don't question it and am not
afraid of it; in fact the vast majority of the time I rather enjoy it.
And I never know when and how it will show up or play out.
I spent most of yesterday at Penn's Morris Arboretum with a friend; it
is a place I love but haven't visited in about a decade. Doing so
yesterday brought back wonderful memories of previous visits. I could
also notice some incredible changes that has happened to the place since
I had last been there. So it was wonderfully familiar and new at the
same time. I love when that happens; it is as if I can be in the past
and the present simultaneously.
One of the many wonderful things my friend and I saw on our ramble were
several groves of different types of lilies. I have always been loved
lilies, and seeing them again reminded of that love and of how long and
in what different ways both lilies and lotuses have been a part of my
life. My friend and I talked about that and marveled at how long they
had been a quietly important part of my life. We also talked about
Kenilworth Gardens in Washington, DC and their week long Water Lilly
Festival in July. Again, it is a place I had not been in a while, and I
had sort of forgotten about. Thanks to yesterday, I realized how
wonderful it was and how much I missed it. I want to re-visit it this
year, and I will try to do it in July. Another powerful connection being
made.
I
also remembered that I had written about lilies and lotuses several
years ago. I found that newsletter and re-read it. I thought I would
edit some of of it send it out again; I hope you don't mind.
John
“The lotus is an amazing creation of God, because for all of its beauty, it is the sum total of work performed in a mess” Robin Caldwell
“Every struggle is like a big spot of mud -and there are always some lotus seeds waiting to sprout.” Amit Ray
“Whenever
you should doubt your self-worth,remember the lotus flower. Even though
it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that
surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty.” Suzy Kassem
THE MAGIC AND BEAUTY OF THE LOTUS
For
over 20 years my late wife, Penny, and I would end our summer vacations
with an annual trip to the Limestone City Blues Festival
in Kingston, Ontario area and camping at Ivylea Provincial Park about 35
miles outside of the city. We looked
forward to this trip each year-it was a ritual in the best sense of the
word. We loved the town of Kingston-a small vibrant city of mixed
cultures, great gardens, bookstores, restaurants, museums, and farmer’s
markets that sits at the meeting of the Rideau Canal and Lake Ontario at
one end of the breathtaking 1,000 Island Parkway in southern Ontario.
The
festival is also wonderful; we got to hear some well-known American
blues performers such as Curtis Salgado, Shameika Copeland, James
Cotton,
Guy Davis, and Harmonica Phil Wiggins. But the added bonus was that we
also got introduced to some Canadian blues artists we had not heard of
before such as
writer,singer and harp player Paul Reddick, the sultry and amazing
singer Dawn TylerWatson, and the cleverly named duo The Harpoonist and
the Axe Murderer. We loved going to Kingston.
But one of the greatest things about
these trips was our campsite at Ivylea Provincial Park-a beautiful
and peaceful spot along an inlet of the St Lawrence River that features
herons, red squirrels, various ducks,osprey kingfishers, hawks, and
more. It is a beautiful park with wonderful water views, some forested
areas, hilly trails, and amazing night skies. One of the absolute best
parts of the park has been the campsites we had. They each have had
little pools of water lilies and that opened up to greet us when we
awoke each morning and closed up to help put us to bed each
night. Their presence was a quiet horticultural wonder and comfort that
added so much of the specialness of that trip and that campground.
I
first encountered water lilies and lotuses when I was a boy and our
church would take trips to Longwood Gardens in Chester County. That place
both overwhelmed and astounded me with its hundreds of thousands of
beautiful plants and flowers, its acres of careful and
wondrous landscaping. It always had a sense of being in some other place;some place not of
this world. One of the things that really stuck me were the incredible
wide pools of water lilies and lotuses that were next to the conservatory
building. The quiet beauty of the plants held me breathless. The written
information near the gardens said that the plants’ roots were underwater
and that many of the flowers open with the sun and close at night. That
fascinated me. Looking at the beauty of the leaves and the amazing
variety of petals-so delicate looking yet so sturdy-I was transfixed.
They definitely made a lasting impression.
The
next time I encountered lotuses and water lilies was years later when I
was a high school teacher. I taught the ancient Sumerian epic, Gilgamesh, and the lotus was a central and symbolic part of the story. I
loved the whole story of King Gilgamesh and the way it established
so many of the motifs and patterns of the modern hero tale. But I
particularly loved the symbolism that was woven all though the epic,
especially the symbols played by the lotus. As I learned more about the
plant I could see how and why the lotus became a symbol for so many important
ideas, thoughts and concepts central to human existence. Found on many
continents, it readily found a home in many mythological traditions and
was given an amazing number of meanings-being firmly planted in and
standing on something; rising above one’s beginnings; rising out of a
‘mess” and becoming beautiful; using elemental things such as dirt and
mud as a source for transformation; being born in water; emerging
transformed; all of these important ideas and more became bound-up with
this plant. Ancient Egyptians saw it as a symbol of fertility, life,
sexuality,youth and eternity. The early Hebrews and Christians saw it in
those ways and also as a sign of faith, purity, and both God’s promise
and ability to deliver good out of bad. It meant enlightenment, purity
and beauty to Buddhists. It is one of the most universal of all plant
symbols.
But
the true power and beauty of the lily and the lotus really hit me when
we first visited Kenilworth National Park in Washington DC. We were
looking for a place to go hiking when we were planning a trip to DC, and
we read about this park. A drive along a crowded highway, a turn through
a
typical urban neighborhood, and there in the midst of the city of DC
sat
a wonderful 50+ acres of tidal wetlands, the Anacostia River,
and hundreds of amazing water lilies and lotuses. The first time we
visited we were blown away by the trails that took us through different
habitats and the bridges that took us over different vantage points of
the wetlands. There were literally hundreds of different types of
wildlife here: herons egrets, and kingfishers; turtles, frogs and
butterflies,
and especially an endless sea of all types of lilies and lotuses. There
were white
ones, blue ones, red and pink ones, small ones, massive ones, tall ones,
round ones, and so much more. We had planned to spend maybe an hour
there, and we ended up spending more than three hours on various trails,
in the gardens, in the visitor center and sitting on bridges and
marveling at the color and the wetlands. Moreover, we learned that
there was an annual Water Lily Festival in July when all of the plants
were in bloom and all the gardens were open. We had the pleasure of
going
this year, and it was almost overwhelming to see all of different types
and colors of plants, the caterpillars,all the different birds, the many
butterflies and more.
It was simply stunning, and I was grateful that we had stumbled onto the
joys of Kenilworth much as we had stumbled upon the campsites at
Ivylea. And the festival really heightened my appreciation of and
gratitude for the
little pools of water lilies and lotuses at Ivylea.
So
this has been a “Year of the Lilly and The Lotus” for the Colgan-Davis crew. We have
been fortunate to have both quiet, small-scale time with them in Canada as well as
some wonderfully big and over-the top time in DC. They have provided beauty,
calm, and wonderment. And we are so glad to be in their presence and
blessed by their comfort. They are another example of the incredible and
quiet magic that is available to all of us in this thing we call the
world. And it is there for all of us to notice, to enjoy, and to be moved and quietly energized by. It is wonderful.
(Here are some Canadian Blues artists on YouTube that we first heard in Kingston)
The Harpooinst and the Axe Murderer
Paul Reddick
DawnTyler Watson:
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