The Daffodil Principle

[Goose]

Just wanted to pass along this great story I think you'll will enjoy on a rainy day.


The story begins with a daughter cajoling her mother to take a drive with her, even though it was a cold and foggy day. The daughter named Carolyn told me, “you will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience. After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and saw a small church. On the side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign that read, “Daffodil Garden.”

We got out of the car and I followed Carolyn down the path. As we turned a corner of the path, I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious great vat of gold poured down over the mountain peak and slops. The flowers were planted in a majestic, swirling patterns-great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron and butter yellow. Each different colored variety was planted as a group so that it twirled and flowed like its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

'But who has done this?' I asked. 'It's just one women', Carolyn answered. 'She lives on the property. That's here home. Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house. On the patio we saw a poster. Answers to the Questions I know You Are Asking, was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. “50,000 bulbs,” it read. The second answer was, “one at a time, by one women, two hands, two feet, and one very small brain.” The third answer was “Began in 1935.”

There it was. The Daffodil Principle. For me that moment was a life changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who more than 50 years before, had begun, --one bulb at a time-- to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top. Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year had changed the world. This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she live. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time – often one baby step at a time -learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time.

When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small amounts of daily effort, we too find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world. “It makes me sad in a way, I admitted to Carolyn. “What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal 40 or 50 years ago and worked at it 'one bulb at a time' through the years. Just think what I might have been able to achieve!” My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. “Start tomorrow,” she said.

Let us start tomorrow planting our bulbs, sowing our seeds, pruning our bushes, preparing our beds, doing all those things in our lives that help us prepare the resurrection, for its coming.




Happy Easter SB'ers