Nature’s Shades Of Mood

“One person’s weed is another person’s wildflower”(Susan Wittig Albert)

Have you ever felt like you could hold an exciting conversation with a flower or tree? For as humans, the natural landscapes that we encounter every day can provide numerous opportunities to make deep emotional connections in our lives. Consider this brief example that follows. Let’s say Julie, a newlywed mom was experiencing one of those days when so many of her new adult challenges seemed to go wrong. As she pondered a way out of her latest funk, her afternoon walk led her to unexpectedly wander into a public botanical garden. After paying keen attention to the colorful flowers, unusual shrubs and overgrown weeds in the wild there, she would later recollect how much happier she had felt at the time of this stroll. You might then understand Julie’s follow up desire to pursue a new hobby of adding new kinds of exotic greenery within the confines of her own home.

I now call your attention to our road trip visit to the University of California Arboretum in Santa Cruz this past Sunday afternoon. Accompanied by our close friends Bobbie and John, we conducted a one hour walking tour amid this extraordinary 5.5 acres of plant life diversity found throughout the world. In retrospect, I can report how exhilarating it felt to share my emotions with them about so many plant species from South Africa, Australia, and American Southwest environs that I had never seen before.


So take a look at the photographs collection from this recent botanical garden walk below. I’d be curious to know of any specific emotions you felt in browsing through these pictures. Feel free as well to share your thoughts about any particular kinds of  natural vegetation that would enhance your current home/work environment. My next road trip blog will take place amid the stunning setting of San Francisco by the Bay.

 

9 thoughts on “Nature’s Shades Of Mood”

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  3. What beautiful pictures. There is certainly something quite extraordinary looking at the diversity of the plant life you have displayed. Each one so unique in their coloring, the petals, the leaves and the plethora of shapes. And I was quite taken with one lone flower who made its way to the edge of a pathway. There was something magical about how it it found its way there all by itself. The rest seem to have been purposely planted but this little white flower seemed to have sprung up by sheer will alone and decided to plant itself and bloom. I know I’m adding personification to a plant, but there is something glorious about how they survive the elements. How they endure and come to life. We, human beings can learn a lot about survival and endurance from nature can’t we? Thank you for taking me on this delightful walk in the sunshine. 🌻🌺🌝

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      1. Yes, I can see how they do. Whenever I see beauty in nature I think of Henry David Thoreau or Wordsworth. Nature has inspired so many creative souls over the centuries. It speaks to us…

        “I wandered lonely as a cloud
        That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
        When all at once I saw a crowd,
        A host, of golden daffodils;
        Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
        Fluttering and dancing in the breeze”.

        For oft, when on my couch I lie
        In vacant or in pensive mood,
        They flash upon that inward eye
        Which is the bliss of solitude;
        And then my heart with pleasure fills,
        And dances with the daffodils.”

        W. Wordsworth

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  4. I loved the unspoken communion between the newly wed woman and her walk amidst nature. In silence, we recognise ourselves as a part of nature and are healed by it

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