BEAUTY.IN.THE.EYES.OF.MY.FATHER.

This wonderful, gentle, yet thought provoking post has been written by

Sherrie De Valeria

It is here, on this blog https://sherriedevaleriahendrie.wordpress.com where Sherrie writes her personal blog, some small writings that comes from the Heart, perhaps some poetry or just anything that inspires, is funful and of full of hopes or dreams.

I walk silently toward the windows, holding my dark green mug of coffee and sipping this slowly. The heat rises from it and the scent overpowering the room with its dark perfume – coffee is holy. I cannot imagine starting my day even without a small drop of caffeine in my vein, otherwise, my whole system would disfunction and break down. Funny me, but I am.

The darkness is lifting and I watch a thin shaft of scarlet orange and lavender has creased over the horizon, setting the fields of grasses on fire with it glorious morning light. I pause and bow my head, saying my thanks as that is my habit to praise and praying that my day will be filled with blessings and of good things.

As I was watching the sunlight came right touching the surface of my garden, flooding the space of my kitchen at the same time with its paler shade of white and pink, I saw how the dark shadows stretching itself longer over the walls and the furniture. There were many misshapen shapes of shadows dancing everywhere and that reminds me of the last conversation I had with my father once about the expectation of life and how he sees beauty in it.

Like everyone else, my father also love flowers, but he was never keen to do gardening as my mother was. But when she died, something had changed his mind and he decided since then to take care of her garden and he adores the work of the garden very much. He can even turn an ugly green stone into art if he wants too, and he can arrange the flowers and write poetry with it with his gentle touches on the sand of time.

One day I came to find him doing sketches of a waterfall with giant orchids on both sides of the canvas. It was a very beautiful artwork and I sat next to him, watching him doing this silently. He lifted up his eyes often as he studying some of his flowers in the garden and from time to time stretching his pencil to the front as if he is measuring what he wants to draw.

It was then he abruptly turn to me and smiled. He said, “I do not live to search for the greatest things in this life like I used too. I search for its ‘true moments’ – just like what I am doing now. Do you know why?”

I shook my head.

“Because the ‘true moments’ are now to spend and you may have lost that ‘greatest things’ at the second you cared too much to look at the direction on bigger things. It is in the small moments like this that you watch ‘true beauty’. When your mother died, it was then that I understood her philosophy on life – her garden is the Zen of her Soul. Here in this garden is the centre of her Soul. You see those lights?” My father pointed up to the kemboja tree where my mother’s green marble Buddha figure stood.

“There when the wind blows, you can see how the tree sway and the flowers dance, you can see how the sunlight falls on those little shrubs,” He said, pointed out at it and walked to the tree. “I still ask the larger questions, but I do not do seek for the larger answers anymore. See at this shrubs – it is small, so ordinary and nothing more than an insignificant shrub. But you must really look at it to recognize its strong roots and full, with its own rich and private life that no one seeks to see even. Because we have never bothered.”

“See how the sunlight falls on everything here? Are any of us so different from all of these? We too, are strong, full of life and almost unnoticed? If I cannot see the miracle in these flowers or in those trees, why should I expect to see it in ideas and books?” He closed the conversation there and went back to sketch his drawing again – and in silence.

Here I stood at my windows, I watch my garden and see the flowers move as the wind comes and the trees swaying and the grasses dancing. Watching its movements as it plays around with the sunlight that falls on them, I see the Miracle of Beauty through that in the eyes of my father.

In my own garden, my flowers are the bearer of truth and it has its own wisdom to show and to tell of their own songs of nature. When the rain falls and the birds sing, that is when I see that we are all in this together – life to its fullest and beauty.

The way of the petals are written in philosophy
That shows the astronomical wisdom of ancient
Where the ways of old are wise
Set the illustration of arts itself
Where drawings are religion
And songs are incantations of Soul
Flowers are a whole universe of us
That encapsulates breath of Life
And the tree is a divine symbol of Knowledge
Hidden in roots and fruits
Tasted sweet like golden Honey
Where God engraved His name, Holy.