Dear Reader:

I spent most of Tuesday night running outside with my flashlight to try to get the last bloom unfurling from the last bud on my moon flower trellis.

Bless its heart….the spiral bud began unfurling late in the afternoon but it appeared to be stuck. This late in the season it must not have had enough “umph” to completely unfurl that last flap.

(Below) Left picture taken at 5 and last photo taken at 10 p.m. that night. The second shot…was literally a shot in the dark. I put the flashlight on it first…then switched hands…and took the photo shot in the dark. See how close the last bloom of the season came to fully unfurling…it was just one last “push” away…but sadly when I returned at 10:30…it was closing up shop…for the season.

But oh what a season it was….thanks to Anne’s generosity…giving me two beds of moon flower sprigs ready to transplant.

Moon flowers literally unfurl from one tiny “spiral” bud into a glorious piece of natural beauty that stands alone in its gift to the world.

From this…to this!

Anne still has two spiral moon flower buds left to open.

Even Jake turning six for his birthday ended up in a spiral! 🙂

The spiral has been revered as a sacred token of rebirth and eternity from ancient civilizations to the present day.

It, too, is a symbol of humans’ passage through this life on this planet.

Anne asked me if I didn’t give her a book about nature’s examples of spirals…and I sent a photo copy of it as a reminder…it is written for “curious children” but I must still be one…because I sat looking at all the pictures in the book of nature in spirals and was dumbfounded…like in the title photo today at all the natural spirals in life. (And this is just one page from the book….it is mind-boggling.)

An elephant trunk, a snake curled up, animals in hibernation, plants of every kind imaginable, sea shells, eye of a hurricane, cucumber tendril, a monkey’s tail, a seahorse, a pine cone, a rose….the list could go on and on….here are a few more examples from the book.

A hibiscus, a sunflower, a gardenia….and now think big….ocean waves hitting shore.

Spirals are mind-boggling because once you see them…suddenly as you walk around…you can’t see anything but them. In France door handles are decorated in spirals, homes and stores are filled with them in their decor…French women also wear lots of spiral jewelry honoring this sacred shape and symbol!

So until tomorrow….Isn’t life amazing? Pause and think about it for a moment…don’t we spend our whole life symbolically unfurling until we finally bloom according to God’s timing…revealing our total selves…our spirit within our bodies for the world to see? What a glorious day!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Anne sent these two photos she took of sunflowers here and in Massachusetts in Sherry’s yard…the spiral is beautiful in both.