Just Outside Your Door:  Wildflowers

The first year I did serious nature study where we are now, I focused on learning ALL the wildflowers we could find.  There were so many, from the common to the not so much.... Buttercups, daisy, creeping charlie, celandine, violets (in three colors) wild oats, wild strawberry, wild blueberry, wild ginseng, Indian cucumber, blue-eyed grass, bunch berry, lady slipper, common mullein, thistle, goat's beard, dandelion, hawkweed, sow thistle, speedwell, vetch, Jerusalem artichokes, pineapple weed, clover (in two varieties) and the list goes on.  That was four years ago.  FOUR.

Today, I was sitting by the pond in the same spot I always sit and beside me was a small white flower I hadn't seen before.  I picked it and it's leaves.  I had a moment of remorse, a "what if...." moment, too late.

Inside I grabbed both my Peterson's Guide to Wild Flowers and my Necomb's Wildflower Guide (I have a love hate relationship with that book!)  I was suprised how quickly the process for using Newcomb's returned.  There is a process by which you locate your plant by the details of the flower, the leaf placement and type.  It took me FOREVER to learn to use the book.  I have digressed.

This wildflower was easily identified as Star of Bethlehem, a small, white petalled, flower with basal leaves that are linear and complete.  The petals have green stripes on the backside.  Some websites sell it as a garden flowers, others taut it as a noxious weed.  (No more guilt over picking it.)  It comes from a winter bulb and apparently, spreads like crazy.

The flower symbolically brings a message of hope and purity.  It can also be symbolic for atonement and reconciliation.  

If you want to take it a step further and really get all the lessons you can out of this little flower, I found it's used in one of the Bach Flower Remedies - I haven't read about which one yet!  It has a short story written about it and a rather long poem (this coming from the woman who thought "Purple Cow" was long enough and anything that filled an entire book (Hiawatha) should not be called a poem.  Then there is the life of each writer .... literature, history, health, science ... and let's not forget the passage from Matthew where the star that guided the wise men is mentioned (Matthew 2:1-12).  All from one little white flower, just outside my door.

Take a moment and sit outside your door, what's there?  What can you learn about that one little thing that you've taken for granted for so long?