holiday

Rebirth? It must be a process of growth occurring after a death? Or, at least, a near death. I was thinking of that late last night; the revival of one's soul and health after being stagnant, moribund. My little ceramic pot sitting on my window sill holds a flowery plant. I am a horrible botanist- I have no idea what it is. But its blooms are a lovely shade of pink and it's very pretty. I am also a horrible gardener, but have tried to take care of it properly: I've watered it and talked to it. (The ferns and other things I have growing in various pots next to it are doing fairly well also. Except for the Mint, who is thoroughly dead, which is sad since it smelled delicious. It was supposed to be planted outdoors I was told, but I didn't think it mattered that much.) Because of my poor plant tending skills my little pink plant has had a pretty rough life. And the other day, it looked dreadful; definitely worse than usual. It's smooth stems were painfully drooping over and most of the petals had fallen off or had turned a ghastly ashen color. It looked as if it was gasping for breath-- its last dying breaths. I watered it again; which is my instinctive cure-all for every plant-ish kind of growing thing. But now it looked even worse, it was gasping for breath while melting in a puddle of water. A couple of mornings later I was very surprised to see it was alive. And- not only was it alive- but its stems were gracefully standing upright, with the delicate pink returned to its petals, as it gently bent towards the sun shining through the window. It looked marvelous. Strong. And so, that's what has drawn my mind down the path of contemplating birth, rebirth and regeneration. I wonder if it is true in every case-- if the life one lives after regeneration, is more beautiful than the life one had before?