“You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.”
— Alain De Botton (contemporary philosopher and author)
Happy Leap Year day! Numerology tells us the leap year is a lucky year, hence the energies are higher and filled with enthusiasm, optimism, compassion and love[1]. So I celebrated enthusiastically last night with a glass or three of Chilean Syrah, contemplating what a year the last few weeks had been. As I supped from the cup of wisdom, my eyes fixed upon the vase of daffodils in the middle of the living room table.
The flowers, which I had procured as buds on stems from Lidl at around lunchtime yesterday, appeared to be blossoming before my eyes. I watched in awe of their proliferation over the last few hours and, with John Lennon’s “Just like starting over” whirring in my head, I began to grasp why they represent the essence of Spring, the embodiment of the velocity of change and the meaning of the saying “this too, shall pass”.
Trumpeting in the sounds of Spring
I admire green-fingered folk but, as someone who is on the opposite end of the spectrum to them, I had never really thought much about daffodils, apart from their beaming yellow beauty, nor had I known what they signify. That was until the end of January, when my seven-year-old nephew gave me 10 buds as a birthday present. He deftly selected them despite the range of other brightly-coloured, flowering bouquets at the store.
We don’t know why he chose those in particular other than perhaps learning at school that these “Lilies of Lent” bring happiness to their recipients and hope that Winter would gradually dissipate. But from their early stages of life on my sister’s dining room table, where we ate lunch, to sunset, the green stems had started to replace their pedestal with small, yet feisty flowers, and by the following morning they had fully embraced the day like floral sunshine.
Now if you’re anything like me, you might be vaguely interested to learn that daffodils are one of the first perennials to bloom after the winter frost. Their roots instantly begin to absorb water, which journeys up through long stems to nourish the bulbs surmounted by a cup – or trumpet–shaped corona that holds them together.
And in those cold, dark February weeks that followed, I held onto this fact and to daffodils’ promise of Spring, making notes for this blog. Putting fingers to keyboard, I pictured their bright jubilation as the yellow flower victoriously trumpets in the sounds of Spring, drowning out the winds of storms Ciara and Dennis that had ripped through the month like shrieking preludes to something really bad.
Remembering this perfect end-of-January gift helped to brighten up the day with the promises of new beginnings. It was also the perfect antidote to a month of fading New Year’s resolutions and militant goal setting.
In some ways watching daffodils and what they represent offers some perspective and reminders that good things come to those who wait. It also epitomises the importance of being present, waiting for things to unfold, a bit like daffodil buds do naturally.
With that I made it a little mission of the month to invest in daffodils regularly and on a visit to the family in Kent last week, exactly one month after receiving daffodils from my nephew, I reciprocated this gift with some more daffodils. I was even more impressed to see a photo, taken a week later, that captured their persistent flowering.
Reciprocating with daffodils
Inspired by their tenacity, I went out looking for some new daffodil buds and stems yesterday. And, as I walked into Lidl for a bottle of Chilean Syrah, I saw a bucket of water with just two bunches of shy daffodil buds on stems.
With Leap Year day around the corner and only a few weeks before the start of Spring, I bought the two bunches, hopeful that by the next day they will have turned into something wonderful. As luck and nature would have it, they did. And all I had to do was wait and watch with patience for them to gradually unfold.
Hot tip for the day: Pick up a bunch of daffodil buds on stems at Lidl (95pence) and enjoy these quirky daffodil facts
[1] https://spiritualexperience.eu/spiritual-meaning-of-leap-year/