One of the lovely lessons of this year are those delivered by things I usually appreciate largely in passing. Instead of glancing at something pretty, I stop now, and really take it in. There’s time.

And in the passing of time, I have begun to see the evolution of brief lifetimes. So it is with the lotus in my fishpond. There are two stems this year, budding and flowering separately. Ah, the magnificent lotus! Without going anywhere, it graces its world with cymbal-sized leaves.

These sacred flowers first appeared on my radar years ago when my friend Alex, a middle-school math teacher (bless her!), spoke of opening her students’ minds as if they were lotus flowers. A few years ago, after being entranced by them on a journey to Egypt’s Nile River, both lotus and papyrus began making regular appearances among the plants in my fishpond.

Some sources credit the lotus with being among the most spiritual flowers on Earth. Many regard it as a symbol of purity, enlightenment, beauty, and rebirth. An aquatic lily, it grows in mud, and yet offers up a magnificent flower. The symbol offered by a plant that emerges thus from the muck, for Buddhists, represents purity of the body, speech and mind—a handy touchstone for this troubled year. In 2020, my fishpond lotus has offered a powerful opportunity to witness its transitions: stem to bud to flower to seedpod. The metaphor for the larger, darker times is obvious.

The lotus is a supersized flower, eight or more inches in diameter. This is necessary, because it carries enormous symbolic weight that wends across many centuries, cultures, and religions. It is one of the eight auspicious symbols of Buddhism. The Tibetan mantra of “om mani padme hum” directly invokes “the jewel inside the lotus.” In ancient Egypt, the lotus represented creation, rebirth, and the sun (and also the number 1,000). For Hindus, it is the sacred flower of life, representing “purity, beauty, eternity, prosperity, and fertility.” For yoga practitioners who practice something called the lotus position, lessons gained include the “ability to unfold, enlighten, expand, and bloom.” [Source: myzentemple.com/blogs/news/spiritual-symbolism-of-the-lotus-flower accessed July 21, 2020] It is, indeed, divine.

Beyond all the symbolism, though, the lotus offers us one of nature’s most stunning flowers. I step out to visit it in the morning light, and continue to see it from the room where I often sit to read. The peace of this place is held consciously for all those without such good fortune. The lotus is integral to that practice, and I offer it with peace and love.