It was the wee hours of a Saturday morning. My 6 year old climbed on top of us, just to make sure that we dont waste this beautiful bright morning, lazing around after a tiring workweek. We got the hint soon enough and soon it was a din of suggestions, turning downs, what ifs, and where toshowever soon we managed to narrow down and stop at what time do we start. Well the plan of the day, was to visit a beautiful flower show in PA. There was nothing more exciting to look forward against a gorgeous sunny morn.

Somehow, nothing brightens up a day better than a flower. Doesnt it? Smiling and dancing in a beautiful sunlit day, and a gentle breeze. Often I looked at these delicious and sensuous objects and wondered, what is it in them that make them so innocent, so pure, and so lovely. I have pondered over this every time I have seen a flower, and believe me or not, this is what has intrigued me, since I was a child.

I came to realize, that a FLOWER has six unique characteristics that no single object possesses.

F Feeling

L Love

O Overwhelm

W Wonder

E Energy

R Renewal

Let me paraphrase it, to give them meaning. A flower is something that floods anyone who even glances at it with a FEELING of LOVE that OVERWHELMS you with WONDER and ENERGY for RENEWAL. Now lets try and explore each characteristic and see how they relate to a flower, smiling up at you.

FEELING: The moment you look at a flower, you are bathed in a sense of goodness. A sense of identity and sweet attachment. A strumming of the inner strings of our heart. A music of melancholy. A Feeling.

LOVE: Hasnt someone mentioned so rightly, that Love is equal to selflessness and sacrifice. So has someone truly defined that, you like something or somebody FOR what he or she or it means to you, but you Love the same, INSPITE of everything. When you see a flower smile up at you, expecting nothing, absolutely nothing, what can ever be a better example of love? It is even ready to sacrifice its own life, for your happiness when being gifted. In this act, it has again filled you with LOVE, through its selfless state of just being itself.

OVERWHELM: Looking at you, my cup runneth over. Truly filling. As you look at the beautiful soft object, of hues so varied, dancing, looking, it brims you with ecstasy. For a moment you forget everything. You feel like lingering there. You feel attached and wanted. You feel engulfed. You are overwhelmed.

WONDER: Its always new. It is always exciting. It fills you with charm and wonder. It makes you think why why couldnt everything in this world be as sweet and pure. Your eyes brighten with Joy. It widens with the shining glow of surprise. Coz its newalways new. The only reason why everything cannot be a flower is to preserve this feeling of wonder from monotony.

ENERGY: Did you take a moment to notice, how you are ready to run that extra mile, after you get a chance to appreciate a beautiful flower. If you havent, you should try to pause and actually observe this feeling. This is an object that has this unique ability to charge you with an energy, you can actually use to benefit. It fills you with an energy that soothes and calms you in a way that you are ready to start anything from scratch, all over again. The energy is untainted, its blissful, its divine. It actually differentiates being from becoming, shedding every aspect of pretence and deception within, and brings out an originality, that is the Truth.

RENEWAL: Give a depressed person any flower. Gift a dissatisfied lover a rose. It will make them smile. A person of renown once said, Smile is a curve that straightens many things. It eases and renews. Itll make you start anew. A flower can actually renew a life altogether. It fills boredom with newness. It gives you the encouragement you need to live the next moment. It sustains. It prevails. And it revives.

This saidwasnt it the best decision to visit the flower show that Saturday morning with the family. It sure was! Recharging, reviving and refilling our batteries of mundane existence, to live a new tomorrow or even fresh new moment. Oh I love my family they are my flowers in my dreary garden of routine. Imagine my excitement that day!!