Blossom
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein
As I unpack this web project in the coming months, it will eventually include a personal “Bucket List” that was created many years ago before a movie popularized the term. In my top five is an aggressive wish comprised of many pieces – visit every National Park in the United States. In 1912, the British Ambassador to the U.S. referred to these parks as “The best idea America ever had.” I call them a National treasure. Number 59 came on line in early 2013, but we keep planning and plugging away with the current “been there” count at 44. This latest was achieved recently: Saguaro National Park just outside of Tucson, Arizona.
On the island of Maui, there is an enormous volcano that takes up approximately three quarters of the island’s landmass. The volcano’s 2 ½ mile wide crater is surrounded by Haleakala National Park created by the federal government in 1916. Many ascend the park’s highest summit at just over 10,000 feet, yet only a fraction of these visitors descend to the moonscape lava formations at the crater’s floor. Jack London described this place where “Saw-toothed waves of lava vexed the surface of this weird ocean.”
Amidst these bizarre shapes and textures, there exists an extremely unique plant found nowhere else in the world called the ahinahina, or Haleakala silversword. This amazing plant grows for about 50 years as a strange ball of metallic colored leaves, produces a single spire of bright red blossoms, and then it dies. Just like that. My obvious point being that this unusual living creature is actually very similar to the human experience. We spend nearly half a century growing, maturing, honing our skills, trying to look good, and then at some point, we all will die. That’s inevitable. But it’s the very nature of the blossom that intrigues me – what is it’s potential, what color is it; who will it inspire and to what extent? While hiking in the aforementioned Saguaro National Park, I learned this particular desert cactus doesn’t grow its first “arm” until around 75 years of age. And the arms are grown to increase reproductive capacity – three quarters of a century before ready to replicate!
I’ve suggested that we take clues from simple things like leaves, and I’m further encouraging us to absorb a stunning page taken directly out of nature’s incredible playbook. All that growing and maturing undoubtedly prepares us for a specific purpose. I sincerely believe that our ultimate “blossom” should be colorful and it should be bold. I think it should be leveraged to inspire.
It isn’t any good if nobody gets to see it.