Gardening is my favorite thing to do besides photography. I get my exercise, prayer time, and relaxation by digging in dirt and taking care of plants I have brought up since seeds. At first I thought gardening and photography were two separate things in my life. Gardening was a way to recoup when photography took too much out of me.
But every once in a while, the two cross, and I gain lessons from plants that don't talk. It happened to me just the other day.
I was looking around at my favorite flowers that had bloomed in the summer: my monstrous sunflowers, Queen Anne's lace, and a few others that I know aren't going to last much longer. In that moment, I wished they could be around forever, always there to greet me in the morning. That thought caused a realization.
These beautiful flowers don't bloom all year round; they take breaks and spend months underground strengthening their roots. In their dormant state, they are growing stronger to protect themselves against the elements, gathering all the energy they can little by little. By the time they are called to bloom again, they are bigger, better, and more beautiful than before.