For a long time now, I have appreciated water features for their peacefulness and calm. I cannot walk by a pond or water feature without stopping to enjoy the serenity. My husband and I built a pond in our yard about 10 years ago and we have enjoyed it immensely. My pond is calm and peaceful, and I can spend time there enjoying the sound of the waterfall and the surrounding wildlife. Oddly enough, the sounds of nature and water only enhance the peacefulness of the pond, and are always welcome.
We have all kinds of birds and small animals that come to the pond; most are welcome, some are not. The squirrels come and we laugh at their antics and in return the pond provides life giving water for them. Have you ever seen a hummingbird take a bath? Quite a sight to see. They bathe; then they fly up into a tree, hang on tightly and flap their wings for all they are worth in order to dry off.
There are a lot of life lessons in our pond. While the pond seems dead and lifeless all winter long; there is life there, waiting for its time. When spring comes and the water warms, the fish begin to swim up to the surface and the plants produce beautiful fresh growth to take us through another season.
I want to tell you a life lesson I learned from the plants in my pond. I have a variety of plants including reeds, ribbon grass, water hawthorne, parrot feather and, of course, a water lily. The variety of plants in the pond adds color, scent and texture; and they play a large part in the healthy life cycle of the pond. The parrot feather is fine and lacy and while appearing fragile, is not very fragile at all. The smallest piece can be left in the water and it will grow. It can be planted, however it grows just as well free floating. I can almost always find a piece of parrot feather at the bottom of the current, pushed aside underneath the ribbon grass.
The way we built our pond was with the waterfall toward one end so the pond has a definite current from the waterfall down to the other end. I placed the water lily by the waterfall so that the lily pads would flow downstream in the current, instead of placing the lily at the bottom of the current and having the lily pads all wadded up at the end of the pond. We enjoyed our lily that year but the next spring it didn’t begin to grow. We purchased another lily and while it lasted the season, it also didn’t come up again the next year.
I waited a few years thinking we would do without a lily. Eventually, however, the temptation overcame me and I purchased another beautiful lily. At the time, the only place I had to put it in the pond was at the bottom of the current, so I put it there intending to rearrange the pond when time allowed. Then, the busyness of life took over and the lily never got moved.
The next season an interesting thing happened. The lily came up in the spring just as it was supposed to. Just as the other two had not. When it began growing lily pads, I noticed something fascinating. As the lily pads came up, they grew out into the current. They actually pressed upstream, against the current. The current had pushed all the other plants out of the way so as the lilies pressed out into the current, they became the center of attention for our pond. The dark, empty water around them was the perfect backdrop for their beautiful, bright hued blossoms.
The sight is breathtaking; the life lesson simple. I would rather be the strong insistent lily choosing to live out in the center of the current of life; instead of the beautiful, but feint-hearted parrot feather spending its life hidden under the ribbon grass, being pushed around by the current. Some wise person once said, “Anything worth having is worth fighting for”. Even Donald Trump, on a recent episode of The Apprentice said, “I wake up every day to a fight.” Of course, he isn’t referring to a literal fight, but to courageously taking on the events of the day in order to make things happen.
The funny thing is I don’t know for sure why the first two lilies didn’t survive into another season. Is it possible they couldn’t survive because their circumstances gave them nowhere to grow? We will never know.
Here is what I do know. Every day in my present heart, I choose to be a water lily, courageously growing out into the current of life, making things happen.
