Sunflowers

There’s something deliciously exuberant and indulgent about sunflowers! They are flowers to the max! The uber-flower! No wonder insects get dizzy with ecstasy when they visit flowers! There’s a field of sunflowers near my house. Some of them have spilled over into a little hollow in the ground next to the field, beneath a tree. In summer it’s a wonderful place to lie down and read or sunbathe or just look at the sky. A bank of moss, short grass and tiny daisies sits amongst the rogue sunflowers that have escaped from the field. I lie down on it with my feet pointing upwards towards the sky. It’s a steep bank so it’s almost like hanging upside down. Sometimes it’s good to see the world the wrong way up. Because there’s something wrong with the world, I’m thinking on this particular day. It has too much knowledge perhaps, or too many ‘facts’ or people who think they know the facts. Everyone has their own myth, and that’s okay. But why can’t we just leave other people with their myths and stick to ours without having to disagree? That seems to be the problem. What use is it to claim to have the facts if no-one is going to listen, I thought. The sunflowers at least seemed to be nodding in agreement! They have a different agenda, I thought to myself. The sunflower is all about desire! And aren’t us humans really also about desires more than knowledge. We try to hide it, but it shows through. Babies and kids know better. For them, life is sniffing, sucking, licking, chewing, devouring, stroking, caressing, hugging, embracing! Why don’t we just look with wonder at the world? Why do we feel the need to suppress all those desires we had as kids when we become adults? So, sooner or later, we are caught up in a lie. Sooner or later we force ourselves to do things we hate and pretend to enjoy them, to tolerate people that we loathe rather than running away from them. Before long we have forgotten what we really want and what we truly like. And when you do that you might as well say you’ve forgotten who you are. I stretch one leg up towards the sky and put one arm back behind my head, arching my back and tilting my head. Yes, I’m thinking, it’s an upside down world! Al of that desire sits in the body. We are always yearning, hungering, aspiring, lusting, relishing, savouring, admiring. We are in ecstasy or agony, melancholy or elation, boredom or fascination. Why deny it? Why not live our desires and be unashamed to tell other people how we really feel about our lives. The sunflowers have got it right!

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