The Beauty of Courage
The rose bud blooms neither with reckless overconfidence nor paralyzing fright, but with courage. The bud emerges from cellular transformations naturally guided by the bush. The blooming of the rose is the culmination of the greatest expression of the potentiality of that which nurtured its birth. What courage it takes to overcome the pains of dehydration, aphids, ice, or contaminated soil! Still, the bud lives to bloom and adapts as it follows its prime directive to express its own being.
I recently watched as several red buds appeared on a winter rosebush tricked by a brief warm spell. I anticipated lovely blooms to bring into my home and enjoy. As I watched the small buds slowly grow with their petals in a tight formation, they seemed to sag on their stems from their own weight and that of cold raindrops.
Memories arose within me of my own struggles to grow against forces trying to inhibit my own expansion. How difficult it was to open my inner self while my vulnerabilities were exposed to the uncertainties of the outer environment. The rose was facing its difficulties as another participant in the pattern of nature’s evolution.
I thought I would cut a stem holding a new bud and bring it into the warmth of the house so it might open. It seemed an unnatural interference, as if I were going to rip a nursing child from its mother’s loving breast. Instead, I watched over the next few days as the buds courageously grew, petals still tight, unwilling or unable to exert the final push to bloom. One morning, I found red petals on the dirt below like large drops of blood from a wound.
I gathered them and spread them on a small white plate. They lay there as if on a gravesite with me as the witness to the end of their story. Their courage did not go unnoticed or unappreciated. When they finally shriveled into precursors of dust, I spread them outside on the ground. Their courage did not blossom them into open roses but instead opened me to our shared existence.
The Beauty of Universal Courage is that by its action it expands Beauty. In the complex existence of life among life, all share access to the foundational force of Courage. It is available to overcome fear, pain, or grief as life continues its path of blooming into the unknown yet to be created. Sometimes when it seems that Courage fails, it may not be so. It may seem only to have failed from our limited understanding or expectation. Perhaps the rose buds tried to open but dropped their petals first so another pathway would occur.
After all, they were open on my plate, there to be appreciated and to be a reminder of times I, too, failed to bloom in the way I expected. In those times Courage was still present to redirect me, to offer its hand to me in my next adventure, and to remind me that always, always, Beauty holds my other hand.
I do not underestimate the force of Courage within each of us. It is there, waiting for our cry for guidance toward action during difficult times. It will stand within us as we choose to stand for what we must. Whatever the outcome, we will have succeeded, for to embrace Courage is to be simultaneously embraced by Beauty that gave birth to it.