The Daffodil Principle
Jaroldeen
Asplund Edwards, autor.
Hay historias que nos pueden
inspirar cuando más lo necesitamos. Les dejo una bella historia del Daffodil
Principle. LV
The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the
greatest principle of celebration: learning to move toward our goals and
desires one step at a time -- often just one baby-step at a time -- learning to
love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time.
When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small
increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent
things. We can change the world.
The Daffodil
Principle
Several times my
daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come and see the
daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a
two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. Going and coming took most of a
day--and I honestly did not have a free day until the following week.
"I will
come next Tuesday ", I promised, a little reluctantly, on her third
call.
Next Tuesday
dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I drove the length of
Route 91, continued on I-215, and finally turned onto Route 18 and began to
drive up the mountain highway. The tops of the mountains were sheathed in
clouds, and I had gone only a few miles when the road was completely covered
with a wet, gray blanket of fog. I slowed to a crawl, my heart pounding. The
road becomes narrow and winding toward the top of the mountain.
As I executed
the hazardous turns at a snail's pace, I was praying to reach the turnoff at
Blue Jay that would signify I had arrived. When I finally walked into Carolyn's
house and hugged and greeted my grandchildren I said, "Forget the
daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in the clouds and fog, and there is
nothing in the world except you and these darling children that I want to
see bad enough to drive another inch!"
My daughter
smiled calmly," We drive in this all the time, Mother."
"Well, you
won't get me back on the road until it clears--and then I'm heading for
home!" I assured her.
"I was
hoping you'd take me over to the garage to pick up my car. The mechanic just
called, and they've finished repairing the engine," she answered.
"How far
will we have to drive?" I asked cautiously.
"Just a few
blocks," Carolyn said cheerfully.
So we buckled up
the children and went out to my car. "I'll drive," Carolyn offered.
"I'm used to this." We got into the car, and she began driving.
In a few minutes
I was aware that we were back on the Rim-of-the-World Road heading over the top
of the mountain. "Where are we going?" I exclaimed, distressed to be
back on the mountain road in the fog. "This isn't the way to the garage!"
"We're
going to my garage the long way," Carolyn smiled, "by way of the
daffodils."
"Carolyn,"
I said sternly, trying to sound as if I was still the mother and in charge of
the situation, "please turn around. There is nothing in the world that I
want to see enough to drive on this road in this weather."
"It's all
right, Mother," She replied with a knowing grin. "I know what I'm
doing. I promise, you will never forgive yourself if you miss this
experience."
And so my sweet,
darling daughter who had never given me a minute of difficulty in her whole
life was suddenly in charge -- and she was kidnapping me! I couldn't believe
it. Like it or not, I was on the way to see some ridiculous daffodils --
driving through the thick, gray silence of the mist-wrapped mountaintop at what
I thought was risk to life and limb.
I muttered all
the way. After about twenty minutes we turned onto a small gravel road that
branched down into an oak-filled hollow on the side of the mountain. The Fog
had lifted a little, but the sky was lowering, gray and heavy with
clouds.
We parked in a
small parking lot adjoining a little stone church. From our vantage point at
the top of the mountain we could see beyond us, in the mist, the crests of the
San Bernardino range like the dark, humped backs of a herd of elephants. Far
below us the fog-shrouded valleys, hills, and flatlands stretched away to the
desert.
On the far side
of the church I saw a pine-needle-covered path, with towering evergreens and
manzanita bushes and an inconspicuous, lettered sign "Daffodil
Garden."
We each took a
child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path as it wound through the
trees. The mountain sloped away from the side of the path in irregular dips,
folds, and valleys, like a deeply creased skirt.
Live oaks, mountain
laurel, shrubs, and bushes clustered in the folds, and in the gray, drizzling
air, the green foliage looked dark and monochromatic. I shivered. Then we
turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most
glorious sight, unexpectedly and completely splendid. It looked as though
someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain peak
and slopes where it had run into every crevice and over every rise. Even in the
mist-filled air, the mountainside was radiant, clothed in massive drifts and
waterfalls of daffodils. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling
patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon
pink, saffron, and butter yellow.
Each
different-colored variety (I learned later that there were more than
thirty-five varieties of daffodils in the vast display) was planted as a group
so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue.
In the center of
this incredible and dazzling display of gold, a great cascade of purple grape
hyacinth flowed down like a waterfall of blossoms framed in its own rock-lined
basin, weaving through the brilliant daffodils. A charming path wound
throughout the garden. There were several resting stations, paved with stone
and furnished with Victorian wooden benches and great tubs of coral and carmine
tulips. As though this were not magnificence enough, Mother Nature had to add
her own grace note -- above the daffodils, a bevy of western bluebirds flitted
and darted, flashing their brilliance. These charming little birds are the
color of sapphires with breasts of magenta red. As they dance in the air, their
colors are truly like jewels above the blowing, glowing daffodils. The effect
was spectacular.
It did not
matter that the sun was not shining. The brilliance of the daffodils was like
the glow of the brightest sunlit day. Words, wonderful as they are, simply
cannot describe the incredible beauty of that flower-bedecked
mountain-top.
Five acres of
flowers! (This too I discovered later when some of my questions were answered.)
"But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn. I was overflowing with
gratitude that she brought me -- even against my will. This was a
once-in-a-lifetime experience.
"Who?"
I asked again, almost speechless with wonder, "And how, and why, and
when?"
"It's just
one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her
home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house that looked small and
modest in the midst of all that glory.
We walked up to the
house, my mind buzzing with questions. On the patio we saw a poster.
" Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline.
The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The
second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman, two hands, two feet, and
very little brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958."
There it was. The
Daffodil Principle.
For me that
moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never
met, who, more than thirty-five years before, had begun -- one bulb at a time
-- to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain-top. One
bulb at a time.
There was no
other way to do it. One bulb at a time. No shortcuts -- simply loving the
slow process of planting. Loving the work as it unfolded.
Loving an
achievement that grew so slowly and that bloomed for only three weeks of each
year. Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had
changed the world.
This unknown
woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created
something of ineffable magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.
The principle
her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principle of celebration:
learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time -- often just
one baby-step at a time -- learning to love the doing, learning to use the
accumulation of time.
When we multiply
tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we
can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.
"Carolyn,"
I said that morning on the top of the mountain as we left the haven of
daffodils, our minds and hearts still bathed and bemused by the splendors we
had seen, "it's as though that remarkable woman has needle-pointed the
earth! Decorated it. Just think of it, she planted every single bulb for more
than thirty years. One bulb at a time! And that's the only way this garden
could be created. Every individual bulb had to be planted. There was no way of
short-circuiting that process. Five
acres of blooms. That magnificent cascade of hyacinth!
All, all, just
one bulb at a time."
The thought of
it filled my mind. I was suddenly overwhelmed with the implications of what I
had seen. "It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn.
"What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal
thirty-five years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through
all those years.
Just think what
I might have been able to achieve!"
My wise daughter
put the car into gear and summed up the message of the day in her direct way.
"Start tomorrow," she said with the same knowing smile she had
worn for most of the morning. Oh, profound wisdom!
It is pointless
to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson a
celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, "How can I put
this to use tomorrow?"
Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards
Author
