The Brightest Inner Lights Sometimes Get Extinguished. Thank you Kayla Mueller.

Sometimes a moment strikes such a deep chord in me that I have to stop.  I was out photographing the Chassahowitzka River last weekend, about which I will post a blog soon.  I had been within and along the riparian landscape.  The usual issues were cropping up, and the usual contrasts–amazing beauty juxtaposed against invasive species that are causing all kinds of havoc.  I was alternately happy and sad.  Glad to see such glorious trees and undisturbed banks, but then saddened to see that even here the chemicals we pour onto the earth are seeping in and causing massive disturbances under and even above water on the slow moving parts.  I was starting to give up hope.

Then, on the way home,  I rounded a corner and started paddling up toward Crab Creek Spring.  Suddenly, I saw this beautiful day lily about to unfurl in various stages.  The petals seemed resolute on opening and expanding.  There was no hesitation that it might not be a good idea, that the world they were opening into might not be all it was cracked up to be.  It was this blossom's time.  The light was good, the nutrients, the blossom was doing what it came onto this earth to do.  Opening, shining some bright inner energy that could not be contained.   You can see it here.   Nothing has been sullied yet.  There are no crimped edges, tainted parts.  

To some it might not have looked like much.  Many would have preferred the mature, wide open plant, the full blossom.  But to me, this is what I wanted to access in my life again.  This determination, this innocence, this state of pure potentiality, where all the bad news around you does not make you give up.  Where you want to open, must open, to shine whatever light you have and bridge gaps while raising the vibration of this planet.  The moment I saw Kayla Mueller's face on television, I knew she was one of these lights and I immediately empathized with her and what she had been trying to do.  Her face has stuck with me all day.  I could feel and see the love she was trying to share.  To her, on her path out of this world, I offer these flowers in gratitude.