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The Daffodil
Principle
Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards
This is a bit on the long
side but please take the time to read it ... it's WORTH it!!!
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 mountain top 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.
Answers
to the Questions
I Know You Are Asking
50,000 bulbs
One at a time
by one woman
two hands, two feet,
and very little
brain
Began in 1958
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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?"
Contributed
by
Janet
Ellis
Defining
Moments
Archives
Copyright
© 2006, Jace Carlton. All International Rights Reserved.
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