In the rush of everyday life, we rarely take the time to look beyond the surface of things. We glance, we process the most critical items and mentally blur out the rest, and we move on. But this day's word, "Look", demands that we do more. That we look more deeply. That we move beyond the surface. That we not only use our eyes to collect information, but that we also use our hearts and minds to contemplate what we have seen.
My photo is a visual reminder to me to do just that. I have a scraggly purple mallow bush in my yard. The flowers are large--about the width of a coffee cup--with petals of a lovely shade of violet that fan out from a tight base. The fertile organs of the flower--the stigma and pollen-covered anthers--are hidden deep within the furled petals. If you just glance at the plant as you pass by, you only see the petals, and you think that's the only beautiful part, the most important part.
But that center is, for the life of the plant, the most important. And when you look, you realize it is lovely as well--the curved white sections of the stigma, and the brilliant yellow anthers rising up on their tiny stems. Such complexity! The purple petals are the perfect foil for the hidden treasure within. A treasure only visible when you take the time to look. To really look.
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