SUNFLOWER CELEBRATION by Esther Leisher
[Esther Leisher is a frequent contributor to this site, who will also be presenting a workshop called "Create Your Own Family Celebrations" at the Whole Parent, Whole Family conference in Boulder in October, 2006. Here she shares a spontaneous summer festival from when her children were young.]
Imagine a dry, rocky land with few wildflowers, and those few so precious. Then imagine a year of abundant rain, flowers everywhere, and in an open space, nature’s own forest of sunflowers. Late one afternoon--a dreary time when nothing ever seems quite right--though I felt too tired to do anything and supper was not yet started, on the spur of the moment I decided we should celebrate sunflowers. Paul, 1½ , had just become confident in his walking. Laurel was four. Off we went down the road to the sunflower place. I took a small pair of scissors in hopes that the Sunflower Spirit would give us some flowers for our hair.
Past yellow-topped rabbit bush, purple asters and orange globe mallow, we came to the magical place of the Sunflower Forest. We looked in awe at the plants that grew so tall they were over my head. We walked through the cool green light with its ceiling of sunshine and broad yellow flowers. It must have seemed to Laurel and Paul that the sunflowers overhead were far away, practically up to the sky.
Through the forest we went, and back again. Then we asked a few “sunflower trees” if we might have some of their out-of-the-way flowers, since there was such an abundance. (We do not pick wild flowers ordinarily, and I feel strongly about this.) That special year the answer seemed to be “Yes,” so we cut some, carefully and reverently, asking each plant which ones it might like to give us. (I use scissors because they make a clean cut that is sealed.) We put the sunflowers in button holes, belts, our hair, anyplace they would stay. Covered with sunflowers, we became sunflower people. When we got home, the joy of sunflowers upon us, our favorite person, the father of this family, came walking up the hill, got a camera and took a picture of the “sunflower people.”
It’s been many years since that summer of abundance, and such sunflowers have not come again. We caught a special moment, uniquely memorable. More elaborate festivals are delightful, but even without planning or preparation many special celebrations can be created out of the moment.
