A Message - from Bulbs

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It's spring and things are starting to wake up from their "winter slumber". The snowdrops have already come and gone and over the last week our daffodils and hyacinth have begun to bloom. These flowers not only herald the coming of spring, but also can teach us life lessons. Before going into my own thoughts, I want to give a shout out to Lee Wallas who was a social worker and hypnotherapist. In her book "Stories for the Third Ear, she shares metaphoric stories she used with many of her clients to help them heal. One of these stories is about a narcissus bulb and got me thinking about one simple and one maybe more complex lesson these bulbs can teach us.

The simple message is this - sometimes the quiet, dark times in our lives are needed for rest and recovery. Wait what? Well think about this - we plant dormant bulbs in the fall in order to see their full beauty and splendor in the spring. Why? So they can spend the Winter in the dark, cold earth becoming grounded and establishing the root system they need to take in water and nutrients from the spring rains. It's not until they have grown this root system, in the quiet and dark of winter, that they can emerge strong and beautiful into Spring's warmth and light. So when we have times where we want to withdraw from the world, turn inward and just tuck ourselves away from everything - maybe that's our instinct or spirit (depending on your perspective) telling us we need to take time to re-ground ourselves and focus on growing our roots - in order to emerge back into the world around us and share our beautiful gifts. And maybe we can even reframe depression as a message that we need to focus inward and nurture ourselves so we can heal. I'm not denying that there's a biochemical basis for depression, and that some people may need medication in order to heal. But research tells us that the combination of cognitive restructuring and medication has the greatest chance of leading to long term recovery from depression. So maybe it could help to rethink how we understand symptoms of depression. And maybe bulbs can help us think differently about the importance of quiet darkness for healing and eventual growth.

Which brings us to the second, and maybe more complicated lesson. The myth of how the narcissus bulb came into being. This is a story about the importance of balance. Not to bore you with history and literature too much - but this myth grew out of Roman mythology and probably Ovid's Metamorphosis. The story has two main characters: Narcissus and Echo. Short version is this. Narcissus was the son of a god and a nymph. Echo was a nymph. Narcissus was exceptionally beautiful. One day Echo saw him in the woods and fell in love with him. But there was a catch - she couldn't speak, only echo his words. So she followed him around and longed for him, but didn't have any independent capacity to speak for herself. So he got bored with her and rejected her. She eventually wasted away while longing for him and he went on his merry way. Until one day he saw his own reflection in a stream. He fell in love with himself and became so entranced with his own image, he couldn't look away. So he too wasted away - staring at the reflection of himself and longing for love that he couldn't have. Because well - it was just a reflection. Of him. After he died his body then transformed (by metamorphosis) into a narcissus flower. WOW - so what can we learn from that story? Well, the myth is often interpreted as a lesson on the risk of obsession in relationships. Echo's with someone else - which led to her decline and Narcissus' with himself - which led to his. So the moral to the story? Healthy self love isn't obsessive and allows us to focus on other people too. Healthy love of another allows us to have our own voice and independence while being in relation with the other.

Who knew there was so much to bulbs? Especially the narcissus bulb!?!