"A Rose From Rick's Garden" (Image & Text Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
“Where there is love, there is life.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
There are some mornings that do not rush in with urgency, but instead arrive like a soft breath upon the world. This is one of them.
I sit here with my mug—my necessary, almost sacred, cup of coffee warming my hands—and feel that gentle awakening that comes not just from caffeine, but from noticing. From seeing. Outside, the northwoods are shifting. Just days ago, the trees stood bare and waiting, their branches etched like charcoal against the sky. And now…now they are touched with the faintest green, like lace woven by some patient, unseen hand.
Spring does not shout its arrival. It whispers.
And in that whisper, I find myself thinking of this rose.
A bloom from a dear friend’s garden, captured years ago, yet somehow more alive now than ever. It holds within it something beyond its petals—something luminous, something tender. When I look at it, I do not merely see a flower. I feel love. I feel compassion. I feel the quiet, enduring truth that beauty—real beauty—is something we give to one another.
Rumi’s words drift into this moment as naturally as the morning light:
“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”
What a simple, extraordinary invitation.
To be a lamp—offering light where there is darkness.
To be a lifeboat—steady and present when the waters grow rough.
To be a ladder—helping another rise, even if only by a step.
And perhaps, like this rose, we are not asked to do these things in grand, sweeping gestures. Perhaps we are meant to do them quietly, naturally—by simply being who we are at our best. By choosing kindness when indifference would be easier. By offering warmth when the world feels cold. By listening. By caring.
Outside, the morning deepens. Patricia Barber’s “The Girl from Ipanema” drifts through the room, her voice like silk, like memory, like a soft companion to the light filtering through the windows. The coffee is just right now—no longer scalding, not yet cool. The kind of perfect that only lasts a moment…unless we notice it.
And so this day begins.
Not with a demand, but with a gentle question:
How will we bloom today?
How will we be the lamp, the lifeboat, the ladder…for someone, somewhere?
The rose does not strive to be beautiful. It simply is.
And in that being, it offers everything.
May we do the same.
Wylddane
There are some mornings that do not rush in with urgency, but instead arrive like a soft breath upon the world. This is one of them.
I sit here with my mug—my necessary, almost sacred, cup of coffee warming my hands—and feel that gentle awakening that comes not just from caffeine, but from noticing. From seeing. Outside, the northwoods are shifting. Just days ago, the trees stood bare and waiting, their branches etched like charcoal against the sky. And now…now they are touched with the faintest green, like lace woven by some patient, unseen hand.
Spring does not shout its arrival. It whispers.
And in that whisper, I find myself thinking of this rose.
A bloom from a dear friend’s garden, captured years ago, yet somehow more alive now than ever. It holds within it something beyond its petals—something luminous, something tender. When I look at it, I do not merely see a flower. I feel love. I feel compassion. I feel the quiet, enduring truth that beauty—real beauty—is something we give to one another.
Rumi’s words drift into this moment as naturally as the morning light:
“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”
What a simple, extraordinary invitation.
To be a lamp—offering light where there is darkness.
To be a lifeboat—steady and present when the waters grow rough.
To be a ladder—helping another rise, even if only by a step.
And perhaps, like this rose, we are not asked to do these things in grand, sweeping gestures. Perhaps we are meant to do them quietly, naturally—by simply being who we are at our best. By choosing kindness when indifference would be easier. By offering warmth when the world feels cold. By listening. By caring.
Outside, the morning deepens. Patricia Barber’s “The Girl from Ipanema” drifts through the room, her voice like silk, like memory, like a soft companion to the light filtering through the windows. The coffee is just right now—no longer scalding, not yet cool. The kind of perfect that only lasts a moment…unless we notice it.
And so this day begins.
Not with a demand, but with a gentle question:
How will we bloom today?
How will we be the lamp, the lifeboat, the ladder…for someone, somewhere?
The rose does not strive to be beautiful. It simply is.
And in that being, it offers everything.
May we do the same.
Wylddane
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