Flower to Fruit Transformation

In the ‘About Me’ section of my blog, I wrote how I loved the constancy and adaptiveness of Nature.  The constancy of Nature occurs in the cyclical motion of the seasons.  After a warm, beautiful summer, we know that fall will be easing in and pleasing us with her gorgeous leaf colors and bountiful harvest of pumpkins, apples, carrots, and many other delights.  We also know what will be coming after that!  This predictable evolution of seasons is marked with transformation, metamorphosis, and change.

In less than three month’s time, the bright white blossoms of the wild plum tree are transformed into ripening fruit surrounded by changing leaves.

The woodland Jack in the Pulpit has become a stalk of brightly colored  fruits.

The amazing Buckeye tree with its prolific early summer blooms is now covered with fruit that contains the shiny, brown nut-like seeds.

The delicate wild rose flowers have changed into sturdy rose hips that contain the seeds.

And the dangling white-green flowers of Solomon’s seal are now dark, plump pairs of fruit.

These short-term transformations are really all about Nature doing what Nature does–producing seeds for future growth.  The plants adapted to a late spring, a soggy June, a dry July, and a cool August–and still got their work done!  The seeds for next year’s ‘crop’ have been produced.

Perhaps I like Nature’s adaptability to change and its many stories of transformation because I’m not very good at change myself.  My love of routine and of the things I like, keeps me sailing on a calm sea.  If change is coming, I like to see it coming.  Nature reminds us that we really aren’t as much in control as we think we are.  There is a rhythm to life, a development, a change, a transformation, a metamorphosis, a conversion, a shift, a remodeling that innately runs through our lives–and then it happens again and again and again.  So I will try to take my cues from Nature–to be open to change and up for the task of transformation.