Daffodil

When I was away on a mini solo retreat I was obsessed with the daffodils.

They were so bright and shining and unapologetically happy.

Confident, radiant and certain.

I wanted to take photos of them, be near them, look at them.

The weather was glorious, sunny and mild. Spring was emerging and I was feeling connected to a new sense of freedom.

But when I got home I realised that, although I’d been drawn to the daffodils, I hadn’t really let myself get close to them.

The photos I took were long distance shots.

I wondered why I had kept my distance when I had been so drawn to them?

I remembered thinking;

‘Daffodils are so showy, cultivated and mainstream. People should know more about the understated primrose (another spring flower), they have so much more value, they are so much more complex and mysterious.’

There was something about how I was perceiving, primrose that I felt safer identifying with - understated and subtle and less showy.

I became aware of how edgy it felt to identify with the qualities I was noticing in Daffodil.

In plant work we experience an edge and then an invitation. Daffodil was showing me parts of myself that I judge and therefore shut down, and in doing so was inviting me to look at where I might be contorting myself in order to stay acceptable to myself. Somewhere in my psyche it felt uncomfortable to be seen as confident, certain and radiant. In seeing my judgement of the plant I could see how I was judging myself.

If I dug into this I could see there was a concern that if i was too confident, too radiant that others may feel bad. My happiness might make someone else unhappy. But I could see in Daffodil an innocence. The radiance was infectious. Their happiness was attractive and brightening.

This interaction taught me something about my relationship to visibility. Somewhere I’m conscious of not being ‘showy’. It is safer to be understated. Daffodil in its radiance and certainty doesn’t allow for nuance or complexity and somewhere I identify with this. But there was something about the unapologetic happiness and radiance and certainty that I was really attracted to. I recognised myself in it.

In this mirroring I could see these qualities are in me and inviting me to see and let go of what I’m afraid people will think of me. Without knowing how this fear of judgement is driving how I relate to these aspects of myself I stay hidden and cut off from myself.

Daffodil interrupted the story of holding back for the sake of others and showed me where I’m hiding. She awakened qualities innate in me, something my inner child recognised. Her simplicity spoke to me and let me drop what I hadn’t even noticed I had been carrying. She showed me where and why some qualities are more hidden than others and she showed me a pathway to allowing this confidence, and certainty I recognised in myself to shine more simply, more unapologetically, more brightly.