The Quiet Geometry of Growth

I spent an hour this morning kneeling in the dirt, trying to pull weeds from between the pavers in my walkway. My knees were aching, and the sun was starting to feel a little too heavy on my back. I was frustrated, wanting the job to be finished, wanting everything to look neat and orderly. But then I stopped. I looked closely at a single, tiny sprout pushing its way through the concrete. It wasn’t trying to be anything other than what it was. It didn’t care about my schedule or my need for a tidy garden. It was just existing, unfolding its small, intricate life in the middle of a space that wasn’t really meant for it. We spend so much of our lives looking at the big picture, the grand plans, and the finished results. We rarely stop to see the architecture of the small things. What if we allowed ourselves to be that patient, to grow in the cracks of our own busy lives without rushing the bloom?

Dawid Theron has captured this sense of hidden wonder in his beautiful image titled Orange Petals. It reminds me that there is a whole world of detail waiting for us if we only take the time to look closer. What small, overlooked detail have you noticed in your own day?