The last day of my retreat, and the desert is in bloom. Scores of flowers of different types fill the spaces between the sage and mesquite, adding softer dots of color to the dramtic blue/red/green landscape.
The inset picture is one of the small poppies on its own. It is little more than the flower itself hovering over the ground on the thinnest of stems. The poppies are so fragile and so temporary, giving their all just to appear briefly above the sand for perhaps a week, and then they are gone again for another year leaving almost no trace that they were ever here. But together, they transform the landscape.
The moments of life and prayer when I feel loved? when I feel connected to every living being? come and are gone in an instant. Fleeting though they are, they reveal to me the rich beauty of life.