The morning air was filled with bird song — cheerful melodies of the many brooding species in our neighborhood, along with the occasional scolding, particularly by the Grey Catbird and the Carolina Wren. Not quite ready for his morning nap, a nearby Barred Owl hooted “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” Just as the dawn chorus began to ebb, the sound was punctuated by the distant cacophony of crows, the sound of their cawing becoming louder as they flew closer by. I went out and could see in the skies above that a spectacular aerial dogfight was in full swing — a local murder of crows in flight, relentlessly pestering a hapless owl as he, sorely outnumbered, attempted to flee.
But the through-the-lens-worthy visual image that captured my awe and attention was a woodland grove of Tradescantia virginiana, the Virginia Spiderwort. Tradescantia virginiana is native to the Eastern and Central United States and often found in the woodlands and along streams in the Piedmont of North Carolina. In springtime the three-petaled flowers appear and last for but a day, but new ones are produced daily in the terminal clusters (NC Extension Gardener). The plant was recognized by native cultures for its nutrition and medicinal value:
The Cherokee and other Native American tribes used Virginia spiderwort for various food and medicinal purposes. The young leaves were eaten as salad greens or were mixed with other greens and then either fried or boiled until tender. The plant was mashed and rubbed onto insect bites to relieve pain and itching. A paste, made from the mashed roots, was used as a poultice to treat cancer. A tea made from the plant was used as a laxative and to treat stomachaches associated with overeating. Virginia spiderwort was one of the seven ingredients in a tea used to treat “female ailments or rupture.” It was also combined with several other ingredients in a medicine for kidney trouble.
https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/cs_trvi.pdf
This morning, I admired the the wild and unkempt nature of the stems and leaves, and the colors and shapes of the blossoms, an occasional honeybee arrived in flight, its wings only rarely pausing as it remained seemingly weightless in its work, its mission.
I’ve been thinking a lot about work and mission. Let’s call it “divine calling” — perhaps you have a better term for that aspiration to live one with, and in resonance with, Life — and all that that existence entails and means. In other words, living in resonance with something much larger, timeless, and greater, than one’s small self. Moreover, it’s living in resonance with Life beyond the constraints of time and space as we know it.
For example, this morning’s honeybee gathering nectar for the hive, and in the process also pollinating Tradescantia virginiana. Is the honeybee worker not living out its mission in life, its divine calling? What would the scene, the honeybee’s activity, look like if it weren’t?
tgholt.net 