It is as if I have been staring at the words all my life, and I never understood their meaning. The shape of the letters has been intriguing and I have been fascinated by their comeliness. The groupings of the letters have interested me, but I could never make the sounds they represented. Neither did I understand their meaning.
I am now beginning to understand the intelligence behind the symbols. I am now beginning to see and hear their deep and wondrous meaning.
For years I have watched the flowers in my garden rise out of the ground with their own power and enthusiasm. I have walked among them, admiring their shape and comeliness. Every fall, I dutifully tended to them by cutting them back to the ground, carried their dead husks to my compost bins, and handed then over to the agents of decay.
I then waited for the leveled ground to spring to life again in the warmer days.
This year, as I cut my flowers down, I see and feel them in a different way. I am beginning to look beyond their obvious shapes and smells. There is an intelligence and reality beyond their green and multi-colored appearance that is slowly appearing to me. The feel of their stems, the rattle of their dead blooms, the smell of decay is different this year.
It is as if I am seeing them with eyes that have suddenly learned to read. This year there is a reality beyond the obvious, something I never had the skill to understand. There is an intelligence beyond the illusory shape and texture I hardly ever sensed before.
I am learning to read the lovely and shapely words. My heart opens in new ways to what I can see.