There Is Simply The Rose
Two posts in ONE DAY after such a long absence? Crazy, I know! But I've been reading Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays and one passage just stuck out to me. I've read it over and over and over again... From his Essays First Series (1841) ... "Self-Reliance" ... "Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say 'I think,' 'I am,' but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the