My White Orchid

My mother and sister each got me an orchid for my 39th birthday. One was white, the other fuchsia.

I placed the fuchsia orchid close to the glass door that opens to my balcony, so it received plenty of indirect light, just as the instructions say to do.

The fuchsia orchid thrived in this spot. It had one stem, held up straight with a support and arching at the top, with blooms that grew, died and fell off, and grew back in a predictable cycle.

I had the perfect place for the white orchid - in the foyer under a picture of a meditator sitting in lotus position on a still ocean. The picture sits underneath an ohm symbol. The orchid was the perfect addition to my lovely, peaceful entryway - exactly the impression I wanted to give people who entered my home: peace and beauty.

But the white orchid received no light in that spot. The blooms died and did not come back.

I waited and waited and left the plant in its spot, hoping it would once again bloom, asking it to work with me in creating some beauty and peace. But without sunlight, nothing happened.

After some months with an orchid devoid of blooms in my foyer, I thought about tossing the plant. But the leaves were green and strong. There had to be life left.

I placed it on my coffee table, which threw off the balance in the room - it was now too close to the fuchsia plant.

But, it was facing the sun.

The white orchid grew two long, new stems, each with a bunch of new buds at the ends. Both stems jutting straight out toward the light.

This plant was wilder than the fuchsia plant. Less delicate, but stronger, because I hadn't forced the stems in any direction. It grew the way it needed to grow, not in a way that would look best in the room.

That's because the orchids don't care about looking pretty. They care about feeling the sun and being alive. They happen to be pretty anyway. Like Buddhist nuns who shave their heads. They don't care if they look pretty. They care about living. Worrying about being beautiful or perfect to get others to like us eats away at our lives. Those Buddhist nuns and my orchids have something so many of us don't - freedom.

The orchid does not exist to make my home beautiful. The orchid does not exist to make me happy. The orchid does not exist to help me make a statement about who I am through the arrangement of my foyer. The orchid exists because it needs to exist.

Every morning I practice yoga alongside my white orchid, and it reminds me about alignment.

It reminds me to reach my whole body, my mind toward the light.