These two potted Night Blooming Cereus have been whipped by tropical storms, hurricanes, destruction, and construction. Their pots are broken and too heavy to move so they sit on the edge of things. This morning, the subtle perfume from a night of blossoming caused me to pause, look up, and out from my automatic-morning-mode to experience unexpected joy! Such an outrageous profusion, a Hail Mary blossoming. Glory! What a surprise! What is the source of this powerful, silent impulse to bloom? Life force animates everything, everywhere, every cell, every atom, including us. Life force is our essential aliveness. St Hildegard calls it veriditas, the greening, vitality, fecundity, lushness, verdure, or growth impulse.  It’s the nature of the universe, God, and everything as connected. Each of us is a reflecting mirror of wholeness and so is everything else. Even the decline of the blooms will unburden energies to go to roots and leaves, to photosynthesis, for more life and more life. Tonight, it wilts in the moonlight to a glorious end. More glory, more glory. I bow to this single obedience in unbroken movement. More love, more love.