Sunflowers are amazing; we all love the large yellow flowerheads and the fact that they can grow so tall with little or no help from the gardener. The most wonderful thing about them is their ability to track the Sun. At night, the flowers move either not at all or randomly about, but with sunrise they immediately (in plant terms) turn to face the east and then follow the Sun throughout the day until it finally sets in the west. They call this Heliotropism (thanks to Wikipedia for that one) and this reminds me of a great truth...
The Lord Jesus said:
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
(John 8:12)
Like the Sunflower, we were made to follow the light. The Sunflower follows the Sun, we follow The Son, the Light of the World.
And another verse, this time from Ephesians 5:8
"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light."
--------------------------------------
Photo notes: I'm fairly sure that I couldn't have taken this picture with my digital camera (a Nikon D70s); the sun would have been overexposed to the point that the whole right hand side of the picture would have been white, with no clear definition in it at all. I could have then exposed for the sun, but that would have meant that the left hand side of the picture would have been very dull. If I had a graduated neutral density filter I could have used it but I don't have one :-( However, a great advantage of slide film is increased dynamic range (you can get more detail in the highlights and in the shadows than you can with all but the most expensive digital cameras). Of course you get great colour and a three dimensional look too, and you also get the joy of not knowing what your pictures will look like until that little box arrives in the post and you hold up those small plastic slides to the light...
2 comments:
Your post reminds me of our summer holiday in France this year where we were surrounded by fields of sunflowers. They are so graceful, elegant and as you suggest point us towards another light... For me they also posess something extraordinary in terms of how they operate as a collective group. Each individual flower follows the sun and in turn the whole field in a burstful sea of gold follows the sun with their apparantly dull faces and golden fringes. Yet on closer inspection those faces are teeming with life snd the potential of life. So thank you for opening that memory Daniel. Your photo is great. It's nice that some things can't happen digitally!
Thank you Daniel. Yes, good point about a whole field of them, that would be a wonderful sight.
Post a Comment