Petals on a cold day, 23 May 2020

The  stalk of tight lily buds open slowly, revealing an extraordinary architecture, stamens with their delicately balanced boomerangs of pollen around the triplle lobed stigma. The white feathers of the cockatoo and the froth and ripple of petal seem to be made of equally mysterious materials. Now that some of the Covid 19 restrictions are being lifted, the question of action about  the climate becomes more urgent. One definition of nature - the forested hills, the distant sea that contain bird and flower- is 'the inherent power or force by which the physical and mental activities of humans are sustained.' The Greek word ‘physis’, ‘nature’, comes from the verb ‘physein’ to be born; meaning according to Aristotle, that nature is the primary material element from which things that are born generate.  Climate change is a human dilemma. It is easy to forget the enigma of the bud opening and the arrival of the child. 

Diana Wood Conroy 'Petals on a cold day',watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 c,  23 May 2020.