What nature is teaching me about letting go...

A friend recently gave me a housewarming gift. The gift was a beautiful Calla Lilly (Zantedeschia Araceae for all you botanists out there). Being a lover of all forms of flora, I welcomed this plant into my home and immediately began to research the care needs for the Calla Lilly. To my surprise, the Calla Lilly thrives on a care cycle that is completely opposite to most flowering household plants.

Most flower-producing household plants require a rest period in the winter months (common exceptions may include African Violets and Christmas/Easter Cactus). Come spring, one usually increases watering and fertilizing starts shortly thereafter. These basis care instructions, along with sufficient light, will bring the plant into bloom for the coming summer months.

The Calla Lilly, however, works on the opposite cycle of care. One brings the plant into rest during the late spring and summer months. When the fall arrives, and the days start to shorten, one gradually picks up watering as new leaf growth emerges. Come late fall, new flowers should start to emerge and this is when fertilizing starts. With these basic care instructions in mind, along with sufficient light, the Calla Lilly will produce beautiful, ornamental flowers throughout the winter.

So I was quite excited about this plant’s new care cycle—something out of the ordinary. What became tough for me to accept was that during the rest period, ALL watering needed to cease. The plant needed to be allowed to lay dormant. All the foliage needed to be allowed to turn yellow and wither. In other words, in order to allow the plant to live again, I needed to let the plant die off.

Allowing the foliage to die off was difficult for me. I would see the parched soil and would reach for the watering can. I would gesture to water the Calla Lilly, but would remind myself of the need to allow the play to lay dormant. “How could I let such a beautiful thing die!?”…I would ask myself.

Nature is a beautiful teacher about letting go. Nature knows exactly what it needs to thrive. The Calla Lilly knows it needs to go dormant during a certain time of the year—it needs to die off. This rest period is necessary in order to save up its energies for a rebirth. This ‘laying dormant’, this resting, is rife throughout nature. Nature tells us, and shows us, how the natural cycles of birth and death merge to create a continuous cycle of life.

What could we learn from nature about this compassionate letting go in order to bloom again and live on? The Calla Lilly is not dead. It is simply resting up for its rebirth. What other birth and death cycles can we apply this teaching to? Where can you learn to let go knowing that in death there is rebirth…all as nature designed it.