Yesterday I took notice of the coming of Mabon, the autumnal Equinox and the first leaf of autumn. I love to watch the changes at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord, MA, and special in this parade of life are the lotuses. Right now they are in a confused state. Most are changing color and a few still resist and even bloom. Still others have reached an advanced stage of decay. They have lost essential oils and barely float on the surface.
Such is the case with the giant leaf of Figure 1, the “Summer’s Last Lotus.” It is as if it was dissolving into the pond. Not only has it turned colors, but also there are the colors of mold and decay.
Lotuses bear their association with Lakshmi, thus with birth, death, and reincarnation, fertility and life rooted in primordial water. They grow in the muddiest and darkest of waters, rising as if from the very depths of nothingness.
I’ve never seen a dead lotus (and there have been many lotus in L.A.’s Echo Park Lake, though in decline again right now) any color other than brown!
Sects of Buddhism partial to the Lotus Sutra find Lotus’s sacredness in the fact that the seeds (beans) are formed and alive in the pod as the blossom is flourishing, thus cause and effect are present simultaneously.