My heart hurts and tears drop from my eyes as I remember the attacks in Paris. I know much is being written, shared, posted. I don’t live in Paris. I’m not French. I live in Seattle, but my heart and years of memories reside there. I’m Canadian/American and a ‘tourist’ when I visit.

My spirit responds with thoughts of compassion, comfort, love – bowing to the sky, sea, trees, in resonance with others around the globe, that somehow this love will waft via air currents, hovering over the city and inhabitants – like fragrant flowers.

Over the years I’ve photographed countless numbers of flowers in Paris. They catch my attention every time: at shops, in gardens, along pathways, hanging in flower boxes outside windows. They breathe their beauty over the city.

A news interview of a father and son shortly after the attacks in Paris has gone viral, with the wise and compassionate words of father to son, “…The flowers and the candles are here to protect us.” (France’s Le Petit Journal).

May it be so. I cannot assume to know the fear and terror that many experienced first hand. I know that many other awful, terrible, tragic events unfold daily around the globe. In all of this, I hold on to hope. I echo the words of this father, in an attempt to ease both his own and his son’s fear.

May we collectively hold on to the light, life and hope that expresses itself through flowers and somehow work toward peace.

When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention

by Mary Oliver

As long as we are able to be extravagant we will be hugely and damply extravagant. Then we will drop foil by foil to the ground. This is our unalterable task, and we do it joyfully.”

And they went on. “Listen, the heart-shackles are not, as you think, death, illness, pain, unrequited hope, not loneliness, but lassitude, rue, vainglory, fear, anxiety, selfishness.”

Their fragrance all the while rising from their blind bodies, making me spin with joy.