Resistance and Resilience: Grow

(c) Photo by Teresa Culbert

May 30, 2025

As a poet and novelist, I’m fortunate to meet regularly with a group of diverse creatives: a poet/photographer, a poet/photographer/musician, a prose writer/poet, a watercolor artist, and a quilter. Most of us have never met personally, our group a blessing that grew out of Covid 19 and Zoom in 2020. Much like the flower blooming from the bricks, we keep coming back.

Yesterday when we met, we shared a few pearls of wisdom, such as “The ‘now’ is the only place we can meet God,” “It’s the every day that counts,” and “Art is resistance in any form.”

Art is resistance in any form.

Including gardening.

During this chaotic and uncertain time in world and U.S. history, this blog highlights works of art as a means of resistance and resilience. You may find recent contributions here under “Writings”: https://spirit-reflections.org/. Today, I offer the above photograph taken by gardener Teresa Culbert. She captioned the photo, “Bloom where you are ‘accidentally’ planted. Second year it has survived and bloomed in the brick column of the terrace.”

Art is resistance in any form. So are beauty, and growth, and courage, all revealing themselves to me in this photo, along with faith. As a prompt for your own creative works or for your own spirituality, what does this photo invite you to explore in regard to resistance and resilience?

Creating with you,

Rosemary

Teresa and her Harold are amateur gardeners in Decatur, AL, USA.  They are retired and love to travel.  Visiting beautiful gardens is always on the top of their list. They’ve  been designing their Southern Shade Garden since the 90s and it’s still a work in progress. The Culberts’ garden has been featured in the magazine,  Alabama Gardener,  and in the book, Gardens of Decatur and Morgan County.