Poppies make me sentimental. My mother inherited a red poppy/purple flag garden that blazoned on Memorial Days throughout the year. She loved them, tended them carefully and painted them wildly. I’m sure the garden was planted to be patriotic, and that works, but for me, that season was the end of school and the beginning of unlimited swimming and reading, so it was a season of great joy. The fluttering poppies always seemed a celebration of that time.

Now that I’m working as a minister who has two months off in the summer to spend time reading (and swimming!), they still wave hello to the same glorious excitement!

I don’t know whether I discovered Icelandic poppies or California poppies next, but my love for the red/orange poppies. I just fell down a rabbit hole of reading about the differences between what we think of as common poppies and heroin poppies. Confusing. I’ll let you do your own googling!

But they’re all beautiful reminders of life’s power. They are given out on November 11, in remembrance of the soldiers who died in WWI… They were chosen, the lore says, because they only grow in disturbed fields. Battle will do that. But still beauty grows to reclaim the anguish.

They make Peace with the land and serve as a reminder of the importance of Peace.

So the next time you see a poppy fluttering in the wind, think Peace. And then go and do something about it.

PS. A shout out to my friend Pete who is the usual Wednesday photog… she’s not feeling well… muah, my friend. Feel better soon.