The Constancy of Unbinding!!!

Alaska has gorgeous wildflowers!!  They grow big and colorful for the most part!  Wildflowers are such a free gift to all of us.  Moving to WA was so different in so many ways.  I didn't recognize the vegetation.  The trees were foreign to me.  A life long Alaskan...I had never seen fruit trees.  Landing in Yakima and my friend driving me to her home, I was asking...what's that?  what's that?   Eventually I said...Well, I know what that is.  Grapes!  No.  Wrong.  It was hops!

She told me in time I'd learn what the differences were by the appearance of each tree.

In time I saw a small flower but I did know what it was.  A Morning Glory!  Petite and palest of pink and it was free!  No price!  It was a wild flower!  I mentioned to Linda how wonderful that was to have something so pretty as a climber.  She told me it was a weed, next to impossible to get rid of, roots that can go forever and it was not a good thing.  I was really surprised that something so small would cause her to feel so strongly that it could cause great harm and was actually destructive.  I have come to see that as a reality.

Look at this picture.  The actual new Honeysuckle plant is on the left and the wild Morning Glory on the right.  See how it reaches towards the Honeysuckle?    

When I gave it a tug you can see how much was hiding under the trellis.

This is where the danger is.  These delicate stems coil around it's victim and literally choke it to death.  See that coil in the picture below?  they are almost chameleon-like, in that they are very hard to see, and you actually have to unwind it to save the prey.  It's like a corkscrew.  The power is so great that it can hold something in one place and deform it and not let it reach it's potential.

One year we planted some tree-like Chinese hedge shrubs and they themselves were super strong.  At first we just let them grow upward and be busy shade trees which we enjoyed so much.  Then we decided to prune them.  We were shocked when we came to one tree limb that was very strong and good sized and bent at 90`.  In the crook of that bend were wild morning glories wrapped as thick as a hornets nest!  Holding ground, gathering forces, working together, holding firm, achieving their goal for the diminished growth of tree stature that we wanted for what we had planted.  We wanted full straight stature but all of that had been interfered with.  Tucked away.  Hidden and out of sight until we started trimming and pruning.

Our son had a new driveway put in and he had it filled with gravel.  A beautiful Morning Glory next to the fence was demolished by the work crew.  This wasn't a mere smattering of gravel. This was thick deep gravel.  Imagine our surprise when up through all of this gravel, 2 summers later, the Morning Glory fought it's way through devastation, not of it's making or doing,  and bloomed again in all it's beauty!!  It is on the driveway and up the fence and is better than ever in color and size.  Beautiful!  Enjoyed and appreciated by all!

All is not well in spite of such a heroic rise of the Phoenix.  Look closely.  see the bitty little furled pale pink wild flowers?  See the gathering of those wild stems gathering together for the attack?  Wild Morning Glories!!!

As a daughter of God, I too am a Morning Glory.  Seeds of wildness and tameness within.  Which ever one I tend, or neglect to tend, will cause me to move ahead or sabotage myself.

It's scriptural after all.....

...and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever.  2Nephi 26:22