Symbol of Hope

When I looked at what was left of this dried Dahlia plant it immediately moved me. The dried tubers, bits and pieces of roots everywhere and remnants of dried leaves and stems sticking and bending in and out of the confusing mess. It had something vulnerable while at the same time carrying an aspect of hope; hope for new growth, a new plant, fresh flowers. I realized why it spoke to me so much. It reminded me of 911. Sixteen years after the fact.

At the time I lived on USA's East Coast. One particular image came up frequently through the media. It was a heap of ashes and rubble, a mess of remnants and burned matter from the buildings. Within that miserable chaos a few grid-like metal pieces from the buildings stuck out of the pile as if trying to reach for the sky, like a sign of hope and victory.

The Dahlia tubers represented the same for me. It became 'a loaded metaphor'. A mini-landscape of decay and despair. But it also seemed to express that after all the energy that made the tubers grow and bloom, followed by the decay that is part of life, there is always hope for a new, fresh and strong beginning.

© Gusta van Dobbenburgh