Whisper of autumn chrysanthemums

Shin Hye-suk

Everyone has their own season to bloom.

Since spring, I had been watching a plant in my small garden. Its leaves grew thick and wild like mugwort, yet no flowers appeared. I often wondered whether I should cut it back or pull it out altogether to make room for something more beautiful. I hesitated many times, thinking it was simply not worth keeping.

Then, one clear October morning, when the air was crisp and the sky high and blue, I noticed tiny magenta buds clinging to the leafy stems. Delighted, I took several pictures and asked an AI chatbot to identify the plant. To my surprise, it was an ordinary chrysanthemum.

Throughout spring and summer, I had doubted this humble plant for its lack of blossoms. Little did I know that it was quietly gathering its strength beneath the surface, preparing for its rightful time to bloom. The buds, fresh and vivid as morning dew, seemed to whisper a lesson in patience.

Having planted a variety of flowers over the years, I sometimes forget which is which until their buds finally reveal their faces. Yet this chrysanthemum tested my patience the longest. After months of waiting, it bloomed at last in the cool breeze of autumn —a small miracle of timing.

The order of nature is indeed wondrous and mysterious. As the little magenta flowers swayed, they seemed to proclaim in unison, “We are autumn chrysanthemums, blooming only when our time has come.”

Yes, everything in life has its own moment of flowering. Spring, summer, autumn and winter each bring forth their own blossoms — forsythia, azalea, rose and beyond. Every being, like every season, has its proper rhythm. We need only to wait quietly and trust what is to come. Why, then, was I so quick to think of cutting or uprooting the plant? Haste makes waste. I learned that lesson once again.

The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu compared the natural way of the world to the flow of a river. When a river meets a rock, it does not force its way through but bends gently around, finding a path that benefits all things. It does not struggle or resist but continues flowing steadily toward lower ground.

Yet in our modern age, we find waiting difficult. Impatience drives us to act, to intervene, to control what should be left to the rhythm of nature. In doing so, we make the same mistake I almost made with the chrysanthemum — trying to force life to bloom before its season.

Now, as I gaze at the magenta blossoms swaying in the cool October breeze, I am reminded once more of nature’s quiet wisdom. These are beautiful days to live in harmony with the world’s natural order — to flow like a gentle river and to wait, as the chrysanthemum does, for the right time to bloom.

Shin Hye-suk (sinesu@naver.com), who also goes by Shindy, completed a doctorate in sociology and has devoted two decades of her life to academic pursuits at a university in Japan. She is also a florist and currently serves as an advisor to the Seoul JoongAng Rotary Club International, Korea.