Daffodils, the brightest sign of springtime hope, were a favorite flower of a young woman in Atlanta who died from a rare disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. In memory of this young woman, the Club Estates Garden Club in Atlanta's Brookhaven community began to sell and plant daffodils in the fall of 2008. The project became known as "The Daffodil Dance." Planting wonderful varieties such as St. Keverne, Asphasia, Pipit, Smiling Sun, Golden Echo, and Accent, the neighborhood now flourishes with over 12,000 bulbs planted throughout the neighborhood. Daffodils, dressed in hope, dance through the season bringing sunshine and hope for weary,winter hearts.
Is your heart weary from winter? A a winter of unemployment, discouragement, or fear? Look outside. Look around and you will be amazed at the lessons we can learn through the strength and agility of daffodils. Take some time to stop and simply admire the details. Draw even closer and you will see perfection and rich aroma. Look beyond the planted beds and see determination and growth along untended paths of rural highways. Where homes have been abandoned or torn down, daffodils continue to multiply and live on, sometimes flourishing in wild abandon. Who doesn't want to flourish in wild abandon? Hope is our answer, reviving and restoring the soul through the beauty of a dancing daffodil. And we, like Wordsworth, can join his verse that says "My heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils."
