Impossible Beauty
By KRISTIN SLYE, LMFT
I am continually in awe of the lessons that nature offers - if we’re just awake enough to notice. Several years ago, I was working with a child doing an outdoor eco-therapy session and they said, “Can I show you something that makes me feel better?” Of course, I obliged, so we embarked on a walk where we landed behind an old, dilapidated cottage. The child pointed, “There, look!” I gasped out loud. It was a most extraordinary display of nature in the form of the largest snow flower (Sarcodes sanguinea) I had ever seen. Snow flowers are on my list of very favorite things about living in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Sighting one always feels special, but this one had 11 blossoms! Three was the most I had ever witnessed before.
What makes snow flowers special is that they are proof that beauty can form in the most impossible and unexpected ways. The plant has no chlorophyll and therefore, is unable to photosynthesize, but that doesn’t stop it from flourishing. Instead, the snow flower forms an alliance with a fungus that’s attached to tree root (usually a conifer) and they help each other out in an exchange of carbon and nutrients. It finds a way to bloom and so, whenever I see one, I feel like its’s asking me, “How can you find a way to grow despite sometimes impossible circumstances, and who are the alliances that can help on your path of grow and vice versa?”
While working in community mental health, I witnessed many children becoming snow flowers. The odds were stacked against them with lots of early childhood trauma, disruptions in childcare, and unsafe homes. But like the Sarcodes sanguinea, they creatively figure out how to thrive. If their caregivers couldn’t give the nutrients they needed, instead they found their conifers and mycelial network in the form of teachers, neighbors, counselors, and friends. The nutrients being words of encouragement, consistency, and an authentic belief that they could overcome their obstacles.
It was no surprise that the child who brought me to that snow flower said it made them feel better, that it made them happy. Impossible beauty has a way of doing that.