Purple Irises

I sat on my front porch swing this morning and read the newspaper. Every so often I stood up to look at the beautiful purple irises just below the porch. I soaked in their beauty. Their beauty is amazing to me. It is a blessing to be on earth in this body and be able to experience this.

When I return to my head I am even more amazed. How is it that this flower is so pleasing to me? How did this happen? From an evolutionary point of view, it makes perfect sense that this flower would be attractive to the bee or butterfly that pollinates it. Otherwise it would not exist. But I am not that bee, nor am I that butterfly.

Is it pleasing to me by chance? I could believe that if there are only a very few flowers that are. Is it attractive to me because it increases the chance that I will plant it in my garden? That seems to be too much of a leap to me, although I do not pretend to understand well how "the survival of the fittest" process works. Is it pleasing to me because I share the "pleasing gene" with the bee or butterfly that pollinates it? Now there is an intriguing thought.

It appears that the bee is also pleasing to the iris. The iris does not repel the bee although it may attempt to repel other insects that could have more "sinister" intents, such as to eat it. Am I pleasing to the iris? Does the iris like the fact that I stand up and view it from time to time? Could it be that the iris likes me because I like it? Does my consciousness and the iris' consciousness merge in some way? [6253]