Aphrodite's Slipper

She followed the red bird into the forest; it flew high up into the dappled sunlight coming through the canopy of thick branches and well shaped leaves of the tall trees that lived there. The soft carpet of grass under her feet kept her steps silent as she walked along. She heard the sound of tapping and knew a woodpecker was nearby and the scurrying of tiny feet on leaves alerted her to the squirrels that lived there too. She walked carefully around thick layers of fallen leaves, afraid to disturb any slithering occupants of the forest from their buried nests.

The sun was lowering as the day progressed but her search was far from over, she was looking for something illusive, something she’d read about and had been told she could find in this particular woods but every tree she'd stopped by looking for the distinctively shaped flower, the reddish purple lip of the rare Orchid, proved futile. The flower remained illusive.

Unsure of her success in finding the rare and endangered flower, she lifted her camera and framed a perfectly shaped, wild, yellow rose that she’d found tucked under an overgrown bush. She clicked several frames to be sure she'd have one image that did its beauty justice. She thought this might be her only find today but as she lowered her camera, she spied several bees buzzing madly in the waning sunlight. Her curiosity moved her towards them.

She feared the yellow jacket type of bee but these appeared to be either honeybees or bumblebees and she was relieved. They were flying back and forth near the trunk of a very large tree. She crept carefully forward, hoping not to disturb them, wanting only to see what was so interesting to these bees.  When she rounded the tree, her eyes widened. She’d found the rare Lady Slipper Ram’s head Orchid, cypripedium arietinum was its botanical name. A professor had once told her the name Cypripedium was combined from Greek (Cypri) and Latin (pedium), its meaning translated to Aphrodite’s Slipper and seeing this rare orchid she agreed, the beautiful flower was aptly named. 

There were three orchids clustered together, like a family, living under the protection of the sturdy tree above them and well hidden from those who might pluck them from the earth. Their proud heads were raised up towards the slice of sunlight that lit the ground around them and the bees she’d followed were happily diving into the fragrant slipper of the orchids.

She lifted her camera to capture the life giving interaction and looking through the lens she wondered if flowers could pose. These beautiful orchid’s were turned in her direction and the sun appeared to sharpen its light upon them, caressing the edges of these rarely seen flowers and making them appear to shine with fairytale power.

She looked up from her camera and the intense light wasn’t there, not as it appeared in her lens but when she looked back and framed the flowers again, once again the light infused the picture, as if it was telling her just how special these flowers were.

She smiled and clicked several frames and then lowered the camera and just mediated on the simple beauty of her discovery and the magic of untouched nature.