The Compass of Flowers

More about The Compass of Flowers

It lay not in a box, not on a velvet cushion—but in the center of a clearing, surrounded by wild thyme, fluttering cotton grass, and dancing dragonflies. The compass of flowers was not a metal tool, not a device for map readers or sailors. It was a plant. Or rather, a being that behaved like a plant and yet knew more than any compass made of copper and glass. Its centerpiece was a flower—a single, perfectly symmetrical blossom with eight luminous petals, each pointing in a different direction. Their colors changed with the light: sometimes they shimmered lapis lazuli, sometimes vermillion or misty gray. Around them sprouted delicate tendrils, shifting slightly with every gust of wind, as if dancing in sync with the weather, shadows, and the mood of the world. Their movements were reminiscent of a forgotten language—delicate and full of meaning. The flower compass never pointed north. It pointed where you needed to be—not to arrive, but to remember. Some saw the way home, others found through it places they had dreamed of before they had words. It didn't point to cities or peaks, but to connections – to moments, feelings, questions long since forgotten. It was said that one could only enter it with bare feet, otherwise it would be silent. And indeed: whoever entered the circle of the clearing with bare soles felt a faint vibration, like a humming in the moss. Then the blossom began to turn, slowly at first, then in a rhythm similar to one's own breathing. And finally, a leaf stood still – and pointed. Not with urgency, not with insistence, but with quiet certainty. A girl came often. She had lost what she never had – a story she was looking for. The flower compass led her not to her destination, but to an old tree with a verse carved into it, to a pond that knew her smile, to a place where she had forgotten a song. There, words once bloomed on the skin of the wind, and every leaf seemed to whisper her name. Sometimes the compass led her down a misty path visible only at sunset—a narrow ridge of dew, light, and memory. Other times, it pointed her to a hollow in the ground where pebbles lay, arranged like notes of a song only children could hum. And once, it led her to a tiny mound of glass, beneath which shards of mirror lay hidden—and in one of them, she saw herself as a child, laughing, with a ribbon of blossoms in her hair. So she walked—never hastily, never purposefully, but softening with each step. In her pockets, she collected finds, meaningless yet luminous: a fragment of a feather, half a poem, the shadow of a smile. And with each day, her gait became more familiar, as if the ground itself recognized her. The flower blooms only when no one wants to possess it. To uproot it immediately loses direction. To measure it silences it. Only those who ask without demanding can feel its answer. And only those who walk without haste can reach it. Even today, some hikers tell of a clearing that isn't on maps.