A certain flouncy flower was in bloom in Dunedin this week, and enthusiasts gathered to celebrate its sensuous delights. David Loughrey had been dimly aware of a blur of colour of late. He meditated on the whys and wherefores of the rhododendron, and found himself transported to the land of the Buddha.
The showy, pink-petticoat flowers of the rhododendron last but a short time.
Like all things, they bloom and burn so brightly, before their fleeting beauty quickly dies.
They colour the cold grey or harsh blue spring of Dunedin, but they also teach us a little lesson on the constancy of change.
The gardener - in particular the rhododendron enthusiast - nurtures, enables and focuses a sharp light on this process.
It is a process at the heart of all things; the inexplicable and repetitive cycle of birth and death.
There was a conference on these matters - the rhododendron-growing aspect at least - in Dunedin this week.
A full 230 people from New Zealand and overseas attended, as the botanic garden Rhododendron Dell burst into flower.
They were here for the 70th jubilee International Rhododendron Conference, that resulted in rhododendron lovers from around the world rolling into town.
The conference included a bloom display, a section for unnamed hybrids, a plant auction during a conference banquet and a sale of plants from local growers.
The conference-goers who turned up at the New Zealand Rhododendron Association annual meeting were mostly silver-haired, so knew about bloom and post-bloom.
They were also practical people, with some in shorts and the sort of strong shoes in which you could stride straight into a garden with secateurs at any moment and get to work.
The association, the annual meeting heard, clearly runs a tight ship.
It had a successful year, with a $700 surplus; income was up, with strong subscriptions.
What gives these men and women such calm and wisdom, such a sober yet deeply practical outlook on life, and the skills to both grow and prosper?
It is no surprise rhododendrons are the national flower of Nepal.
Lumbini, in Nepal, is the birthplace of Lord Gautama Buddha.
Gautama Buddha came to the conclusion pain is a part of all life, and that pain comes from desire.
He also possibly had views on the impermanence and transience at the heart of all existence.
He knew about birth and death and all that.
He quite possibly got his insights from observing rhododendrons.
The botanic garden Rhododendron Dell is the place for Dunedin people to gain this insight, saving them from years of tiresome meditation and ascetic living.
First, they must pass through the vivid excesses and intoxicating aromas of the azalea garden.
Azaleas are rhododendrons, make no mistake, but they are an entry-level plant that are just the first step on the ladder to enlightenment.
There is an information board that explains they have five petals only and, remarkably, their reproductive parts reach beyond the flower.
Go azaleas.
Further into the dell, the rhododendrons are garish in their displays, laying a mat of brilliant white across their branches to attract whatever it is they are trying to attract.
Some thrust forward a brazen, nude pink, while others attract the more discerning viewer with a smaller and more demure yellow presentation.
Further in, knotted and gnarled trunks and branches hoist a pink spectacle skyward.
The Arborea, or tree-like rhododendrons, fashion their leaves into narrow downward-pointing spikes so as to keep the snow from forming.
For rhododendrons are that most vain flower, and their trunks are brittle.
The weight of the world weighs down their frilly display.
And already along pathways through the dell, pink and white flowers lie prone, bruised, brown and wilting.
Their moment has so quickly come and gone, and their vanity now torments them.
Buddha looked at this and understood something about life.
Rhododendron growers know that secret too.
