Sunflower, Cold Spring, NY

Sunflowers have been an object of fascination and importance throughout our history. From ancient Inca priestesses who wore them as headdresses to Renaissance painters who seemed hardly capable of capturing a scene without their depiction, to their myriad modern uses in medicine (as a diuretic, to treat coughs and bronchitis), sunflowers don't seem to be waning in their beauty and purpose. Typically seen as a symbol of foolish love (the flowers blindly follow the sun), they are also symbols of prosperity and good health.

For me, the sunflower is the epitome of the spring and summer - that time where we feel more carefree and perhaps more openly joyous, where we take in the sun and feel more healthful, where we have more hours in our day with which to explore and go about our lives, and those days which remind us of being young and childlike. What a perfect wintry day* to post this photograph of a sunny yellow sunflower to remind us of summer days past and of those yet to come.

*I'm writing from NY at 5pm where its cold, windy and has already been dark for an hour. :)