For today’s noticing, I return — as I so often do — to the winter-flowering aconite.
I thought I might begin with a passage from my first published book, Reflections of Nature. I titled the piece Study in Sunlight.
One dreary February day, I coached myself out of a grey mindset and into my walking boots. Making my way into a deep thicket, through shiny green ivy and ground elder, my spirits began to lift. My steps drew a cool, earthy green scent into the air. My eyes relaxed into their focus, and I allowed my mind to drift. With each step, I moved further away from anxiety, deeper into a new reality. The day’s light began to lift, casting faint shadows through the bony winter branches of oak and hazel. Then, in a gentle hollow, I saw a pool of sunshine — not cast from the still-soft grey sky, but flowering from the earth: winter aconites.
~ a passage lifted directly from my diary. January 2005
I went on, in that book, to explore the artistic merit of this study — honouring the wildflower through slow, meticulous embroidery techniques, trying to translate its quiet brilliance into thread. But what I realise now is that my relationship with this small, radiant plant stretches back much further than that page.
Back then, I was living at Chettle House in Dorset — a beautiful manor built in 1710, designed by Thomas Archer, and commissioned by the Bastard brothers (a name that never fails to make me smile). Beneath the trees lining the drive, and beyond the formal gardens toward the woods, winter aconites grew in profusion. They were native there, I believe, and they became my companions on bleak January days: small suns rising straight from the cold earth.
Even then, I sought them out deliberately — walking toward them when the world felt grey. Toward brightness. Toward proof
One day, with my landlord’s permission, I ventured out with a dinner fork and dug up a single plant, roots and all, so I could study it in the warmth of my studio. Its roots were bent and contorted, impossibly resilient. That very root — or its descendants — now flourishes beneath the mature beech tree beside my present studio, its great limbs stretched protectively across my roof. It feels, to me, like continuity made visible.
Winter aconite’s botanical name is Eranthis hyemalis, from the Greek eranthos, meaning “spring flower,” and hyemalis, meaning “of winter.” A paradox in two words. It blooms when little else dares.
Each flower is cupped in a ruff of green, leaf-like bracts — not petals, but modified leaves — a collar of protection. Its yellow is not shy. It does not whisper. It glows. On grey days, it seems almost to emit light.
Aconites contain toxic compounds — a quiet reminder that beauty and danger are not opposites in nature, but neighbours. In folklore, aconites have long been associated with protection, thresholds, and the crossing between seasons. They are plants of the in-between. Of patience. Of persistence.
And so this morning — as I have done for decades — I ventured out again.
It was still dark when I first stepped outside, having briefly popped out to turn on my studio heater before breakfast. Even in the darkness, they glowed. My camera could not catch it — that wildflower light — but I could see it. Feel it.
I’ve returned again and again throughout the day, rain slicking their petals, each drop magnifying their brightness. On yet another wet and miserable day, I keep asking myself: how could I possibly be miserable when such beauty rests beside me? Just a tiptoe’s distance away. Beneath the beech trees. Waiting.
Over the years, I’ve made large-scale studies of winter aconites. One hangs in our living room. Another rests in our private collection. They are not decorative pieces to me; they are acts of devotion. Of noticing. Of gratitude.
And I think that is what this plant has taught me, over and over again.
Not optimism.
Not cheerfulness.
But something quieter, deeper, steadier.
That light does not have to come from the sky.
That brightness can rise from the coldest places.
That beauty does not ask permission to exist.
That noticing is sometimes enough to keep us going.
The aconites do not wait for spring.
They make their own
