Morning Glories have an other-worldly blue glow, and true to their name, they burst forward in the morning and are gone by noon, leaving a compact trumpet form. New ones bloom the next day. I see this as a tribute to persistence, in spite of transiency. Let us look for the glories of the moment, the startling beauty that arises in the morning, when we are yet sleepy, and bring ourselves into awakening.
The closed blooms are like crepe paper. A mandala can be used in meditation or prayer, as a focal point for staying in the present. Have you ever been transfixed by a beautiful flower, or a joyous task like making art, or holding someone you love, and time falls away? My mind is always going, closing down the present into a narrow twist of crepe paper. The more I fight the noise, the more loud it becomes. I am grateful for the times when I let the noise be there, but can still be here, rather than the future or the past.