Walking around the sunflower field, I heard people express the thought I was having myself.  “It’s so neat how they turn toward the sun,” a woman said to her friend.  We feel we share something with the sunflower – a yearning to be filled with as much life as we can absorb, pulled like magnets toward a constant star of pleasure, or hope.   Even on overcast days, the sunflower’s heliotropism persists, driving the growing leaves and flower head to follow the arc of the sun as it rises and sets, hidden by clouds.  By dawn, the sunflower faces east once again, anticipating the flash of daybreak on the horizon.  Perhaps this starting over is the most symbolic gesture of all – an act of trust and belief that there is work yet to do, and the day will provide the means to do it, no matter that night is dark.