The Taming of a Rose

"'You are not at all like my rose,' he said. 'As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.'

And the roses were very much embarrassed.

'You are beautiful, but you are empty,' he went on. 'One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you — the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose......You become responsible forever for what you have tamed." (from ,"The Little Prince" by Antoine de St, Exupery)
    My mentor,Dyrud as we fondly called him taught me through the language of metaphor and example. He not only tended to his lovely elegant orchids in his little green house, but also to a radiant blushing blooming garden of spring and summer roses. I imagine he was trying to show me that if you assiduously tend,care,nurture,observe,respond and give measured space for growth and exploration, something akin to taming happens.Perhaps, only those who have been tamed,can tame in return. Perhaps that close connection of feeling,knowing what another really needs to live and grow, on their terms  and responding based to their unique specific needs is a pre-requisite to developing a conscience .