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Posts from the ‘Flowers’ Category

Aug 28

Garden Tending

“Your minds may now be likened to a garden, which will, if neglected, yield only weeds and thistles; but, if cultivated, will produce the most beautiful flowers, and the most delicious fruits.” – Dorothea Dix

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” – Marshall McLuhan

What to weed out, what to water
Choose your tending well
Be aware of what you behold
Time provides the necessary distance needed to gain perspective
Struggle gives way to calm
Ease and acceptance
Healing and restoration
Lay down the nonessential
Shape and be shaped
Malleable and permeable
Tend your garden

“A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.” – Liberty Hyde Bailey

Aug 19

Unfoldings

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Elizabeth Appell

“Life is lived on levels and arrived at in stages.” –  Edwin Louis Cole

Bulb planted
Roots take hold
Breaks ground
One stem branches in all directions
A balancing
Reaching for the sky
All stages in play
From bud to bloom
Unfolding in stages
Patiently
On time, never late.

Life is found in the process, in the middle, woven tightly between beginnings and endings, unfolding in front of us.
Step back to see progress, growth, lessons, blessings.
Experience loss all the way through, it’s the cost of loving deeply, the full spectrum of living awake.
Experience joy all the way through, it’s the foundation that keeps you rooted when the winds blow strong and relentless.
Experience hope all the way through, it’s the embrace that holds and heals, transforms and transcends.
Do not dismiss ordinary days, the very place and space that holy and sacred reside.
God has placed beauty, wonder and awe hidden right in front of us, never missing a day.
In nature, in another passing soul, in our own soul.
The rhythm of breath, the warmth of light, the flow of time.
Invite it all in to capture your attention, to enter your awareness, to stop you in your tracks.
Forego busy and efficiency, the pursuit of accumulation.
Choose flow, fruition, seed to bloom, waiting in joy in the in between.
Unfoldings abase and abound.

“As life has a way of unfolding as it is meant to, I have learned to trust life.” – Linda Thompson

Aug 17

Acclimate

“Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.” – Mao Zedong

“The more you adapt, the more interesting you are.” – Martha Stewart

Despite drought, the flowers outside my window have burst and bloom bigger than ever.
Acclimating to conditions, they found their path to fruition.
Perfect conditions and someday are false narratives.
Acclimate to what’s present and available in this moment.
Root in gratitude.
Bathe in grace.
Bloom brilliant, full and bright.
Cast light and shine.

Aug 6

Cracks and Crevices

“I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.” – Brene Brown

“Whatever opens us is not as important as what it opens.”― Mark Nepo

Through the cracks and crevices
Flowers break through
Light enters
Joy streams in
Amidst the weeds
In the rocks
Behind the clouds
Hidden in the ordinary
Resilience and bloom
Beauty and awe
Take it in and cast it out.

“Don’t you know yet? It is your light that lights the world.” – Rumi

Jul 22

Buffet

“The Amen of nature is always a flower.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Sit down at the table.
Bounty.
Beauty.
Abase and abound.
A buffet, an array of color, abundance and light is all around.
Linger, let it in, carry it forward.
Go.
Go.
Go.
A bit slower, held in grace, anchored in gratitude.

“Abundance is a process of letting go; that which is empty can receive.” – Bryant H. McGill

Jul 14

Aliveness

“Your fortune is not something to find but to unfold.” – Eric Butterworth

“The point where woundedness sometimes turns to aliveness is ironically not where we assert our will, but where we learn to surrender and accept our limitations as doorways through which our mastery waits.” – Mark Nepo, Finding Inner Courage

May you see doorways rather than walls
Sky rather than ceiling
Wide open spaces to explore, wander and play with abandon
Discover and unfold
Open and surrender
Aliveness, energy and awe
Breathe it in
Let it be so.

“Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.” – Gail Sheehy

Jul 3

Praise and Glory

“Nature is one song of praise that never stops singing.” – Richard Rohr

“Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.” – Sam Walton

Open arms
Eyes to the sky
Release to the possible
Let your imagination roam wild and free
Praise, glory and awe
Balm to the soul
Flight to spirit

“It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.” – Amelia Barr

Jun 22

Glad Awakening

“I only know there came to me…a sense of glad awakening.” – Edna Saint Vincent Millay

“You do not think yourself into a new way of living as much as you live yourself into a new way of thinking.”— Yes, and…: Daily Meditations by Richard Rohr

Listen
Look
Listen harder
Look longer
Clarity by tuning the instrument of your senses
To see the same differently
To find familiarity in the different
Awaken to small moments, tiny changes, a flower unfolding.

“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.” – Leo Tolstoy

Jun 10

Color Parade

“Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.” – Allen Klein

“Life did not stop, and one had to live.”— Leo Tolstoy

The bright brilliant, unending parade of flowers remind us that life continues to unfold, bloom, burst, fade, finish and then begin yet again. Allow yourself to be surprised, to be awed, to be awakened. Look around, not back and not too far ahead. This season is overflowing with beauty – cannon ball into the deep end and flap around with delight. One has to live. Seek, soak and cast light.

“That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.” – William Wordsworth

Jun 9

Weeds to Wishes

“Be still and the earth will speak to you.” – Navajo proverb

“However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts.” – John Calvin

A member of the sunflower family, we’ve called the dandelion a weed, pulling them up before they spread through the yard. In traditional herbal medicine practices, the dandelion is revered for its medicinal properties. The flower is nutritious, contains antioxidants, fights inflammation, aids in blood sugar control, may reduce cholesterol and lower blood pressure and may boost your immune system

“Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.” —Native American Proverb

At the end of their bloom, children pick them up and blow on the delicate puffball to make a wish, scattering the seeds to the wind. From weeds to wishes, we can change our perspective through exploration, rapt attention and releasing old assumptions and stories that turn flowers into weeds.

“Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.” – Voltaire

Scatter seeds, make wishes, pursue dreams. See the flower in the weed.

“May the stars carry your sadness away, May the flowers fill your heart with beauty, May hope forever wipe away your tears, And, above all, may silence make you strong.”– Chief Dan George, Tsleil-Waututh

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