Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Flowers’ Category

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

May 30

Wildflowers

“Wildflowers are the stuff of my heart!” – Lady Bird Johnson

“May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty and joy of each day.” – Native American Proverb

The wildflowers in glory bloom
Dancing with ease in the wind
Gathered together to praise, to celebrate a new day
Holy, sacred ground
May we have the sense of wildflowers as we enter and close this day

“The arbutus is now open everywhere in the woods and groves. How pleasant it is to meet the same flowers year after year! If the blossoms were liable to change–if they were to become capricious and irregular–they might excite more surprise, more curiosity, but we should love them less; they might be just as bright, and gay, and fragrant under other forms, but they would not be the violets, and squirrel-cups, and ground laurels we loved last year. Whatever your roving fancies may say, there is a virtue in constancy which has a reward above all that fickle change can bestow, giving strength and purity to every affection of life, and even throwing additional grace about the flowers which bloom in our native fields. We admire the strange and brilliant plant of the green-house, but we love most the simple flowers we have loved of old, which have bloomed many a spring, through rain and sunshine, on our native soil.” ― Susan Fenimore Cooper

May 22

Behold

“My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil’s mind, and behold, all things are changed!” – Anne Sullivan

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

Notice the details in a single flower
Hear the birds composing a new song
Expand your soul where you stand in this moment
Less doing, more being present
Behold, embrace, be held.

“Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught our people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I seek the strength, not to be greater than my brother/sister but to fight my greatest enemy- myself.
Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes.
So that all that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
ShneppeTEWI (Blessings)” – Miguel Quimichipilli Bravo

May 20

Bring in the Lilacs

“On your journey, don’t forget to smell the flowers. Take time out to notice that you’re alive. You can only live in one day.” – Ray Fearon

“One can state, without exaggeration, that the observation of and the search for similarities and differences are the basis of all human knowledge.” – Alfred Nobel

Waiting for the coffee to finish filling the cup, I looked out my kitchen window gazing at the lilacs. A command clearly came to mind – “bring in the lilacs.” Following the prompt, I went out in my pajamas to bring them in.

Lilacs demand to be noticed. Their season is short. So while they are here, we are called to enjoy them, to bring them in.

Become an observer, a listener, a witness. See what’s right in front of you in a new way and bring it closer. Awaken, notice and take in the beauty already present, absorb it into your bones, breath it in deeply.

On your hurried way to what’s next, to your list of “to-dos,” to meeting after meeting, get distracted, interrupted and awaken to now, to this moment.

Sweet fragrance, rich flavor, brilliant color all within reach. Arms-length, in view, available now. From transaction to transformation. From grind to gratitude.

“One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.” – Walter Scott

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
%d bloggers like this: