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Posts from the ‘Flowers’ Category

Apr 27

Bud to Bloom

“Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” – Hans Christian Andersen

“The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.” – Honore de Balzac

We are all in different places. Some at bud, some ready to break open and some in full bloom. Each one of us is where we need to be in this moment. No need to compare, compete or contrast. Just be where you are right now and know that bud always leads to bloom. Always.

“Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun.” – Don Miguel Ruiz

“The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.” – Leo Buscaglia

 

“The flower has opened, has been in the sun and is unafraid. I’m taking more chances; I’m bold and proud.” – Paula Cole

Apr 11

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Easter-Eve

“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” – Albert Einstein

“Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.” – Thomas Carlyle

Allow the anticipation, the awe and the joy to enter, to become Easter people filled with hope, peace and optimism. Like a symphony when all of the instruments merge, intertwine and come together in beautiful music that lifts the very soul, take the enormity of Easter in. Open your arms, be held and hold it close. The last of winter may be hanging on a bit longer, but spring never misses its turn and summer stands in waiting.

Make each day a dance, a burst, a celebration. Easter shows us how.

Apr 9

2 Comments

Open Windows are Essential

“Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower and draws all good things towards you.” – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

“It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important.” – Soren Kierkegaard

One of my favorite places to visit just a mile from home is the Como Conservatory. I’ve been running by it three to four times a week and look in the windows to see the beautiful flowers.  It’s locked down for social distancing purposes, in the “nonessential” category. Yesterday, when we walked by, they had opened the windows a crack allowing the sweet fragrance of tulips to escape out, a gift of hope and spring.

If we choose to learn and apply the lessons of this rare time on the other side, we will reclassify many items in our life, focusing on the truly essential and letting the nonessential go by the wayside, never to drag us down again.

Nonessential: worry, control, gossip, unforgiveness, regret, resentment, judgment, assumptions, criticism, cynicism, scarcity, noise, busy, hopelessness and overall shallow living.

Essential: joy, kindness, gratitude, generosity, connection, family, friends, unconditional love, forgiveness, letting go, purpose, abundance, faith, hope, light, awe, justice, peace, anticipation, delight, fun, laughter, play, long hugs, eye contact, empathy and deep living.

All of the essentials are available to us right in this very moment, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, minus the long hugs that will come soon. Don’t wait for the other side to get to what’s essential. And open windows and flowers are essential too.

Apr 2

A Living Prayer

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.” – Anne Lamott

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” –  Anne Lamott

A cloudy warm end to the day. A daily run to breathe in the gift of fresh open air. Routine. Habit. Ordinary. And then suddenly, out of the dry leaves of Winter, brilliant deep crisp purple and orange pop out to awaken and sharpen the senses. The ordinary transforms to extraordinary, to delight, to the unexpected. The first and not last sign of Spring, of life, of expansion, of hope, of color invites us in with open arms. A living prayer. An embrace.

Seasons, cycles, certainty, uncertainty and clarity merge. In the midst of transition, of waiting, of the precursor to Spring, wandering in the desert with the oasis around the corner, we find life vibrant and more than well. Planting season, filled with complexity, mystery, light and color.

“When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens.” – Anne Lamott

This is holy, sacred, hopeful time. Take a knee. Offer a prayer. Let go of the familiar. Be prepared to be surprised, to fully enter awe. It’s all around. Wake up!

Mar 23

4 Comments

Still Standing

“You must be a lotus, unfolding its petals when the sun rises in the sky, unaffected by the slush where it is born or even the water which sustains it!” – Sai Baba

“The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

I bought these flowers a few weeks ago and they are still standing strong. Carnations are a hearty bunch. After yesterday’s post on colors and the cusp of Spring, I woke this morning to snow falling. So much for the Spring theory. Isn’t that the way it always is? Just when we think the buds will pop, the grass awaken, the snow returns once again asking us to see with new eyes.

The snow was the perfect backdrop to the carnations standing firm, looking up and blushing with soft pink and yellow. We are both beautiful and bold, soft and tough, sullen and joyful.

Embrace the bloom and the snow. We are more than survivors. We are here to thrive. Still standing in bloom attention.

Mar 15

And Yet, Beauty Remains

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

These are tumultuous times to be sure. Uncertainty. Social distancing. Unprecedented. Our lack of control exposed. The outcome unknown.

Being positive is naïve and unreasonable. And yet, beauty remains, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. Worry produces scarcity and fear. When the waves pound, the clouds block the sun and uncertainty rules, this is the precise time to trust, be aware, let go and allow hope to rise.

Beauty remains, offering respite and repose. Take this time to reflect, go deep and take account of where you are and make plans for where you will go with intent and enthusiasm when the time is right.

“You have to be in the world to understand what the spiritual is about, and you have to be spiritual in order to truly be able to accept what the world is about.” – Mary Oliver

Be kind. Be present. Be grateful.

 

Jan 29

Fresh Water

“Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?” – Alice Walker

“For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive.” – D. H. Lawrence

No special occasion. No waiting on someone else. On the weekly grocery list. I buy flowers for myself like I buy lettuce. Nutrition for the soul to savor the fragrant brilliance found only in a party of fresh blooms. Each one unique, brimming with beauty. Showing off as they should. Unapologetic.

A florist once advised me that to make the flowers last longer, freshen the water daily. Solid advice for living too. Dump out the stale, clouded water and begin each day a new. Fresh water, fresh blooms.

 

Jan 9

The Focused Life

“Living the focused life is not about trying to feel happy all the time…rather, it’s about treating your mind as you would a private garden and being as careful as possible about what you introduce and allow to grow there.”― Winifred Gallagher

With rapt attention, the bee moves into the center to fulfill her purpose. Pick your flower and dig in.

“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.” – Emily Dickinson

Care for and guard your garden. Clarity comes in slowness, unfolding in gentle solitude of an open heart. Wonder, possibility and awe follow.

Never stop asking or answering Mary Oliver’s question “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

The focused, wild and precious life. One attention-rich day at a time.

Dec 14

2 Comments

Concrete Flower in Bloom

“The colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas.” – Edvard Munch

“The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas.” –Georges Rouault

Rather than merely seeing an old wall on an industrial building, someone saw a blank canvas and painted a beautiful flower. When we look at the same old things in new ways, the same becomes new, our vision expands and understanding deepens.

Look at each day, each moment with new eyes, with your imagination. Where can you paint a beautiful flower, plant a seed in a heart?

Imagination and creativity are in all of us, no exceptions. Blank canvas, colors in your imagination, flowers in bloom all around. Start painting!

Dec 9

Beneath and Beyond

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

“The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.” – Heraclitus

Beneath the fresh clean snow, each flower prepares in silence;
Beyond the frigid temperatures, the ground rests patiently for spring;

Beneath and beyond this moment, you are being prepared and cultivated for your unfolding, becoming and blooming;

Beneath and beyond your knowing is a certainty that all is well and as it should be;
Patience breaks ground revealing hidden harmony.

Beneath and beyond.

 

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