Flowering Fridays: On Wonder

My "surprise in the flower," our meadow, September 2009

I am in Atlanta this weekend, marking the completion of the Future Thinking course I have participated in for the last two and half years.

Our focus for this quarter has been around fear: how to notice it in your thoughts and behaviors, how to be with it and how to move into life from fear into a place of wonder and trust.

What I am learning from the conversation with Jan Smith, my teacher, and the community is this:

To move beyond (or perhaps more accurately, to notice your fear and move into life anyway) it is necessary to have curiosity and wonder...so we can access our creativity, our connectedness and our centeredness no matter what is going on around us.

My catch-phrase for accessing this wonder has been to "look for the surprise in the flower."

One of the things I love the most about taking flower pictures has been the surprises that unfold through the practice of noticing and capturing.

For me, sometimes the surprise is in going out to find something in bloom that I didn't know was blooming.

Sometimes it's the surprise of watching a bumblee gather pollen or (as in the case above) the discovery of how much Japanese beetles love to hang out on Queen Anne's Lace.

Or sometimes the surprise comes later when I am looking at the photos close up on the computer screen and notice the unique configuration at the center of the flower.

Taking flower pictures this last year has really helped me to connect more deeply with the feeling of wonder.

And I'm finding it's grounding me as I move into some new spaces in my life that can bring up fear for me — as we move out of our house and into something new (yes, it sold in seven days!); as I navigate what's needed with my mom as she continues on her healing journey; as I witness my stepbrother-in-law's journey with lung cancer; as I get to know the fragile and precious nature of life more deeply through the death of a fellow seeker I met this summer.

Today, I am showing a slideshow of my flower photos to the Future Thinking community as part of an exercise in accessing wonder.

I have so very much to thank Jan and the Future Thinking community for (and my husband, Michael, too, who is here to participate in the conference and mark this moment with me).

I'm not sure how to capture all that has moved and expanded within me since entering Future Thinking. (And all that will continue to move and expand out my living what I've learned as I go forward).

Saying thank you for such a life-changing experience seems insufficient.

But I am so very grateful for the experience.

And so very grateful for the chance to access the power of wonder through learning how much I loved flowers.

Tell me, what do you notice in your life that gives you access to wonder?

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Flowering Fridays is a weekly look at flowers through the lens of what they might teach us about flowering fully in our life. Past editions are here.