Flowering Friday: Enjoying the Unfolding

Zinnia in our garden, about to bloom

In a few hours, I will be on a plane to North Carolina where we will be spending the next nine days exploring the area.

It's part a family vacation and part an exploration into the question of "Might we like to live here?"

We are concentrating the "living question" around the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. We will be spending two days looking at homes with a realtor. We will tour the local Waldorf school. We will spending another two days driving around and checking out the area. We will probably ask the locals what they love about living there. We will eat some barbeque. We will see how a hot humid, 90-plus degree summer feels.

(Then, we will also visit the Atlantic Ocean, Charlotte and hopefully see Pearl Fryar's amazing topiary garden.)

I'm very excited to see what the next nine days unfolds.

We might decide we want to move. We might decide we're happy where we are. We might decide that more exploring is needed before we'll know.

No matter what unfolds I just want to be in the joy of the journey.

I toss that last sentence off like it's no big deal.

But it is, in fact, a big deal for me.

I've spent so much of my life wanting everything all planned out. Thinking if I just planned or worked or tried hard enough everything would be okay.

And when everything was okay, I would (finally) be okay, too.

I'm finally getting that isn't how life works.

It's sounds trite, but I'm really starting to open up to enjoying the journey, instead of longing for the destination to arrive.

I'm finding that I'm okay, right now, on the path, just as I am.

The joy is to be had right now. Not saved for someday.

While there have been many lessons and teachers that have created that opening, I think it's been the flowers that have taught me the most about enjoying the journey.

I look at this beautiful zinnia. Not yet in bloom, and still beautiful. Still (as I see it) joyful. Still trusting and enjoying the ride that blooming big is.

Whether we move or not, I'm carrying the image of this zinnia as my intention for how I want to be as our family considers this question:

Trusting. Enjoying the process. And knowing that on some level it's irrelevant what we decide: we'll be blooming wherever we are.

Tell me, what's your best wisdom on deciding to make a move in your life (literally or figuratively)? I'd love to hear it.

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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.

Comments

[Bill Jacobson]

The first summer when I moved to Grass Valley (2001) I planted zinnia seeds in a very barren area of our 2/3 acre space. Among much invasive and non-native star thistle (yikes) the only flower we planted was zinnia. The plants flourished and provided great color and spirit throughout summer into fall. They were beautiful.

Working the earth with any organic material I could find, I began the task of nurturing the soil with prayer and all the hours needed to help foster new growth. Ever since 01 I have dropped zinnia seeds every spring... every spring since I've not had zinnia's grow. My wife and I have wondered since that first year, "why."

This past month, a single zinnia plant and flower have grown. What a joyful and remarkable sight it is on every visit to the garden.

I find this post most interesting, in that I too am at a crossroads in the "living question" of life... I watched a movie last night where a character places a sign in her new york neighborhood boutique that says:

We are closing our doors after 42 years. We have enjoyed sharing our lives with you.

As I reflect on how I am contemplating how best to close my doors (or not) to my 27 years of technology consulting, the lone zinnia calls out with its beauty.

No longer is the invasive star thistle inhabiting our garden. And after 7 summers without zinnia, one has chosen to reveal itself. Reminding me that the improbable is now possible again. The natural world reveals it's secrets one at a time. Combined with this post, I know (as opposed to believe) that a secret is flowering, revealed by the natural world - the place of perfect order.

In my humanness I worry of the many uncertainties to the change of seasons that is faced. In every day human communication I am reminded how "status quo" resists the work that Creator asks of us.

The best wisdom that I can muster for this question of how best to make a move in life is this...

As a people, we have drifted much too far from our Creator. It is neither bad, nor good. It is what it is. However, we are now in this moment of time where we must return to our Creator for our individual instructions on how we are each to be born, to grow, to flower, to live... up to the responsibilities and obligations that come with sharing our uniqueness.

We are Earth People. When we all realize that we are all one people, connected with all that exists, we will move forward as Creator's messenger of Love. Leaving behind "separateness" as we help each other ( two legged's four leggeds, winged ones, finned ones and the creepy crawler ones) we will flower in ways that defy definition.

The lone Zinnia says, "I am a zinnia, resistance does not bother me," don't let it bother you Bill. "Go with the Divine Flow of LIFE."

[Tre~]

hey shannon....adore you for opening up about the thought sifting about life...now vs the some distant someday...i feel like a noob still even in really getting that the right now is all....but when you pause and dive deep into why that's true, whoa nilly, it does allow you to see the beauty of the budding....hugging you and hopin you are having a fun discovery...love that state...lotsa good peeps and good greens :)