Flowering Fridays: Mushrooming

Mushrooms in Alan's Yard, Druid Hills, Atlanta, October 2009

One of the things I love about flowers is how sometimes they seem to bloom overnight and how they seem to gain a papable energy and force from drawing up nutrients and moisture to grow.

I saw these mushrooms in the yard of the home of my friend Alan from Future Thinking and they looked to me like flowers.

(And like flowers, I love the diversity of shapes and types of fungi. I am always pausing on woodland walks to notice how cool fungi can be.)

I know very little about mushrooms.

(Then again, I don't know much about flowers, either, scientifically speaking.)

So I went trolling on Wikipedia for more on mushrooms and was reminded of the terms "to mushroom" and "mushrooming."

My life of late has felt like a mushrooming, as I absorb all that's going on — finding a rental property for us to live in .... being present to my mom's healing journey (which I would call bumpy this week — a fall out of bed, a lot of mental agitation and no improvements in her lungs) ... beginning to navigate the longer-term issues of insurance and care for my mom ... being away from our home for more than two weeks with trips to Ohio and Atlanta ... and ... and ... well, you get the picture.

Let's just say there has been a lot of, um, mushrooming.

Sometimes I feel full of grace, possibilities and trust. I can feel my being mushroom-expand into that full space.

And sometimes I feel bloated with the sogginess of fear, worry and overwhelm.

What I take from the mushroom is to bring consciousness to what nourishing thoughts I want to feed on.

And while the diet of fear might be familiar to me, I can see the possibility of mushrooming with trust as I make these transitions.

Tell me, what's mushrooming in your life now?

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.

Monday Musings: Turn, Turn, Turn

Zinnia in garden, September 2009

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time of war, a time of peace
A time of love, a time of hate
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time of peace, I swear it's not too late!

—"Turn, Turn, Turn" by The Byrds

Direct link to video here.

This song has been on my mind — with my mom, with selling our house, with the fall leaves dropping. I want to embrace all the seasons of life and experience the fullness of aliveness that comes from experiencing all of it — birth and death, planting and reaping, joy and sadness.

Tell me, where is the turning occuring in your life today?