Flowering Fridays: Weeds Or Flowers

Queen Anne's Lace in our meadow, 7/28/09

What if you could trust that you were held and helped every single step of the way in your life? That everything you needed would be there in the perfect time for you?

How would you live differently?

What if what you thought were the weeds of your life were really the most precious flowers?

Would you love more? Enjoy each step of the journey more? Delight more in whatever occurs in your life?

What if you knew how important your unique gift was to the entire cosmos? How needed your unique expression was to the expansion and growth of the universe?

Would you get committed and go for it (big and small dreams alike), no holds barred?

What if you knew there were a myriad ways (many more magical than you could ever dream up yourself) that you could fulfill any intention, including your life purpose?

Would you bloom bigger? Trust more? Have more fun?

What if you knew that these questions were true? As true as the law of gravity and as a count-on-able, too.

Would you let go of the worry and the fear? Would you surrender and allow the beautiful flower you are to really bloom, grow, shine into the world?

Well, would you?

I would.

And I am.

It's been a beyond-words-amazing couple of weeks.

I learned a lot about fear and even more about releasing it.

I found a space so wide and full for the most profound gratitude and trust I've ever felt in my life.

And I tapped into new wells of joy for the delightful journey that life is.

Sure, there is more to learn. And more to integrate.

And I'll probably forget, from time to time.

(which is why I've put regular, daily practices in place to help me remember!)

But from now on I'm committed to seeing everything — me, my life, you, even the muck and the mire — all of it — as the most wonderfully abundant garden, full of nothing but ever-blooming flowers and nary a weed in sight.

Tell me, are you seeing weeds — or flowers?

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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.

Flowering Fridays: Abundant Nature

Lavender in the back garden

On Monday, I had an appointment with Nancy, a master gardener who sells perennial flowers out of her own beds and offers garden consults.

She had visited my garden a few weeks ago to look around, make recommendations and see what plants from her garden would enhance mine. And Monday was dig-up, pick-up day.

She divided up the bee balm, coneflower, marguerite daisies, feverfew and black-eyed Susans for me, adding to my garden while keeping the beauty of her garden just as lovely. She sells her plants for $1 each.

She also gave me about eight envelopes of seeds — some from several year's past — for free. "Seeds are such a gift," she said. "How could I charge for them?"

I love the way that Nancy shares the bounty of her garden. It seems so congruent with how nature is — generous, abundant, giving, free.

All week, I have walked around my garden beds, marveling at the variety and abundance of things in bloom and at how the garden is always changing, growing, expanding, cycling.

Here are a just a few pictures of what's blooming — or about to bloom:

I notice how there is always something blooming, something germinating, something growing, and something seed-giving in the garden.

(There is also always something dying, as it's part of the cycle, too.)

So it is in life, too.

I was struck in a profound way (yet again) with how abundant the universe is.

There are enough flowers, enough seeds, enough possibilities, enough resources, enough overflowing for all of us.

I am reading The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles in preparation for the Creating Absolute Wealth seminar my husband and I are attending in San Diego this weekend with Harmonic Wealth guru James A. Ray.

I have been underlining passages from the book as a reminder for me to release my fear and my worry. And to trust in the abundance that is life.

I could probably quote the whole book, but here are few favorites from Wattles:

The visible supply is practically inexhaustible; the invisible supply really IS inexhaustible. (page 15)

A seed, dropped into the ground, springs into activity, and in the act of living, produces a hundred more seeds; life, by living, multiplies itself. It is forever Becoming More. (page 28)

That which makes you want more money is the same as that which makes the plant grow; it is Life, seeking fuller expression. (page 29)

Nature is friendly to your plans.
Everything is naturally for you. (page 30)

You need not hesitate to ask largely. (page 42)

The world is not going to the Devil; it is going to God.
It is wonderful Becoming. (page 67)

There is never hurry on the creative plane; and there is no lack of opportunity. (page 93)

I'm excited for the next three days with James Ray — to shift out of the poverty mentality I can have about money, time, and life and step fully into the abundant nature that life and the universe is.

I know that abundance is our birthright, for I witness it in action in my garden every day and I'm ready to take it on for myself in a bigger way.

Tell me, what book, idea, or thing in life reminds you of the inherent abundance of the universe?

P.S. Sorry for being so quiet here on the blog and elsewhere. I have been doing a lot of personal composting these past two weeks— much learning, expansion and reflecting. (Future Thinking in Atlanta, past life regression and session with an intuitive healer in from Montana, past life chakra scans, a day of Biography work with my teach from Minneapolis, to name a few.) All good and necessary. Will share more soon, but in the meantime I send you all the knowing that your fullest blooming is your true nature. Much love!

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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.

Flowering Fridays: Seeing the Wholeness

Coreopsis, from my dad & stepmom's garden in Ohio, June 2009

I am in Atlanta for the quarterly conference with the Future Thinking community I am a member of.

It has been a profound day for me.

One of the biggest things I got was how I keep myself from blooming big in my life because of some deep-seeded fixed mindsets I live in.

I read this quote yesterday in Lisa Sonora Beam's wonderful book, The Creative Entrepreneur:

"We are the only species on Earth capable of preventing our own flowering." — David Whyte

What Jan Smith, my coach and teacher, opened me up to today is how fixed and embedded my mindset is that I am my body.

Meaning, I see my worthiness tied up in my body. How I look. How I feel. How and what I eat. How other people see me.

And it's kind of a bummer.* Because my soul loves to delight in the sense-sational nature of life.

(*it's actually way worse than a bummer. It's kind of soul-sucking-sucky-sad.)

Jan offered me the chance to paint a new picture of how my life might be if I could fully be sensuously alive in my body — with any regard to how it appears externally.

What could open up if an invitation to go skinny dipping with my girlfriends didn't bring up fear for me?

What could open up for me if I didn't look in the mirror and immediately criticize how I looked?

What could open up for me if when my husband complimented me on how he loves my body, I could fully take it in and appreciate it?

What could open up for me if I could fully enjoy the food I eat for the amazing sensory experience it provides?

What could open up if I could delight in all my senses and feel fully alive — no matter how I thought I looked in the moment?

(um, like, everything could open up for me.)

I get that the possibilities are huge.

And I've been tender tonight as I grieve all the ways I have shut myself off from all sorts of wonder, possibility and connection because I have been living — up until now — in this fixed mindset.

It's interesting to me how I can see the beauty in flowers so easily.

I don't criticize the flower for the broken or misshapen petal.

With all flowers, I only see its inherent gift — its sacred center — and its beautiful flower essence.

I'm able to see the beauty and sacred soul that people are beneath their behaviors, too.

(Well, at least sometimes, I can. I'm still growing past my judgments and healing my fears and mirrors in certain situations.)

What I got from today (in flower-terms) is how I can grow into being really rooted in the beautiful flower I am. Regardless of external stuff, like how I look or fears of whether people will judge me.

Where I am intending to stand going forward is here:

No matter what my flowering looks like — lop-sided, broken, ripped, or messy — I still see myself as an amazingly beautiful bloom, whole and complete just as I am, in every moment and no matter what goes on externally.

I'm going to have be intentionally practicing living from this new lens to really get it in my body.

But it's something I'm willing to do.

Because the possibilities for my fullest flowering depend on it.

Tell me, what helps to ground you in the beautiful flower you are?

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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.