Flowering Fridays: The Perfect Unfolding

Cylamens outside my hotel, Atlanta, GA, taken with iPhone

Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be.…Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar and you'll live as you've never lived before. — Erich Fromm

I took about 20 photos today of the lovely flowers outside the hotel here in Atlanta. And every one was blurry.

Immediately, I went into this place of irritation at my "failing" to capture a decent a picture.

Of course, this pattern of being irritated and noticing my faults (and then "beating myself up" about them) is an old habit. One that's been around for a very long time.

But then I decided to look closer at this picture.

Yeah, it's blurry, I thought.

But then I looked with different eyes and saw: 

There are these lovely pink cylamens so eager in their upward striving, seeming to reach up to connect and kiss the sun.

There is their willingness to open to receive and accept.

There are few cylamens that are wilted and now rest into their next cycle of life.

There are these beautiful green leaves that skirt around them with beauty and protection.

And in my noticing I begin to shift and see that reflect what I captured was a perfect unfolding…the perfection of the blooming cylamens and the wilted ones. The perfection of the shape of the foilage grounded their stalks to the earth. The perfection of every part of it, just as it is.

Even the perfection of the blurry picture.

I can now see the perfection of how I was given the opportunity to notice how I began disappointed in the picture and how shifted to be aware of the beauty that is offered.

I'm learning that so much of how I see the world is caused by what I'm looking for. Am I looking for the imperfection and the flaws? Or am I looking for the perfection of what is?

Four times I year I travel to Atlanta to participate in a three-day conference with the Future Thinking Community I'm a part of. It's facilitated by the brilliant Jan Smith and attended by a wonderful group of people from around the country and the globe who are committed to contributing their gifts in a big way to the world. (I've written about it before here.)

I'm so grateful for the learning community I have found in Future Thinking. For being a place where I can practice, make mistakes and expand. For the journey of self-discovery I am on — and will continue to be on. For the chance to have greater awareness around my repetitive (and limiting) ways of seeing the world.

And for the gift of seeing my world new eyes so I can witness the beauty and perfect unfolding that is present all the time, if only I allow myself the opportunity to see it.

Tell me, what area of your life can you look at with new eyes and see the beauty and perfect unfolding of 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.

Weeding Out

Passiflora/Passion vine, taken at Garden Arts in New Smyrna Beach, FL, April 9, 2009

I'm sensing a theme about weeding in my life of late. (See two most recent posts here and here.)

Before our trip to Florida, I did some much-needed weeding. But not in my garden. Nope, this was necessary indoor weeding.

Of my closet. And clothing bins in the attic. (Some seven bins in all). And a closet in a spare bedroom.

It's embarassing all the clothes I've been hoarding and holding on to: Three boxes of maternity clothes I have not worn for nine years. One box of clothes in my smallest size, that only fit for six months five years ago. Clothes that I didn't even like. Clothes that didn't fit. Clothes I bought on a whim and then wore only once or twice. Clothes that the moment I put them on I would say to myself "I look dumpy."

I didn't realize until I start this purge in a fit of inspiration on a Sunday afternoon that I had so much shame about all these clothes.

I have been carrying around the weight of all this clothing baggage for many, many years.

And something inside me — I'm still not quite sure what — said "Enough."

Enough with the shame and self-flagellation.

Enough with hanging on to the clothes for someday. Like when I'm thinner. Or if I get pregnant again.

Enough with wearing the clothes that only caused more negative self-talk.

At the Future Thinking gathering in January, Sarah, one of my friends from the program, shared how she went through her closet and got rid of any clothes that she didn't love and didn't love how she looked in. Now, she has a closet only filled with clothes she loves and loves how she looks in them.

To me, she radiated a beauty, confidence and positive energy from making this decision.

And she did look great in all her clothes.

I kept her in mind as I weeded with abandon.

Out with everything I didn't like, that didn't fit, that I didn't wear, that was stained.

What remained were clothes that when I put on, I felt great. Clothes that fit. Clothes that when I looked in the mirror I said, "Wow, I look good!"

What remained was one closet and one bin in the attic (filled with heavy winter sweaters that I love and will keep until the snow comes again).

I gave away five large garbage clothes to St. Vincent de Paul's. And I gave six department store bags of clothes to a couple friends who I thought might enjoy the clothes more than I did.

It felt so good to release all those clothes. And to release all that shame.

It feels so good to open my closet and know that everything in the closet is something I love and have chosen to keep.

The weeding of my closet also helped me to see what kinds of clothes I truly love and look good on me. I find now that when I'm looking to purchase something new, I hold the new item to my new standards. Only those clothes that "pass" get bought.

I feel a bit like this above photo of the gorgeous passion vine flower — uniquely, beautifully and boldly me. Which is exactly the kind of radiant bloom I want to show up as in the world.

Tell me, what area of your life can you weed out to make way for you to be the radiant bloom that you are?

Closet Overhaul, taken with iPhone using CameraBag filters

Weeding Wisdom

Northern geranium in our front-door planter

A few things I learned from my two hours of weeding and clearing out yesterday…

1) Choose your mark and then deeply root in it.

Weeds have a rugged persistence and drive to them that I really respect. I notice that the weeds grow deep and tenacious roots; it's hard to remove them from their place once they have chosen it. It teaches me about sticking with things. About focusing on an intention and being really rooted in that, not being swayed from it.

2) It's easier to remove unwanted things when they are small than to wait until they grow into something huge.

Yesterday I did some weeding of some very small sprouts. And I was reminded of how much easier dealing with things while they were small was. Whether it's dealing with the conversation I don't want to have or the self-critical thought I just had about my thighs, I find it's easier and more effective to take action now (make the phone call, reframe my self-talk into something positive and loving). When I put off addressing things that need attention, I find they can grow into something unwieldly and take way more time and effort than if I "nip them in the bud" now.

3) It takes more to worry about doing something than to just do something (even something small).

I almost didn't do any yardwork yesterday because I started in out in a familiar story of "no time." I had two hours yesterday to garden before heading out to a Radical Forgiveness Ceremony with Karen Bowen. (Highly recommend this experience — simple yet powerful!) My first thoughts about going out to garden were all about how I wouldn't get it all done today. But I stopped myself and decided to just get started. And you know what? I managed to clean three beds and felt very satisfied that I had made some progress on the project.

4) On the surface it might look like weeds and dead stuff, but underneath there is growth and transformation.

This is a lesson that I am having greater and greater opening around. In the past, I would focus on the stuck-ness and the deadness and overlook all the growth and new buds that are emerging underneath. I was consistently surprised yesterday by pulling away the old stalks of the plants to find the new buds thriving underneath. It helps me to remember that there is always yin and yang forces present — where there is dying, there is also life and rebirth.

5) It's never over. It's always a journey.

I sometimes have this fantasy that I will complete a project and be forever finis with it. As in:  I will clean out all the beds perfectly and be done until next year. Of course, this is not how life works. We are never finished with anything — there is always more. More to do. More to learn. More to discover. More steps on a journey. All we can do is do what we can do and declare it enough for now.

Tell me, what lessons are there for you in the daily routines of your life today?

The little welcome vignette by our front door this week. Planter is from Home Depot.