New Views

iPhone Photo of a palm tree at the Green Valley Ranch Resort in Las Vegas 

I'm back from an inspiring weekend with James Arthur Ray. I'm still processing the weekend, but I will say it was:  Powerful. Profound. Amazing. Healing. Inspiring. Practical. Mystical. Fun. High-energy. Interactive. Eye-opening. Joyous. So very worth it. More tomorrow. I need another night sleep to recoup.

Tell me, what seminars or speakers inspire you?

*****

P.S. Above photo taken with my new iPhone (which I love, love, love!), using the Camera Bag app (which allows you to put cool filters — like the Helga one above — to your photos). You can check out some other cool Camera Bag iPhone photos here. Looking forward to playing with this app!

P.P.S. I'm now on Twitter, too. Follow me at http://twitter.com/inspiredwriter or check out the updates widget in the right-hand column of my page.

Flowering Fridays: Feverfew

 

For several years, I have been trying to grow feverfew from seeds in my garden.  A Boston friend, Diane Miller, gave me my first feverfew plant for our home in Columbus, Ohio, more than a decade ago. I fell in love with its subtle citrus scent, its profusion of little flowers and its vigor for spreading each year.

Ever since we moved to Wisconsin almost six years ago, I have been trying to grow this plant from seed (as I haven't seen it at the nurseries I frequent).

The feverfew looks like a dainty miniature daisy to me, and as you know, I (heart) daisies. (Although, in fact, feverfew is a relative of the chrysanthemum). 

This year, I thought my efforts were again for naught.

But in late August there were seedlings, long after I had given up hope. Then in late October, the plant bloomed. And for the past several weeks we have enjoyed several small bouquets of this sweet, happy flower.

Nature is such a great teacher for me on the value of patience and the right timing of everything. 

Watching (sometimes obsessively) the camera feed of the Titan Arum at the Milwaukee Public Museum has been another lesson for me this week in the divine right timing and inner wisdom that is imprinted within each plant.

Here it is almost a week after the initial announcement that the plant would bloom any day and still no bloom. Yet. But this is a plant that has been building up to its bloom for more than six years. What's a few more days of waiting until the time is just right.

I trust that the Titan Arum, just like my feverfew plants, knows the right time to bloom. I also sense that if I can stand in such utter surrender and trust that I, too, will know that the bloom is coming. I will know the exact right time to blossom open fully.

Someone recently pointed out to me that the bloom often comes at the end of the flower's life cycle. There is so much growing and stretching that must happen first — going from seed to seedling to branching with buds. And the flower the culmination of its efforts.

Such a great reminder for me (who has in the past has been Little Miss Impatient) that the effort of growing is what makes the bloom possible.

Tell me, how do you know when it is time to bloom open into something new?

*********

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

Your Recovery Plan

Chestnuts at Appalachian Forest Museum, Arc of Appalachia, Taken October 14, 2008

"You are chestnut burr, prickly outside, but silky-soft within, and a sweet kernel, if one can get at it. Love will make you show your heart some day, and then the rough burr will fall off."— Meg to Jo in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

I love the spiny burr that encases these chestnuts. It looks protective to me, part of a grand preparedness plan by Mother Nature to ensure that the chestnut would be protected in its journey. It's also a metaphor for me of the fruits — the heart — that lie beneath the exterior of things — if only you are willing to look past appearances.

Last night, I had a bongo lesson with teacher/sage Jeff, who dispenses philosophy as readily as he does the finer points of percussive technique. I'm not sure he realizes what a wise soul he is, but I so appreciate that the lessons that I'm learning with bongos applies to so many of areas of my life.

He was teaching me a new rhythm — the bolero. It is a simple rhythm, a beginner rhythm. But I was completely lost in it, confused by switching hands and drum heads, going blank at synching my hands with the notes or with my verbal cues (high, low, high). I could not hear the beat at all. Several times, I just stopped, blank and panicked, in the middle of our playing to "Dos Gardenias" by Ibrahim Ferrer of the Buena Vista Social Club.

In the moment, what was going through my mind as my cheeks began to flush was "I'm failing, I'm making a mistake, I'm not good at this." (Being a beginner bongo player is such good practice for me to notice where old ways of thinking crop up.)  I could feel my prickly burrs shoot out to protect me from being in this vulnerable place.

Jeff stopped playing and turned to me. "So, what's your recovery plan?" he asked. "You're going to make mistakes and get lost when playing. What is your recovery plan when that happens?"

What a brilliant question. For so much of my life, my perfectionist tendencies only focused on preventing mistakes. I'm not sure I've ever considered what my "recovery plan" in any given situation.

But last night, I paused and thought about my recovery plan: Pause. Connect back in with the beat. Listen to the music. Trust. Begin playing again. Breathe.

Good advice for all areas of my life — writing, art-making, living, loving, being. (Thanks, Jeff!)

Tell me, what is your recovery plan for when you get lost or make a mistake?

P.S. My husband and I are heading out to study, grow and expand at a seminar with the inspiring James Ray in Las Vegas. The Milwaukee Public Museum's Titan Arum has not yet bloomed (patience, grasshopper, I know) — I'm hoping that there will be something to see when I return on Monday.