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Message from the perennial garden

Today, I will be planting my first perennial garden with a friend.

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As I paused to consider the miracle of tender plants with beautiful flowers re-emerging each year from seeming nothingness, I realized that the underground root systems must be quite vast and strong. In order for the plants to return, there must be an amazing network of life below the surface without which no garden would appear.

What a powerful metaphor for life! On the outside, in the physical world, we show up as beautiful blooms as well as death and decay. Our outer existence cycles through joy and pain, ecstasy and suffering, love and hate.

What is it that keeps us coming back from the darkness?
How is it that we “rise again”?

Take a look at folks you know who seem to move through life’s challenges with grace, trust, patience, perhaps even ease.

What is their strength?

If you dig deep enough, you are likely to find a strong, solid, expansive root system below the surface! These individuals likely possess a rich foundation, beliefs and practices, to which they turn over and over again when life presents challenges.

What makes up your hidden foundation?
What daily practices nourish and strengthen it?
What will keep the storms of life from destroying it?

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Another Pause

It is March 9, 2015. I woke with a song in my heart space: May My Heart Break by Stowe and Karen of StoweGood.com. These powerful lyrics are guiding me in this moment:

As I lie here in the stillness of a brand new day
and imagine all the possibilities.
I am humbled by this life and by the part I play.
And my gratitude just brings me to my knees.

This is my prayer. This is my plea.
Would you blind me to all separation I might see.
Bring down the walls. Let judgment fall away.
May my heart break open today.

I am moved to connect, to see our oneness, to live fully my part in this life. And I know that I am meant to explore deeply inside myself and be with others in rich, inter-personal connection.

I am once again called to write less – and less. For each of you who find inspiration on-line, please soak it in and then live into it! For each of you who, like me, desire the human touch for your inspiration, give it, receive it, live it.

For this moment, not knowing when I will return, I say, farewell. May you treasure the life you have been given and live it authentically, fully, freely.

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Do Less

I have written before about listening to intuitive wisdom – that inner, personal guidance that each one of us has access to, but which we so often miss.

Intuitive Wisdom

It takes practice to learn to hear our intuition and courage to follow it. Today, consider making a commitment to practice listening. To make it possible, try these practical and simple ideas for making space in your days by doing less:

  • Cook extra so tomorrow’s meal is easier with planned leftovers
  • Reuse bath towels so laundry is less
  • Don’t pick that fight with your spouse or children, let it go and go listen within instead
  • Stop rehashing yesterday in your mind
  • Stop planning for tomorrow and listen to what is present today

Know that when we begin a practice of listening, we might only hear what we’ve always heard! Be gentle with yourself. This is a practice! Let go again and listen:

What do you hear in the silence?
What message is in your breath?
What does your body say?
What is your heart’s truth?

 

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Bowling Alley Wisdom Part VI

In case you missed part V, you’ll find it here:

Bowling Alley Wisdom Part V: The Foul Line

Lesson #6: Let It Go!

Here’s the thing: sometimes our attempt at knocking down ten pins results in a foul or a gutter ball (no pins knocked down!) or perhaps a ball so poorly thrown that we score but a few pins.

What do we do when that happens?

We might get angry, be embarrassed, give up and quit trying. And that would be a waste of the rest of the game, yes? How about this option instead:

Let it go and move on!
Look forward, not back.
Regroup and begin again.

Life asks the same of us. When we make a mistake, or take two steps backwards, or find ourselves wishing we hadn’t done “it”, we can give up or we can learn a lesson from the experience and move ahead stronger and more resilient.

What miss-steps or “failures” have you quitting?
What is the lesson?

What is possible if you “let it go and begin again”?