Tag: flowering within

How Can You Rise & Set Yourself Free?

The new moon tip-toed in like a silent dream gathering winter’s cold breath under her cloak and lulled the earth deeper into slumber. The days are mostly sunny and warm, but come late afternoon, I light candles, burn cinnamon and sweet orange scents and I throw a blanket over my knees to stay warm as I write at my desk.

A few days ago, I was breathing the morning light in with a cup of steaming tea when I looked at the flower pot on my coffee table. I noticed how the cyclamen buds rise like swans from the soil and then turn and spread their petals upward like feathered wings in flight. They seemed like a secret poem, an ode to the mystery of flight, quietly reminding us to spread our own wings and soar.

Cyclamen swans

Their faint whispers inspired two questions that I’ve carried with me lately: How can you set yourself free just a little bit more today? How can you rise above the obstacles in your path and fly closer to your dreams?

Sometimes the answers are not easy ones. Like when setting myself free means that I have face my fear of confrontation to stand my ground. Other times they’ve offered simpler options than I’d have imagined, like putting on some music to dance with my husband at the end of a difficult day instead of allowing myself to wallow in negativity because of the little things that pricked up my sensitive soul. Either way, I like that asking these questions have given me the opportunity to shift my thinking, deal with situations that I generally tend to avoid and take small liberating steps forward.

This is probably why I drew inspiration from the cyclamen flowers to string together my wild word mantra this week.

The Cyclamen Inspired Wild Words: Rise, Fly, Wings, Adventure, Expand

The Mantra: I am willing to rise above self-limitations that keep me trapped in negative cycles. I choose to spread my wings and fly. I am ready for new adventures that help me to soar and allow my soul to expand.

Cyclamen wild words mantra

A Place of Graceful Flowering

Some days I feel so blessed to experience little pieces of wild heaven. Like a moment beneath the linden trees when the wind washes through them and their yellowed leaves flutter in frenzy. Or like the tranquil silence between each leaf dropping to the earth, falling so slowly and gracefully like pretty pieces of soul-touched confetti.

I sat beneath the trees and breathed this heaven in – the stillness, the peace and the soothing whispers in the wind. I breathed in the wildness of quiet trees whose voices land softly on open hearts when they dance in the autumn gusts, and I remembered that the mysterious force that weaves together sacred scenes like this is the very essence that weaves together breath and blood and soul in me, in us all.

I’m amazed sometimes how small moments like this, just sitting with the earth, can be gifts that remind me how to contact the mysterious sacredness within and guide my heart out of tension into a place of graceful flowering.

autumn kiss

The Hidden Flowering

I sent out the first Wild Moon Letter this weekend, the new format of my newsletter that I’ll be sharing every New + Full Moon. Right now, it makes sense to share whispers of grace this way because I tend to forget about my newsletter often. Since I’ve found a way to live close to the cycles of the Earth and the moon over the last 3 years or so, I’m hoping that the timing of these new wild moon letters will keep me in a more natural pattern of flow, so that I connect and share on a more regular basic.

In this letter, I spoke about flowering light and the insight that a few lines from Galway Kinnell’s poem, Saint Francis and The Sow, inspired in me. You see, I came across the piece a few days ago and it touched something deep within. It reads as follows:

“The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing…”

I use the Full Moon as a time to contemplate the dreams I’ve carried from seed, to bud, to flower through the lunar cycle. So as I reflect, celebrate and release at this time, Kinnell’s words have reminded me to look deeper into the journey taken.

Some things flourish, while others don’t always pan out the way we expect or hope for. Over the course of the past 13 moons, many beautiful things manifested for me – from publishing my book and to travelling, to becoming a home owner and many blessings in-between. Every day I humbled with gratitude for all that I have.

There are other dreams too that have yet to come to fruition.

Taking my cue from Kinnell, I’ve chosen not to see these as failures and instead to trust that they are buds flowering from within. They must be in some way, because they’ve taught me lessons in the process, helped me grow and led me deeper into my relationship with myself, with the Earth and with the Divine. They have exposed my shadows and shown me deep fears that I’ve been hiding from myself. They have called me to examine my life and realigned with my authentic intentions, reminding me that some things only flower when they come from that authentic inner essence.

Some of these buds and parts of me may require just a little bit of time, love and nurturing, or perhaps as Kinnell goes on to say:

“ though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing”

So this Full Moon, I shall sit with my buds, both those blooming outwardly and those flowering quietly inside to honour them and explore them. I will look into how they need to be nurtured or reminded of their loveliness. Or I will release them if they call me to let go. I will sit with myself too, searching the dark corners of my essence for secret flowerings and speaking self-love and light into hidden buds.

Will you join me? Will you lean into your truth and the beautiful flowering light of your heart? How can you make space for the buds, things and places inside of you that appear arrested in development but may actually be flowering from within? And if need be, are you willing to reteach them their loveliness? 

everything flowers