"If we fail to nourish our souls, they wither, and without soul, life ceases to have meaning.... The creative process shrivels in the absence of continual dialogue with the soul. And creativity is what makes life worth living." — Marion Woodman

What will you do to nourish your soul this week? What will you create from your life? 

Image: Dahlias in Rhinelander, August 2008

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Attention Milwaukee, WI-area writers:

I'm honored that one of my favorite people and great writing teacher Judy Bridges invited me to be on a Get Published in 2010 panel (with some great authors) this Thursday, March 11 at 6:30 p.m., at Redbird Studios in Milwaukee. Details for the event are here.

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us. — Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat

While I love flowers, I don't pause often enough to marvel at the true miracle it is to live among them. Or to appreciate the profound offering of love, beauty and joy they are to our life.

To think of a tiny seed or sprout, buried in dirt, struggling to grow leaves and stalk and then blossom into flower kind of blows my mind.

And then to see all the amazing variety of colors and shapes and fragrances and sacred center of flowers....well, it's like magic, and fairydust and sparkles on the grandest scale.

But the truth is I usually give the flowers a cursory glance.

Oh, I appreciate flowers. And I sometimes pause a while to really take them in.

But I don't really, truly appreciate the miracle the flower is in my life.

Or really any of life in general.

I don't often pause to appreciate the miracle of the sunset and sunrise each day. Or how the seasons change without any effort by humankind. Or how birds are so perfectly designed for flight.

The miracles, the beauty and the love are all around us. All the time.

The key, of course, is to be conscious enough to really notice and appreciate.

I am in Cleveland, Ohio, this week, cleaning out the last of the stuff from my mom's house with my sister.

It has been a bittersweet process, but this time it feels more sweet than last.

Yesterday, I was cleaning out my mom's office.

In the past, I could get into a story that my mom didn't really love me or that she wasn't proud of me.

And yesterday I saw the printouts and newspapers clippings from the launch of my book, Everybody Loves Ice Cream.

I saw the biography she wrote when she went into treatment for her addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs where she talked about how her kids were her pride and joy.

I saw photos of my mom — a young mom, just 18, having gotten pregnant her senior year of high school — holding me as a young baby, cuddling me with such love.

I remember having a conversation with my mom a couple years ago when I shared that I felt like a mistake because my parent didn't intend to become pregnant.

All I could focus on what that I wasn't wanted.

And my mom, gently, said to me, "Did it ever occur to you that you were so wanted?"

Um. No, until then, it hadn't.

I'm so thankful for the healing I've done on myself (and for the healing my mom had done in her recovery journey), that I was able to have those kinds of conversation with her before she died.

And I'm even more thankful that healing conversation with my mom continues as I clean out her stuff.

Part of the gift of my mom's death is that I'm getting even more deeply the love that's always been there.

The miracle of the gift we are to one other. That up until now, I have not fully appreciated.

Like I've done with flowers. And like I've done with the people who flower the garden of my life.

My intention is to really appreciate the miracles that are always there — the flowers, the people, all of life.

I think of this quote from Einstein:

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

I'd love to live more in this space.

It's where the joy and love and wonder is.

And all I have to do is shift where I'm looking.

Tell me, what are the everyday miracles you are noticing?

P.S. The opening quote I received as one of the free month of "ME Time" emails from Karen Wallace at The Calm Space.  I'm loving these short emails with their simple steps for finding time to nurture yourself, and the site itself is an oasis of serenity.

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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.

Image: Orchid at the Mitchell Park Domes, Milwaukee, December 2008

Last week, I was listening to a recording of Patti Digh's portion from Jen Louden's wonderful Virtual Retreat.

And on the ca Patti read a poem included in her inspiring book, Life is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally, called God Says Yes by Kaylin Haught.

I love this poem. Both for the sweet way God is talking. And for the reminder the answer is always, always yes.

I so easily forget that.

But what freedom and joy and expansion could be accessed if we recognized the "yes" that is always available to us.

To life: Yes!

To our heart callings: Yes!

To being kind to ourselves: Yes!

Even to the rough spots: Yes!

What would happen to our life if we lived like the answer is always "yes"?

Tell me, what in your life will you give a "yes!" to today?

P.S. Have you seen the movie, Yes Man, with Jim Carrey? "The world is a playground. Somewhere along the way everyone forgets this."

Direct link to trailer here.

Image: White mum, November 2009

There are many facets to everything in life.

Many facets of the truth.

Many facets to the people we love.

Many facets of ourselves.

For me, it's often easiest to the love the facets I find most pleasing.

Be it with myself or with others.

But to love the facets that aren't as pleasing — the parts of myself and others I don't like or I wish would change....well...that can feel like a stretch sometimes.

(Sometimes it feels downright impossible.)

Yet I know that there's power and grace and kindness in loving all the facets.

I know that when I can be in acceptance of all the facets the beauty is able to fully emerge.

(*note acceptance does not mean condoning or agreeing; acceptance means seeing that there's always some beauty and wholeness present. It might be hidden, but it's always present.)

I look at this flower — with all the details up close.

The flower *is* beautiful, but it's far from perfect.

Notice the misshapen petal. How the center has asymmetrical shapes.

Those parts are not perfect.

And then I think…maybe that is part of the perfection.

As it is with each of us. As it is with all things.

Tell me, how do you embrace all the facets of yourself, others and life?

Image: from November 2009, bouquet on kitchen table

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.

A super-secret, double-reminder for all fearless flowers:

If you but soak up the sunlight you are given, drink each drop of water I send, and strive only to be yourself, life shall quicken in your roots, spirit shall raise you into the light, and your bloom will inspire the world.

You see,... I do all the hard stuff.

  — The Universe

From TUT Adventurer's Club free daily emails from Mike Dooley (which I love by the way)

Wishing all you fearless flowers a blooming big week!

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If you are a coach or writer and part your blooming includes the desire to write or market a mind-body-spirit book, I hope you will join me today for the launch of the Spirit Authors community.

Lynn Serafinn has assembled an awesome lineup, and I'm so honored to be on her Grand Opening webinar panel today at 3  p.m. EST. We'll be talking about starting and writing your book and sharing all about the creative process. You learn more and sign up for this free event here. (There are equally great panels — all free — running this week; see the complete line up at the site.)

Image: Hibiscus plant, Eton Square, Pepper Pike, Ohio, August 2009

As much as I love the individual close-ups of flowers, what I really love is seeing a bunch of different flowers all together.

I love how seeing how a diverse group of flowers is made more beautiful when they come together in a group.

I so believe in the power of groups to hold us in a sacred space of transformation and love.

I often tell writers to find your writing tribe.

In flowerspeak, it means: gather together in a bouquet that has you bloom more boldly than you  might on your own.

Sure, writing is mostly a solitary task (unless you have a co-author!).

But for our writer to be fully fed, I believe, you need to find your tribe.

I love that my friend Lynn Serafinn, the wonderful author of Garden of Soul (a book that uses flowers as a metaphor so beautifully!) is creating a online tribe for writers and coaches in the mind-body-spirit genre called Spirit Authors.

Lynn describes it as "a membership site...providing a comprehensive, inclusive, community-based program for aspiring, first-time and experienced mind-body-spirit authors, to enable you to transform your personal dream into a life-changing business asset in less than one year."

I adore Lynn. She's an amazing coach, experienced writer and has coordinated the launches for several best-selling books.

And her grand opening for the Spirit Authors is next week.

To celebrate, she's offering five days of wonderful (and free!) webinars on all aspects of getting published.

I'm thrilled and honored that she asked me to be on Monday's panel on Starting and Writing Your Book. The panel includes William Bloom, Allison Maslan and Daya Devi Doolin.

On Tuesday, the panel is on Pre-Publication Musts. Wednesday, Preparing for Publication. Thursday's topic is your book launch. And the grand opening week ends Friday with enjoying the success of your book.

I am so in support of what Lynn is offering. Both because I know she's great at empowering authors to successfully publish, and because I know how important community is for a writer.

If you are a writer who wants to write a mind-body-spirit book or has published and seeks to expand their market or a coach in this field who is thinking about writing,  sign up for the free webinars (note you have to sign up for each individually) and learn more here.

(If you cannot make the live calls on that day, be sure to register anyway, because you can download the audio recording later.)

  I so believe that as writers how we learn and grow is by learning from other writers who have gone before — what did and didn't work, what they've learned through experience.

I know that the wise tending that Lynn will offer this tribe of writers will create a most beautiful gathering of writing flowers.

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P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, I am an affiliate of this program. Which means that if you decide to join I get a commission. That said, I would recommend this program, affiliate or not, because I so believe in Lynn and her commitment to authors.

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.

My life has been spent searching.

Even before I knew what I was looking for, everything that has happened to me has led me into the presence of love, whether it was the physical presence of my guru or the presence of love deep within my own heart.

No matter what my life may look like from the outside, on the inside it is a constant process of turning toward that place, of trying to come face-to-face with love.

The more I chant and share my path with seekers from so many different countries and cultures, the more I am being transformed myself....

Chanting alone is not my path. It is my main practice, but my life—and everything in it—is my path...

When we do kirtan, the practice of what in India is called "chanting the Divine Name" over the course of a few hours, we are letting go of our "stories" and offering ourselves into the moment over and over again.

Chanting is a way of deepening the moment, of deepening our connection with ourselves, the world around us, and other beings. The Sanskrit chants that we sing—recognized for millennia as the Names of God—come from a place deep within each of us, so they have the power to draw us back within.

If we go deep enough, we will all arrive at the same place, our deepest Being.

When you hear my story, maybe it will resonate in your heart because, even though all of us walk our different paths and live our different lives, we are all headed to the same place: our One Heart of Gold.

— Krishna Das, in describing his book Chants of a Lifetime, which is being released today.

If you haven't yet experienced it, a kirtan is a musical call-and-response of Sanskrit devotionals. (I'm over-simplifying here I realize.)

I find it to be both spiritually peaceful and energizing. I leave feeling so blissed out I want to kiss everyone I pass on the street.

In my limited experience, kirtans have the kind of groovy vibe you might expect to find at a Grateful Dead show, without the drugs. Expect to see some people swaying, playing a shaker, clapping or sitting lotus style looking like the Buddha under the bodhi tree.

I have a couple Krishna Das CD's and I find his deep voice soothing. In Milwaukee, we have one of the largest gatherings in the country, thanks to Ragani. You can find other kirtan events listed here.

So, kirtan works for me and Krishna Das as one way to connect to our "one heart of gold."

But, of course, it's not the only way.

Tell me, what might you do or experience this week that would bring you closer to experiencing our One Heart of Gold?

Photograph taken by me, Sunflower from garden, August 2009

P.S. Here is a video of Krisna Das. Also, here is a link to a phone interview he did for RockOm.net.

Direct Link to video here.

It sort of feels like saying the sky is blue.

(Meaning =it's so obvious, I don't know if I need to say it.)

But flowers are such a reminder about the impermanent nature of life.

No matter how precious a flower is, or how sturdy — no flower can last forever.

Logically, I know this.

But rationally part of me wants the flower to live forever.

There is such radiance in the flower, such love, so much (to me, at least) a sense of the eternal and the divine that I wonder, how could a flower ever die?

It is so full of life, of beauty, of sacredness.

But, of course, the flowers do die.

Eventually.

Each flower has its own timing. Some blooms last a long time. Some only a day.

And no matter how long the flower lives, their beauty and their radiance will always live on in the hearts of those of us lucky enough to have viewed them.

I know how precious each flower is, how impermanent and how perfect each flower's journey is.

And yet, I'm always a little bit sad when the flower dies.

Because while there will always be more flowers, there will never, ever be that particular flower again.

The impermanent nature of flowers is a reminder for me to be in the now, to appreciate what is in the moment and know that nothing lasts forever.

I am in Pennsylvania this weekend grieving the passing and celebrating the life of my stepbrother-in-law, Bill, who passed away at age 38 after a five-month journey with lung cancer.

There is part of me that feels his was a flower that died too soon.

But I also know that the gift that he was to his wife, to his two kids, to his family and to ours will live on.

I will always remember Bill for his big smile, his love of Ohio State, his easy laugh and our shared love of ice cream.

So while I know that Bill, the man, is no longer blooming on this earth, I know that Bill, the spirit, blooms wide in the vastness of eternity.

It's an interesting (and sometimes confounding) paradox for me — to be both impermanent and eternal. But it's how I see flowers. It's how I see Bill. And it's how I see life.

Image: Guillardia, Garden Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, January 2010

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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.

"With the gift of listening comes the gift of healing."

— Catherine de Hueck Doherty

One of the things I love about my practice of taking flower photos is that it offers me the chance to pause and notice flowers (and really, all of my life) in greater detail.

Take the above photo.

There is so much I would have missed had I not stopped to notice.

Like how the fluted petals make it look like a royal attendant shouting a proclamation.

I'm not even sure what kind of flower it is.

(Um, is it the "pretty yellow one with thingys hanging out" flower?!)

But the act of taking regular pictures of flowers has really helped me to hone my noticing skills.

Another way my noticing skills have been supported in the past year has been by my membership in Jen Louden's Comfort Cafe & Life Spa community.

I am not an active member on her lively and support forum (and I realize I'm missing out on a community of pretty fabulous women), but I do download and listen to the teleseminars she hosts each month and always read the email messages she sends out.

I particularly appreciate that there's no guilt whatsover or "have-tos" with the Comfort Cafe — I can choose what most feeds me at this time and savor it!

For me, the monthly investment is a bargain for all the value I get from Jen's wise, practical and comforting wisdom.

One thing I learned from Jen is a way of noticing what I'm experiencing at any given moment of my day, and just observing it.

It's a way of me turning the muscle I've build around noticing and appreciating flowers and turning the lens to myself.

This noticing is something I often turn to when I need to get out of a kind of funk or a stuck place.

Like today, here is what I'm noticing:

I notice that my body feels so much better when I do yoga and meditation first thing in the morning.

I notice that that the idea of eating cheese pizza sounds good, but in reality I notice that I feel really lousy for a full 24 hours afterward.

I notice that I don't have a good structure for shifting in the moment when I want to eat something that I know my body doesn't prefer.

I notice that I'm really angry and frustrated that our "old" house still hasn't sold.

I notice that I'm feeling very sad and weepy that my step-brother-in-law, Bill, (who has lung cancer at age 38) has been moved to hospice and is dying.

I notice that after writing about the house and about Bill, I got up and went looking for food in the kitchen. (Decided to heat up some leftover for dinner when no good dark chocolate was found.)

I notice that I'm more alert, happier, more focused, and sleep better when I am in bed by 10 p.m. and can read a bit first.

I notice that I do have more self-care tools and kinder self-talk than I did a year ago.

Thanks to Jen, I love that I can now observe myself from a more detached place.

I can just notice. Without as much judgement or blame or shame or self-loathing. As if I'm collecting data or a clinical observer of my life.

Just noticing what's so for me in this moment. Noticing it as a way of claiming it and bringing it the light of my gaze.

And when I can notice in this way, I notice that there is more space, more peace and more love available.

Tell me, what are you noticing about yourself and your needs today?

P.S. There's more to this technique than just noticing. (Although the noticing is pretty powerful stuff.) You'll have to join the Cafe or attend one of Jen's live or virtual retreats to experience to learn more.

A great opportunity is coming up next week: Jen's annual three-day Virtual Retreat. Not only do you get the opportunity to learn from Jen; she's also got 13 other awesome teachers lined up (like Patti Digh, Katie Goodman, Christina Baldwin, Hiro Boga, Fabeku, Julie Ann Turner, Camille Maurine...heck, I could list all of them as they are just about the most inspiring group of people I could imagine having in one place.

Jen's Virtual Retreat website lists this event as "Recharge your mojo and get into action with me and 13 world famous heart expanding teachers without getting out of your pj’s."

I'm signed up and so looking forward to it. If you're inclined to join, you might to act today, as it's the last day to get Early Pricing (a wonderful $50 off).

And if you don't sign up, you might just notice what you could do for yourself over the the next few days that would be kind and nurturing for you.

Photo by me; taken at Garden Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, January 2010

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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.