This morning, I watched the bees enjoy the flowers in the cottage garden.

Watching bees in the flowers is one of my favorite things to do — they are so focused in such an easy-going way. To me, they are the embodiment of flow.

They take the time needed to visit each flower before moving on to the next one, sure-footed and zen-focused to the serious business of pollination.

The bees seem so serene and content as they go about their task, which will last them all day long.

Tomorrow, they will wake up and do this all over again.

A bee's work is never done.

But it's no matter to the bee — they are calm and diligent before embarking from the hive to fly several miles to visit thousands of flowers each day.

After all, there is beauty to behold. Honey to make. New flowers, just bloomed, to discover. And work to do.

The bees know their task and get about doing it. No fear. No worrying. No feeling “less-than.”

In my book, Flowering Wisdom, I wrote "the bumblebee is a spiritual teacher, offering lessons in being present to whatever you are doing at any given moment."

The bee taking its own sweet time with this aster and teaching me to be in the moment. Cottage Garden, 9/23/14.

Doing our own work, whatever we define that as, can be that easy. Whether it's tending to our home, our business, our relationships or bringing our heartfelt dreams to life.

We can wake up and tend to the work at hand.

But too often we make it hard with our limiting thoughts and procrastinations.

The bee, on the other hand, has no time for such wasted energy.

I want to be more like the bee. In flow. On purpose. In action. In flight, my nose right up against the sweet nectar of beauty and life. Ready day in and day out to show up and do the work.

Okay with the fact that it will never be done. (There is always more to do, experience and know.)

Finding joy in the day-in and day-out rhythm of life, where the sweetness of living resides.

You in, too?

Tell me, what about the bee inspires you?

P.S. Did you know that according to the International Bee Research Association honey bee foragers commonly fly up to four miles to collect nectar and pollen from flowers? It is estimated that it takes 10 million foraging trips to make the equivalent of a one-pound jar of honey. Also, fascinating article on bee sleep habits here.

P.P.S. I've updated my Stargazer sessions so that I now offer two options: a 45-minute consult by phone — Mini Stargazer Sessions — in addition to the two-hour deep-dive Stargazer Immersion. I am excited to offer these sessions for people who need a session focused on a specific area of concern, for those desiring ongoing support to move through a life "threshold" or for those who would like to dip their toes in and experience a session with me at reasonable price. Details can be found here.

Flowering offering of rest — at Hidcote Gardens, Hidcote Bartrim, England (June 2014)

Part of keeping the soul moist is allowing oneself to be refilled by the waters of space, rest, openness and attuning to our natural rhythms. It involves tending to the sensory, intuitive-animal part of the body and listenly deeply to its longings and wisdom.

I get that this is often easier said than done.

For me, I am learning how to give myself this space. Instead of waiting until I have run myself ragged.

Our bodies and souls need freedom, space, loving attention and a return to our inherent wholeness — our natural state.

Time to be receptive. To slow down. To have open spaces. To be in nature.

This kind of space and deep rest is something we can only give ourselves. I’m painfully aware that the only thing that stands in the way of these kind of open spaces and soul tending is me. 

All the goodness I desire, all the things that most nourish me, are always present when I want them.

Beauty, wonder, love, stillness, contentment, gratitude, appreciation, the natural world, space.

It’s always present — all the time. For all of us.

A few weeks ago I took the Labor Day weekend as a kind of at-home retreat. It wasn’t planned, but it was so very needed.  

I slept out in my cottage by myself that weekend to dream my own dreams and be in my own space. I read, I journaled, I moved slowly and without a plan.

In those three days of space and stillness, I felt a fullness and a roundedness as if connecting with an underground spring. In this place, ideas, words, and the wisdom of my soul come flowing in. 

One night, I stood outside of the cottage. The sky was clear and filled with so many stars. More stars than I have ever seen.

They filled the night sky with such magic and mystery that it made my heart swoon with its enormity. 

This is what making space offers us.

The chance to see how vast, abundant, expansive and glittering our lives are, just as they are, right now. How vast we are, too. Us shining souls  — each borne of special starlight and traveling from the fartherest reaches of the Universe to arrive exactly where we are right now.

This is what I am learning about my own soul care. How making space and keeping my soul moist is what allows me to do my work and fully live. It gives me strength and reconnects me to my purpose. It allows me to recharge so my own unique light can stay ignited.

Tell me, how do you make space for your soul? Tell me a memory of when your soul felt most alive?

Raindrops on leaf, front yard, 8/12/14

Part of my passion with my clients is tending to the health and care of their soul. Sometimes this requires energetic attunements and sometimes what the soul needs is more practical, like making time to do the things that truly makes your heart sing.

When our soul is in good shape — bright, radiant and well-fed — all of our life can blossom in beautiful ways.

I know how important the care of the soul is, and how easy it can be to ignore the care of the soul in the face of our busy lives.

I have a strong Jackson work ethic to get things done. Ask my Dad how he is, and you will hear all the things he’s been doing that day. (And he’s retired!)

Of course, I don’t want to stop my drive for making things happen.

But when this drive is not in balance for me, it can show up as overworking, staying up past when my body is tired, not making time to garden, write, move my body, or be with those I love.

When I get “too busy,” I set aside the things that really nourish me on a deep level. My spiritual practices get short-shrift, and I don't feel I have time to just be and breathe.

In these times when I have stopped doing things I love and am so busy I don't have an open day on my calendar, I feel brittle inside and my heart gets uncomfortably tight.

My inner landscape feels like a parched desert, cracking and dusty from lack of rain.

I was listening to a recording of Clarissa Pinkola Estes from her book, Women Who Run With Wolves, last week.

As she talked about what the wild woman needs for survival, Dr. Estes talked about how staying "moist" is essential, how much woman at their core need time to be in their most natural state.

I thought about my own soul and my own heart lately. How there was a strength and a health that felt new.

As I have watered and fed my soul cravings more diligently this year, inwardly I felt more fertile and lush, made supple and moist by my inner tending.

I know that my soul stays moist when I make time to:

• Write or journal regularly
• Be in nature and to garden
• Take photographs of natural beauty I notice
• Read before bed and read for pleasure
• Laugh deeply and with abandon
• Explore and try new things, places and experiences
• Be present to those I love
• Play and connect with Michael and Grace
• Make delicious food
• Hike in the woods
• Sit on the porch swing under the hickory tree in the backyard
• Have time my writing cottage/hermitage
• Sing, dance and listen to music
• Create and make art
• Take a bath
• Have open space with nothing I have to do
• Sit and watch the birds outside

This is my list. And many of these items were not being regularly practiced when my soul felt dehydrated.

Your list will be different, of course. But you also know those things that your soul longs for and withers without.

My recent experience made it clearer than ever how essential it is to keep our souls fed and watered.

I celebrate the how the inner landscape of my soul is feeling lush with growth again, as if green shoots, soft grass and velvet moss now cover the spaces that were barren.

I hope that your soulspace is verdant and fertile and thriving, too.

And if you notice that inwardly you are in a kind of a drought, I suggest taking a few long drinks of whatever fills your heart up.

Tell me, how does the inner landscape of your soul feel? What does your soul need to stay moist?

P.S. Did you see that I'm sending out Messages of Hope? I would love to send one to you — click here for details on how to receive this gift from me to you. 

Today is my birthday. 

So in the spirit of celebration today, I have a gift I’d like to share with you, something that would make me happy and, in turn, be a gift to me.

I’d like to send you a message of hope — a postcard with a little message of inspiration written just for you. 

I have 100 postcards printed up and ready for some loving words of encouragement to bring you some hope and clarity where you most need it. 

To receive the messages, I’ll sit in meditation and call in Divine support and guidance. Then listen for what most wants shared to come through.

Each message will be unique. But I know they all will be…

Messages of love. Of hope. Of encouragement. Of guidance. Of reminding you how very loved and supported you are. Of how the beautiful flower you are is so very needed in this rich and diverse garden called Life.

I’ll transcribe what I intuitively receive and send it on a lovely postcard featuring one of my flower photos.

Would you like to receive a message?

If it’s a yes for you (and it’s okay if it isn’t), here’s what you need to do:

1. Email your snail mail address to me at shannon{at}shannonjacksonarnold.com. 
2. Put message of hope in the subject line. If you have a particular area or topic you’d like me to focus on for your message, let me know (optional; not required). 

I'll take requests until August 31, 2014 or until all the postcards have been spoken for.

There is no obligation and no purchase necessary to receive a postcard.

This is a gift, given freely through me to you.

I’m committed to do doing 35 postcards a week until I get all the messages mailed. I will send out cards in the order received so expect a response in 1-3 weeks. 

You might be wondering why this is a gift to me.

Because one of the things I’m consciously cultivating in my life is my desire to be writing more. 

I’m making in-roads on this: Learning how to self-generate writing time and devote myself to a daily writing practice. Blogging more. Keeping my journal with me wherever I go. Praying for support and strength around my writing and my writing self.

I'm pleased with my progress, and I want to grow my "writer self" even more this next trip around the sun.

I also know how much support and hope I receive when I tune into these messages for myself (it's part of my regular practice), and I want to share the love.

I can think of no better way to start my 44th year.

Tell me, what message of hope do you have for yourself or for others? What would you write on a postcard?

One of our regular visitors to our hummingbird feeder.

Hummingbird has been my guide for this year.

Each year during the Holy Nights, I take some quiet time for meditation to receive words and a “helper” for the year — an animal totem, a guiding goddess, a patron saint.

This year, hummingbird appeared.

As an animal totem, they teach about joy, adaptability, stamina, clear boundaries, showing us what’s possible when we open our lives to the love and support of the Divine. They teach how to savor the sweetness of life, how to be light while also being resilient and powerful.

I have long loved hummingbirds. My Grandma Jackson always fed and tended to them, and as a child, I would watch rapt as they came up to her kitchen window to eat.

When we bought our current home two years ago, I put out a hummingbird feeder our first summer here when I spotted one sipping nectar from the tiger lilies in our backyard. Last year, there was one or two more at our feeder. This summer, we seem to have 5 or 6 hummingbirds circling about the feeder at any given time.

I know there is something powerful for hummingbird to teach me. And I have been watching them especially close this summer.

How can it move its wings in a figure-eight pattern 80 times per second? Or fly backwards (as cool of a superpower as any)? Or migrate 500 miles in a day?

I have been noticing how good hummingbirds are about boundaries. They don’t hesitate to fend off another hummingbird from the feeder, darting laser-like with a sharp buzz and a threatening approach that says “Back Off!” They are incredibly clear about what is a "no" for them.

And while they might be the most active of birds, nearly always in motion, when they are at rest they exude a certain potentcy of presence. A kind of serenity that is palpable and far larger than their tiny size would suggest.

Witnessing stillness through my window.

I love to watch how they pause on the wire that holds our feeders. Sitting for a moment, completely still and content, listening with the fullness of their being.

Last week, I was enjoying my morning tea and watching the stream of visitors to the feeder from my hearth room window.

And what came to me was this:

This is the key: To be in motion. And at rest. At the same time.

It seems paradoxical, but I know it isn't.

This is what the spiritual masters of many traditions have long taught. How to be in the world, but not of it. How to even wash dishes with loving mindfulness. How to be here now, fully present to whatever you are doing.

I am continuing to deepen for myself what it means to be serene and have stamina (my words for 2014) at the same time. At first, these words felt like opposites.

But I am begining to see how closely connected these two words are.

Through connecting to the quality of serenity at the center of my being, I can have stamina and tap into new wells of energy and focus. And when I am serene in my exerting, everything flows with less resistance and more ease.

I am so grateful for the wisdom of the hummingbirds. For all they are showing me and teaching me.

Tell me, who or what is teaching you lately? And what are your noticing and learning?

The view of our backyard from my favorite chair. Me, with tea, watching the hummingbirds. Bliss.

David Austen Rose at Hidcote Gardens Shop, Chipping Camden, England, June 15, 2014

It is hard to believe that we have been home a month today from our journey to Paris and England. In some ways, I still don't feel fully returned yet.

The trip —and  all we experienced in those 19 days and in the weeks since returning home — is still working in me and through me. When friends ask me about the trip, I find I can't describe the trip in a concise or coherent manner. 

What I can say was that the trip was wonderful. Full of beauty, dreams realized, rich memories I will savor my whole life, fun family time and delicious food. And the trip was exhausting with full days, the sometimes felt stress of choosing how to best spend our time, and several nights of poor sleep.

The trip stretched my horizons in both amazing and painful ways.

It shone light on some tight places in my heart. Like the parts that don't always feel worthy of receiving so much goodness and love or having my dreams become manifest, the part that holds getting everything right and perfect as the supreme standard, the part that is quick to look to the future or the past, but is uncomfortable with just savoring the present as it is — exactly as it is, even the messy stuff — in this moment.

I learned more deeply what it means when they say, "wherever you go, there you are."

It has been a time where I feel a bit like the David Austen rose pictured above — squeezed full of beauty and squeezed full of the fullness of life. It is wonderfully abundant and sometimes over-crowded and uncomfortable. 

There is part of me that wants to tie a neat bow around all that I experienced in the last seven weeks. To write in a way that puts it all into a polished bit of wisdom and clarity, but I can't. At least, not yet.

The truth for me is that life here has been amazingly good and sometimes hard. I continue to feel the stretch of my own capacities and how life (and I think God, too) is calling me to widen the capacity of my heart — certainly towards others but most especially toward myself. 

So, as best I can, I am (again) taking my cue from the flowers. 

When I do this, I can focus on being with whatever is present and allow what is present to emerge, serene in my nonattachment. I can find the bliss in every step of the messily wonderful journey called my life. (I loved what Elizabeth Gilbert had to say about embracing this messiness on Facebook here.)

When I can be with the all of it — the good, the bad, the sublime, the ugly — I know I am touching into the flower-like nature at the core of our being.

Surrendering to the process. Trusting in the fundamental blooming that is always happening in perfect timing. Reminding myself that this abundance of love and inherent beauty is a birthright, bestowed upon all beings.

I am just getting the glimpse of the richness of this space. The Buddha points to it. So does Rumi:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there. — Rumi

In some ways, the travel and the returning is opening me to see all I am experiencing and perceiving as neither good nor bad. It just is. It is all welcome and part of the process. I am finding the powerful gift in moving beyond labels of judgment to just being present to what is in the moment…and appreciating it exactly as it is.

As I so naturally do with flowers, I am learning to do with myself and each messy moment of this life.

Tell me, how you are flowing with the fullness of your life? How is your blooming going this month?

Tree on walk, from 2011

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” — Marcel Proust

I am writing this from 37,000 feet in the air, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, south of Greenland. Michael, Grace and I are en route to Paris and the UK for 19 days. A trip we have spent many years dreaming into being.

I have never been to the UK, despite a deep Anglophile streak and a yearning since childhood to live there someday. Michael and I were last in Paris 14 years ago, the year before we had Grace. It was a trip that changed me deeply, and I expect this visit to be no different.

As I was packing my bags an hour before leaving this morning, I noticed how different I have planned this trip from our last visit. Last time, we had a pretty intense travel schedule — lots of things we wanted to see, every day planned out. Three days in Paris, three days in Florence, two days in Cinque Terre, two days in Rome. It was wonderful, but full.

This time, I have a short list of must-sees and a few things scheduled (sunrise inside the circle of Stonehenge, a tour at C.S. Lewis' home The Kilns, a daytrip to the Chartres Cathedral, surprising Grace with a performance of Wicked in London).

Of course, being the research junkie, former travel writer that I am, I have a ton of research gathered — quaint pubs, beautiful manor house gardens, gluten-free bakeries in Paris...enough for a year's worth of touring! — and several guidebooks packed.

But this trip, there is space kept open for serendipity, exploring lesser known spots and just being present — to myself and my soul, to the whispers of the Divine, to these two beautiful people I'm blessed to share my life with, and to life at large — and seeing what new wants to emerge from this trip. 

I intend to spend some afternoons just wandering. I brought my art journal to draw and write in. I plan to blog here regularly. And I have a new little camera with which to take lots and lots of pictures.

I know one doesn't need to travel to have new eyes.

Contemplative photographer Kim Manley Ort discovered a secret garden on a walk near her home last week. (So swoon-worthy. And if you want to develop new eyes for seeing, Kim's online contemplative photography classes are wonderful. The photo above was taken when I took her Photo by Design course in 2011.)

This week, I discovered several new-to-me plants in our garden, and saw my husband with a new light when he brought Grace home a charm bracelet with the name of her beloved pet rat, Louis Sapphire, who died this week, engraved on a heart.

There is always something to be seen anew, even things we think we know by heart.

In many ways, the most beautiful openings happen when we see  that which we feel is known as a revelation of wonder and beauty. Be it in something in our own backyard, in our beloved or in ourselves.

It feels miraculous. But in truth, it is ever-present and always available.  

I think this is a big part of why I love doing my Stargazer sessions so much. I am gifted with the opportunity to see someone in a new way — through the lens of their incredibly radiant soul, through the loving lens of the spiritual.

This noticing, this being in wonder, this deeply seeing into the heart of things is me at my best. It fills me with joy, humbles me with how very much Love permeates everything, and makes me knees-to-the-ground grateful to be alive on Earth.

Today, I am choosing to travel far from home to see things with new eyes. And I am filled with wonder at what might emerge from it.

Tell me, what are you seeing with new eyes in your world?

******

P.S. Is there a part of your own life journey that I could assist in helping you have "new eyes" for? 

A stuck spot? An area of disconnect? Clarity around your next level of expansion? Insight into to your unique purpose? Deeper spiritual connection? A wider view of the landscape of your life?

My clients report clarity, comfort, joy and spiritual openings as a result of a Stargazer session.

I feel so blessed and honored to facilitate these incredibly transformative sessions.

It was a joy to receive this email from a client as we arrived at the airport today. "You've given me more than I ever imagined ... I wanted peace. I'm feeling peaceful for the first time ... ever?  Maybe not ever, but since I can remember."

My exchange and structure for Stargazer Sessions changes July 1.

I will now have two options to choose from — a single-issue session for 45 minutes by phone ($60 USD) or (my favorite!) a deep-dive, big-shifting two-hour session (in-person or by phone) with suggested practices to support you going forward, and follow-up support if needed for $250.

If you would like to pre-purchase a the two-hour Stargazer session at the current rate (of $115) in June, you can use it any time between July and December of this year. Email me to book or for more information.

Fern frond, unfurling, my garden, last week

I am in Ohio this week, babysitting my sweet niece Nola. She will be seven months old today, and holding her last night, full of smiles and a light that radiates about her, I couldn't help but wonder what she will be like when she grows up — what life journey will unfold for her?...what gifts and seeds is she here to plant?

I have felt reflective on my own unfurling journey of late.

From growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, to college in western Massachusetts for a few years, to a unexpected trip to New York City at 19 (a destiny moment if there ever was one) that led to a summer internship at Ms. Magazine and meeting my husband Michael.

There have been many more twists and turns to my journey — finishing college at Ohio State, dating Michael and breaking it off, working as a public radio producer in Boston, reconnecting with Michael and moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to be together, then back to Ohio to take an editing position at Ohio Magazine, then getting married, then teaching and coaching writers, then leaving Ohio Magazine to teach writing full-time.

Then the blessing of having Grace, then finding myself getting baptized and becoming Catholic at age 31, then moving back to Milwaukee, then writing a book about ice cream, then serving as a freelance spokesperson for Breyers Ice Cream and appearing on the History Channel and the Food Network.

Then embarking on a transformative personal and spiritual journey and choosing to find God outside of the church, and then a string of deaths...of my beloved grandparents, of my mother, of my too-young brother-in-law who died of lung cancer at 38.

Then writing and self-publishing my book of flower photos and seeing life through the lens of flowers. Then training in dying consciously, hospice, biographical facilitation and as a shamanic practioner. 

And there is so much more. So many moments, people, places, experiences that are woven into the rich tapestry of my life, as it is with each one of us.

I couldn't imagine any of this when I was growing up. Oh, I did love books and writing — so that isn't too much of a stretch — but how my love of writing and books would unfold was a mystery and a delight...and a story still being written.

We leave in a week for a 19-day dream trip to Paris and the UK. This is a family trip, but I sense that something new (or expanded? or re-remembered?) is sprouting up within me, something that might quicken or become visible during our trip. I sense and have received some clear intuition about this, and yet much of the details — what, where, when, how — feels veiled.

I am feeling excited — and a bit nervous in the face of uncertainty. 

What next tendril of the unfurling fern of my life wants to turn open? What wants to be experienced, expressed, expanded? Where will my journey take me next?

I have lived enough to know that life can be utterly wonderful and completely challenging. That what we most need to learn might come only through struggle, heart-break and surrender. That the deepest joy is often found in unexpected places — the dailiness of life, in the little things, in the individual steps along the journey, in the moments where we aren't looking for it. And that whatever wonderfulness we can imagine for ourselves is often far less than what might actually be borne.

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

So while I feel I am standing at yet another threshold of my life — of learning to parent a soon-to-be teenager, of deepening into my practice and work, of exploring what writing wants to flow through me, I am comforted in the knowing that whatever will unfold will be perfect.

Better than perfect, in fact. It will be marvelously mine.

And it will probably make more sense in the long-view of my life, many years down the road.

Spiritual teacher and Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chödön writes in When Things Fall Apart that: "Life is a good teacher and a good friend."

As I stand at this threshold, I lean into this truth. Whatever will come will be here to expand me and support me. 

From this place, I can lean in to life, alive and awake to whatever wants to unfurl next.

Tell me, what is unfurling within you? What do you sense is opening for this next piece of your own journey?

Cactus on my friend Mark's mountain land in Colorado

I have been in Denver, Colorado, this week, supporting my dear friend Mark with the book he is writing. On Wednesday afternoon, we drove an hour and 15 minutes southwest of Denver to visit Mark's 87 acres of undeveloped wilderness.

As you can see from some photos I posted on Facebook, there were breath-taking vistas, wise old trees that held deep magic, and a quartz crystal bed that was heaven to sit upon. (Oh, and a lot of huffing and puffing to climb up the peaks at 8,000 feet.)

To my surprise there were also cacti everywhere — blooming out of the red granite earth, co-existing alongside the Ponderosa pines. 

These cacti seemed so determined to me, so defiant and gutsy in their emergence out of the soil...in their laying claim to their place amongst the stately pine and juniper trees...and in their sweet pink blossoms so delicate in contrast to the cactus prickles.

I have been thinking a lot in the past few years about tenacity. Especially how to have tenacity in a feminine way — a fierce determination that is steady, soft, sinuous and strong all at the same time.

Since I turned 42 two years ago, I have felt a deep inner call toward developing a stronger internal taproot — something that will anchor me as I navigate both the varying currents of life at large and my inner emotional life. I want to be strong and rooted in my radiance and soul strength and in the sustaining waters of Spirit, no matter what life brings my way.

It has been challenging and necessary process for me. Growing this internal taproot has been multi-faceted and slow-going. Beside my usual approach of working on the energetic and soul levels, I also have been exploring what supports the anchoring of this taproot in real time.

What comes to me repeatedly, whether in my dreams and meditations, or through books like Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit or Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, is how practices and routines can support inner tenacity and allow my taproot to deepen and grow strong. 

I think seeing the cacti this week was another messenger for me, echoing the inner wisdom that my soul knows at its taproot and my conscious mind is starting to finally get.

In the cactus blooming, I see tenacity in the plant and in the flower — the effort of pushing up in through soil, growing slowly, and then pushing past the prickly spots to bloom.

I notice as I have been more consistent with the practices and routines that speak to my soul and anchor me — regular walking, weekly blog writing, spending reflective time in my cottage, making time to connect with Michael and Grace, eating food that my body loves best (alas, wheat, sugar and dairy are not on that list), taking regular baths, reading — I feel stronger and more able to move forward in all areas of my life. 

These habits support my own blooming on all levels, and I'm noticing subtle and significant shifts rippling out to other areas of my life as well: Hiring a viritual assistant. Moving forward on shifting the sessions I offer come July 1. Naturally adding back in yoga to complement my walking.

Part of what I love about Mark is that he is great about consistent repetition in moving toward goals in his life. Part of his success is due his training as a pro-level natural bodybuilder; he literally knows how to build a new muscle and make it stronger.

His writing is progressing beautifully as he uses a similiar approach that he uses to train for a body-building competition — get a coach (me) to support and help keep him on track, be clear on his end goal and then make time to write regularly, accumulating more and more words with each passing week.

I have taken enough flower photographs to know that blooming doesn't happen overnight.

There is a steady striving and progression for a seed to grow into being a flower. The flower has to keep showing up, day in and day out and allowing the growth that wants to happen to emerge.

This is can be a challenge for me. I see the big-picture vision, and I just want to get there. Now. But I am learning to make steady progress and discovering the value in the showing up, regardless of the results I achieve.

These cacti are reminders of my commitment as I cultivate the authentic tenacity to pursue my deepest callings — to write, to empower others, to share from my heart and to appreciate the beauty and wonder of life around me. 

To bloom with patience past the hard stuff, to draw down deep into the waters underneath it all, and to grow, grow, grow.

May it be so for me. And may it be so for you and everyone, too. 

Tell me, where are you being tenacious in your blooming? What practices and habits strengthen your growth?

Magnolia tree in Minneapolis

Just before New Year's, I sat down to do a meditation to listen for what words and messages will serve as guideposts for the coming year. My words for 2014 would be — SERENE and STAMINA — and the message was that this year would stretch me immensely, but that the stretching would be good and so very worth it.

My job was to be serene through all of it.

Indeed, this has been one of the the busiest and most demanding year for me professionally. In addition to individual healing session work, officiating two weddings in June and planning a dream trip to Paris and the UK (to name a few things on my to-do list), I was also hired to help "birth" two amazing books this year for the best kind of clients — ones you love and adore being with. Midwiving these books has meant travelling most months to work on-site. Which has been incredibly wonderful. And oh-so-very-stretchy.

Part of what has been especially "stretchy" for me is to let go of some old beliefs about how work has to be hard, about not having enough time and feeling overwhelmed by my to-do list.

Instead, I am deepening my sense of what is possible for me – for how I move in the world and for how fun, easy, joy-filled and in the flow work and life can be — if I only allow it.

I was in Minneapolis this week for two days of consulting.

We covered a lot of ground during our time together. And we also made time to do a meditation and paint, to take walks by Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun each day, to take a midday break to go shopping, to eat amazing food, to have some separate alone time and to have deep conversation. One day, we even made time for a quick 15-minute nap. 

Throught it all, I experienced a beautiful feeling of nourishment and flow — of trusting and allowing, listening and responding moment to moment, of feeling held and carried each step of the way. 

On one of our neighborhood walks we passed by this beautiful magnolia, just opening to bloom.

There was a palpable sense of ease, flow and trust in its blooming process. No struggle, no overwhelm. Just allowing the bloom to happen and allowing its beauty, power and light to emerge.

Again, I am reminded of how much the flowers have to teach me — as I too learn how to open to bloom in a new way.

Tell me, what are your blossoming into? What are the flowers teaching you about blooming?