As you probably are aware, yesterday was Earth Day, a day to demonstrate support for our environment. Here at the Center, we have established many earth-friendly practices to reduce waste and care for our beautiful planet. Fittingly, Rose Kurtz, our Guest Services Manager compiled today’s reflection that shares a common earth-minded spring theme with analogies about our own personal growth. Let’s take a few quiet moments to read what she discovered…
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I have a book called “Words of Wisdom for Women” by Rachel Snyder. I often use this book to pick out reflections for the start of our weekly meetings at the Center and I sometimes bring the book with me to the meeting, just in case someone forgets to bring their reflection or prayer. Today I was looking through the book to see what jumped out to me as I see Spring blossoming outside my window. The words that jumped out to me are garden, grow and blossom. I feel like this time of year is a time of re-birth and awakening.
Garden
Garden in the early morning, while the green leaves are damp and the sun is still low in the sky. Grow flowers, vegetables, bushes with berries, long, trailing vines that reach for the sky. Weed and water and wait. Weed out anything that seeks to strangle or crush a tender, young blossom. Dig. Dig deep. Deeper. Bury bulbs and believe they will bloom. Plant your seeds and know that, in time, you will reap the harvest. Kneel down in the soil. Put your hands in the moist fertile earth. Go to the garden when you feel like nothing is growing anywhere else, when you fear that everything is dying. When you need to remember that everything is. Growing and dying, right here, all around, when you garden.
Grow
Become more than you are right now. Grow into a greater sense of self. Grow in your capacity to listen, to love. Grow more deeply into your relationships. (Yes, all of them.) Admit that you’re growing more beautiful with each passing day. Grow sunflowers in the front yard instead of grass. Grow peppermint, basil, cilantro on the windowsill in tiny pots or cottage cheese containers or beautiful old ceramic things. Grow into yourself. Catch up with the nose you always thought was too big, the heart that always seemed too open. Grow beyond all the walls and fences you thought were stopping you. Grow a garden that’s alive and bright and luscious, multilayered and multitextured and filled with hardy perennials and showy annuals. Grow your own garden inside yourself, and tend it well and always.
Blossom
When it’s time, when you can’t wait another moment, unfold your petals and display your grandeur. Do it when you’re twenty-eight or when you’re fifty-three or when you’re eighty-four. Open up to the world with a glow and an attitude that says Yes, now I am really here. Pick up a paintbrush, a hammer a baseball. Go to law school, learn to drive, take swimming lessons, run for office. Send out announcements. Throw yourself a party. Because now your time has come and the world had better make room for you like never before. Just like a magnificent flower, you’ll go from tightly closed and protected to full and fragrant and open and unforgettable. Whether you’re an early bloomer or a late bloomer, one thing is sure: you will feel as thought you’ve waited forever, only to burst forth “overnight” when you least expect it.
These words speak to me on this beautiful Spring day.