photo from istockphoto

There are many spiritual lessons we can learn from anything we experience  in life.  I got inspiration for this topic from watering my flowers this morning.

How caring for our garden is a great metaphor for living an amazing spiritual life…..

1.  In order for your flowers to really blossom, you have to care for them everyday.
Do the flowers have enough water?  Do they need fertilizer?  Do they need to be weeded?  What is the condition of the soil?  What about pests and diseases?   Are they getting too much sun or not enough?  

To really blossom as a person, you have to put some time into nurturing  and caring for your spirit.   Whether it is prayer, spiritual practices or some type of meditation – cultivate this everyday.  Think of yourself as a spiritual being dressed with a human body, not the other way around.  Absorb yourself in Divine reality and move from that place.  Let  the Divine be the foundation for your day.  It takes both inner reflection and outer action to beautify ourselves and rise to our potential.

2.  The external conditions will always change.
When you look at flowers, they are in complete surrender to what God has for them, whether it is the rain, the heat, the cold or pests.

There will always be difficulties in life.  We grow from facing our challenges and walking through them.   Adversity shows you who you really are.  When we feel we are completely sufficed by Divine in any given situation, we can then respond beautifully to whatever we are facing. 

3.  Plants live in the earth and turn towards the light.  Are you turning toward the world to fill you with what you need or are you turning to Divine?  Turn to the One who made who, who loves you more than you love yourself.
 
4.  Flowers need to be cut back in order to grow, dead blossoms need to be trimmed.  The blossoms need to be trimmed, so the energy of the plant is not wasted on what’s dead and instead can be directed to what can grow. The plant grows bigger, stronger, produces more and is healthier with regular trimming. 

We need to prune ourselves.  We have to clear away the old baggage in order to really thrive and change.  Let go of what you don’t really need, so you can live a life you long for.

5.  Give Love.  Everyone and everything grows beautifully when given love.  Love something or someone for no reason at all.  When you are loving anything in God’s creation, you are loving God. 

6.  Plants, flowers, trees and shrubs are always giving.  They  provide food, medicine, shelter, beauty and so much more.

Be of service, really give of yourself.   When you really give, you also receive.   The more you give, the more you grow.

photo from istockphoto

These hot  days of summer, have me thinking about swimming in the ocean.  Splashing about and riding the waves is a thrilling experience!

Riding the waves made me think of how often we resist what we are feeling and swim against the current.

I have been there, believe me.  I understand how it seems overwhelming to feel, you are too busy, there are so many other things you would rather do then work on yourself….right? – I get it.

What you resist – persists.  Feelings just don’t go away.  They will show up somewhere, somehow.

You have to feel to heal.  The only way out is through. 

It takes so much energy to bury or ignore our feelings.  Have you every paddled upstream, or been swimming against the current?

It takes  a lot out of you! Wastes time and energy and makes it harder to get where you want to go.

Take the easier route and go with the current, reach land and then walk.

Dip into what you are feeling and move with it.  People often think if they go there, it will be so much worse or bigger then they are.  This is not the case. 

What is the cost to you?  Living a life using energy to bury or ignore what you are feeling, versus taking a few minutes to see what you are not at peace with.  

If you learn to swim with the current, you will enjoy the ride so much more. 

Take a moment right now, and check in to see what are you feeling, what are you not at peace with?  What’s going on?

If you have trouble getting to shore, contact me, I will be glad to throw you a line.

Flickr photo by slgckgc

Seeing the Divine in our lives…

This is a short personal story of witnessing the Divine in our everyday lives.  I pray that it fills you with what you need and at the very least offers you HOPE and INSPIRATION for your healing and your life.

It was the summer of 2004 in Baltimore, MD.  I was going through a very difficult time.  My health was headed downhill again, emotionally and spiritually I was bankrupt. 

I was ripe for taking the next step in my journey.  Often it is when we feel we can’t do it anymore that the space opens up for transformation. 

I live in a small condominium with a shared courtyard in the center of our building.  In the center of the courtyard is a  pear tree.  The root system of the tree is in a container and not in the ground.

This pear tree blooms beautiful white blossoms in the spring, carries on with green leaves through the fall and then sheds its leaves for winter.
 
I noticed our pear tree was not doing well in the summer of 2004.   I don’t recall any blossoms in the spring, then came the summer and the leaves were turning brown and falling off.  The tree was sick.

Tried as I might to continue to care for the tree; I couldn’t do it anymore. 

Summer turned into fall and I was headed to  my first session at a healing school called the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism.   My experience that week at the healing school is hard to put into words.  There was so much love, so much beauty and light.  I knew I was home, only it was a different kind of home, one that I had never  known before.

The school session was over and I came home to Baltimore on a cold October morning.  It was dark, I was tired, and on California time.  Couldn’t go to sleep, so I did a spiritual practice we were taught at school called the Remembrance.  It is an ancient spiritual practice of opening your heart to God and repeating His name.
 
When I was finished I was drawn to go look out my sliding glass door in my dining room.

I looked out and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  I rubbed my eyes and thought I was dreaming.  I thought it was snow!  I took another look and then opened the door to go outside on my 2nd floor deck.  

And then I saw it, the most magnificent, beautiful, white blossoms I had ever seen.  The whites of the flowers were bursting forth in the cold crisp air of the dark night.  They were glistening and twinkling as if they were speaking to me.  The branches were extending themselves as if they were trying to reach me.

It was then that I knew, I knew what this was all about.  The tree was dead and now it was alive.  This witnessing touched me so deeply, I bent over weeping and received something special in my heart, almost like a whispering to the deepest place in your heart from the Divine.  The message is complete and is so much more than what you ever could have imagined  for yourself.

This tree was sick, was empty of leaves, and in a container that could not adequately support it.  Now it was living. 

This is from God. 

Open your heart to the Divine, call upon his Name and be expectant of a response. 
It is said when you walk to God , God runs to you.   

On a final note, our pear tree was replaced this summer with a new tree.  Our pear tree gave us all she had, but it was time for her to move on, she grew too big for the small container she was in.