Sweet Flower Teaching Moment

Posted by Barbara Techel

The rain came down in waves of sheets yesterday. This morning the ground is well saturated and more rain will be on its way.

While sitting at my vanity this morning I glanced out the window to see this sweet, delicate flower gently dancing in the breeze. I could only see it from the back and was anxious to get dressed and get outside to see it from the front.

As I was enjoying this lovely and welcome moment of beauty a chipmunk type critter ran up to the plant, stood on its hind legs, and reached up with its tiny paws…to yes, try and eat the flower!

Tap, tap, tap, my fingers went on the window pane. Okay, it was more like bang, bang, bang (!) because I really wanted to get his/her attention to not eat that sweet flower before I got to take in its full beauty. I did have a moment of guilt for doing that. But I told myself once I saw the flower and could take a picture, I’d allow nature to take its course.

After I took the photo and looked it at on my phone I realized that along with the blessing of the flower that came from all the rain, there are also many weeds that made themselves known. I’d have to address pulling them over the weekend.

Just then I heard, “But where will you choose to focus?” The delicate and lovely flower was sharing a teaching with me. Right. I chose to stay in the beauty of that flower for just a bit longer.

I then thought more about that critter who was anxious to partake in enjoying that flower. Will I focus on the sadness of the flower that will eventually be eaten by that critter, or will I be happy that he/she will get to experience the flower in its own special way, too?

Where will I choose to focus? I decided I shall be happy for that critter when he/she will no doubt return and take great delight in enjoying that sweet flower as a delicious snack. And this, this is learning to live in harmony with nature. A little for you and a little for me…and all of us then shall be as happy as can be.

P.S. If anyone knows what type of perennial this is, will you let me know? I bought it last year and didn’t save the tag, so I’m curious what it is. Thanks!

XO

Barb

                  

Dragonfly Shares an Important Message About Transitional Times

Posted by Barbara Techel

There is a still spot in the center of transformation, a space in which we are betwixt and between — not really what we were, but not yet what we will become. Neither here nor there, this nor that, we touch the infinite expansiveness of creative potential. ~Dawn Brunke

In my last blog post I shared about how I’m feeling in the autumn of my life and how a friend lovingly said (about my almost fifty-nine years of age), “You’re only in August.” I’m still chuckling every time I think about her saying that.

After writing that post I read the above quote in a newsletter written by my friend Dawn. It struck me and confirmed for me yet again how yes, I may not quite be in the autumn of my life, though I feel myself gravitating toward it as it feels like a welcome space in which I want to inhabit.

This morning I was thinking of my same friend who said I’m only in August, and who is now two weeks from retiring. It’s been a trying last few years for her with her work. At times it has been painful to witness what she has gone through. But there is no doubt it is time for her to move into a new phase of her journey.

So thinking about her today as the countdown to her final days at her job is here, I decided to pull an oracle card for her as a way to show her some support as she begins to wind down and open herself to a new way of being.

The card I pulled is Time for a Nap from The Wisdom of the Oracle.

It couldn’t be more fitting. 

I took the card outside and posed it in a pot of pansies (one of my friend’s favorite flowers) and took a photo of it. I then texted it to my friend with a supportive message.

After I’d taken the picture, I noticed a dragonfly sitting on a post of our deck and positioned between two of the rail spindles.

It seemed so very still. I walked around the deck so the sun would be against my back so I could try and get a photo of it, yet, it still hadn’t moved.

I took the picture but felt concerned that perhaps it had died right where it was. However, I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to disturb it.

Curious about the stillness of the dragonfly I did a search on the internet. I discovered that dragonflies will rest after digesting a meal or it also said that they will gather energy from the warmth of the sun in order to fly off again.

It was then I realized that Dragonfly was confirming the card I’d just pulled for my friend who will soon retire. Soon she will have time to rest, reflect, regenerate and welcome a new way of being. This will no doubt will create a shift in her energy as she has felt depleted in many ways from her job.

She is excited about potential creative outlets she wishes to give thought to and pursue and will soon be able to dedicate more energy to that. But after working all her life, supporting herself as a single woman, it will take time to digest this new way of being before moving forward.

Rest will be important and thus my friend is now in this space Dawn so beautifully captured in these words:

There is a still spot in the center of transformation, a space in which we are betwixt and between — not really what we were, but not yet what we will become. Neither here nor there, this nor that, we touch the infinite expansiveness of creative potential.

This space of ‘betwixt and between’ can at times feel uncomfortable when we’ve been so used to going, going, going, or living our lives in a certain way we’ve grown comfortable with (though often when truthfully examined we realize it was a numb comfortable). The Time for a Nap card is the needed reminder that in order to truly know what is next for our journey, rest is vital to allow the next step to naturally and organically flow into our life.

While this plays out for my friend, and I feel it in many ways for myself too, I believe there are so many of us in this same liminal space. So I believe Dragonfly wanted me to share this with you so that we can all appreciate this in-between time that eventually reveals new growth and a deepening of understanding of all the phases of life.

Thank you, dear Dragonfly, for sharing your wisdom with us.

XO

Barb

                  

A Stirring of the Heart. Connecting with the Simple Moments.

Posted by Barbara Techel

It’s my route most mornings to walk through a 55+ community that is a circle of condominiums with an assisted living facility at the front of the property. I do this, in part, because my mom lives in one of the condos. I don’t stop in to say hi when I go through, but it’s just that I appreciate the small moment of connection I feel to her when I walk by her home.

It’s been on my mind quite a bit lately how I am in (or approaching) the autumn of my life. Though sharing this with a friend yesterday who is sixty-six and I will be fifty-nine in July she lovingly said, “You’re only in August.” I had to chuckle about that, because yes, I suppose that is correct.

But it’s how I feel that prompts me to say I’m in the autumn of my life. I think also the fact that my husband is four years older than me and he is by the definition of how we see the autumn of our lives, as he is now entering this phase at almost sixty-three.

But this autumn of life concept is something I’m very much jiving with as it feels in alignment with my heart’s desire. It’s the seemingly simple moments I often overlooked in my youth as I was often on the go, trying to keep up with the latest everything and not to mention working hard to achieve the material things.

So as I made my loop through the 55+ community this morning I was struck by a simple moment that perhaps others may not have seen in the way I did.

As I rounded the corner past my mom’s I saw a woman walk out her front door, across the porch, and pick up a rain gauge nestled in her front garden. She looked at it for a few moments, no doubt, reading the gauge to see how much rain we’d gotten the night before.

After that, she turned to her left where there was a wrought iron vessel hanging from the front porch post which held dainty pink flowers. She then proceeded to deposit the collected rain into the flowers.

It was such a simple act, yet, it stirred an expansion in my heart. It had me reflecting on how when I was younger and caught up in my busy life if I’d had a rain gauge I’d likely have had it just there as a decoration and not paid much attention to it. But there was this simple act of connecting with something outside ourselves as this woman had just done that just touched my heart.

As I walked on with an extra spring in my step from what just transpired, I reflected on how this is what I would define as being in the autumn of one’s life — where you deeply appreciate these moments of connecting to nature and simple pleasures.

As we age we have the choice to bemoan it or find joy in these small pleasures, which for me feel so much bigger now than they ever did before.

And somedays moments like this catch me off guard as I feel this deep stirring of something in my heart that I can’t always necessarily define. I just know that it feels incredibly good and has me in sweet anticipation of when that next special moment will come.

And how these are the things I want to continue to experience as I make my way toward not only the autumn of my life but the winter of it also.

XO

Barb