It is now time to gather the fruits and flowers of summer as you will soon be moving into autumn. It has flown by much too quickly. Those lazy days of gentle breezes, amazing sunsets and long dinners outside under the stars are about to be memories.
You will need to prepare yourself for the coming months. You know they will fill with demands and time constraints. You will have to get yourself ready for all the pressures of the school year, family gatherings and business deadlines.
But before you do, take one last, long deep breath as you luxuriate in these last weeks of August. The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye. The foliage is lush and full, like a primordial landscape.
As you let yourself be, watch all the fireflies dancing in the dark and hear the crickets singing just for you. Rejoice in nature and your being part of it.
A perfect symbol of this is the lotus, that exotic flower of the East. Its roots go down into the mud as its long stem reaches for the sky. There in light, the flower blooms with a gentle sweet fragrance.
It has been an expression of the soul for the ages. How are you like the lotus?
1. Where do you put your roots? What values, commitments ground you?
2. What mud do you have to go through to finally express yourself?
3. When you bloom, what is it that you show the world?
In the NY Times on August 11th, there was a very interesting article entitled, “When Did Self-Help Become Self-Care?”. Of course, I was intrigued since I have been a pioneering expert in the field for over 35 years.
It begins “Wellness” is a word that has come to encompass our latest dominant sociocultural obsession –how to take care of ourselves in the world. It may, at one point, have been popularly understood as an extension of self-help…But more recently, under the potent influence of millennial values, wellness has been positioned and marketed as self-care.”
The author goes on for quite some time about all of this. Wellness, self-help, and self-care are all very connected for at their cores is the ability to relax, cope and meditate.
Yes, meditation is the key to all of them. It is not just some recent trend with various permutations but rather has a history of thousands of years as a venerable tradition, actually spanning East and West. There have been people throughout history all around the globe who have spread the word by making the teaching relevant to the time and place.
Our time is one of your personal evolution and our planetary one. The phrase that encapsulates all of the previous ones is well-being. That is truly what you want. What you need. It is the holistic approach for you to be the happy, healthy and holy person you are in your soul spirit and which you wish to live outwardly.
This brings us back to the image of the lotus. For it is through self- knowing that you can truly blossom into your integral expression of full beauty.
So please take the time during these last sweet summer days to breathe slowly – out to dissipate distraction/then in to feel the grace – and to meditate once a day while the sun shines warmly on your skin. Smell the flowers, see the birds gracefully fly and if you are lucky enough, watch the whales breach through the waters.
If you want to learn more about well-being, you can read the #1 bestselling women’s anthology I was asked to be in, “Pathways to Vibrant Health & Well-Being”.
Be like the lotus. Let your roots sink down deep into the ground. Recognize the mindsets that prevent you from moving forward, the emotions that keep you confused. Then with this awareness, allow yourself to be seen in your full glory.