A Deeper Intimacy With All of Life

The sensorial frolic of the whole living world has been reaching for me… 

elaborate songbird fairy tales in the mornings, 

the smell of lemon balm drying in the trunk every time I get in the car,

and the evening light running over the shivery-fingers of the long grasses. 

They all seem to say: see me, smell me, hear me, touch me, play with me!

Flowers, the botanical priestesses of the earth, seem to understand this better than any of us. With clavicles wide and rib cages stretched, no one does expansion like the body of a flower. 

In the sacred vocabulary of the Five Elements, summer is when we embody the archetype of Fire through the portal of our flower hearts. Fire energy swirls all around and within us and is made potent and animate through us living it into being.

In this season themes of full unfolding are mixed with emotionally-intelligent discernment so that the heart is able to use its deepest sense of knowing, responding well to each individual moment. This prevents the over-exerting that can sometimes happen when we are swept away by the natural enthusiasm of summer spell-making.

So each day I have been planting a flower in my heart, asking for and coaxing forward new levels of knowing about the spirit of the heart. Multiflora rose has been teaching me about the aching brevity of this opening. The most delicate of white petals, multiflora rose is considered an invasive, noxious weed where I live. And I kind of love how we are intimidated by the dainty unruliness of this plant (sometimes an immovable thicket, sometimes a daring climber high in the juniper tree). 

Is there a particular flower that is calling to you with something to share, longing to be planted in the mineral-rich soil of your heart?

May the flower of your heart know the teasing, ecstatic kiss of Hummingbird, Raindrop, and Mason Bee. 

May the flower of your heart trust its grandmotherly knowing of when to close and when to open.

May the flower of your heart feel skillful and resourced as it moves through the ever-changing cycles of its life.

Much love,

Kendra

(Excerpt from June 2022 Newsletter)