The Allium bloom abundantly this time of year where I live. Purple umbelled flowers on top of tall-standing stems. Each year there are more.
I’m a person that so loves the invitation to notice what is outer, and then connect it to what is inner. There is always relevance. A further layer of bloom if you will.
My start for noticing outer most often begins with a generalized invitation to “what has my / your attention.” With no other steered criteria. “Just because” is enough.
So for me, today, these blooming allium.
To explore further the inner, it helps to find a few words, a few feelings, and sometimes, a few secondary images.
For me, in words, I love the vibrancy of the purple. I love the standing tall – in my garden, the stems are mostly 18-24 inches. I love the sun shining upon the Allium. The reflecting of light. I love the insistence of a garden in it’s growing.
From words, the return to the relevance of the inner is so often generic. What does any of that have to do with who I / you are becoming?
For me, from the words, I seek within me each of the things I’ve noted. I seek vibrancy of being. I seek the unapologetic standing tall. I seek the light of sun to warm and radiate. I seek reflection of gift, of beauty. I seek to grow with naturalness.
Each of these words have energy. It’s never just about the words. It is about the life that the words bring alive.
For me, in feelings, my welcome of the Allium brings expansiveness. And wonder. And gratitude. My feeling is celebration.
For me, from the feelings, again are so many clues to what I wish for in myself and with others. Expansiveness. Wonder. Gratitude. Celebration. Again, these energies planted in the gardens of being alive human beings.
For me, in secondary images, I keep following the energy of the words and feelings. There’s the image and memory of sweet peas growing in my grandma’s garden. I was a boy then on summer vacation with my cousins at my grandparent’s Saskatchewan home. She was 60 ish. I came to know it as a time of sweet and vibrant belonging.
The outer gives such clues to finding the inner that matters. As individuals and as groups. The inner then mirrors back desires for the outer. In groups. In families. In teams (this is one of the exercises I used last week in offering leadership development). In communities.
In a way it is utterly simple. In a way it is richly complex. All, so that the energy of blooming abundantly (in this example), might infuse what I, and we, are doing in the outer, inspired by the Allium.