Flowering Fridays: Celebrating the Flower You Are
Friday, June 5, 2009 at 12:05AM 
This here is a Columbine.
(Or Aquilegia if you want to get all fancy about it.)
It blooms under the linden tree off our patio and is one of the earlybirds in the flowering parade that goes on in my garden all summer.
I love the columbine for its dainty frou-frou-ness.
(Sometimes they remind me of Princess Diana, wearing a wildly fanciful hat...and gazing out, blushing, from underneath.)
I love the columbine for their color. For their five-chambered shape.
For the way the thingy in back (technically called a nectar spur) curls up in a curlicue.
But what I love most about these columbines — and every single flower — is they are unabashedly the flower they are.
No holds barred.
This demure columbine does not try to hold center court as a show-queen rose.
Or be as bold-statured as a sunflower.
Or go all hippy wild-child like Queen Anne's lace, spreading out in a field.
Or go busting-out-blooming like my new role model, Ms. Spirea.
Nope, columbine only does columbine and does it quite well, thank you very much.
No offense to the others, of course.
Rose, sunflower, Queen Anne's lace and spirea do themselves beautifully, too.
There is no better than in the flower kingdom. It's all good.
(Sames goes everywhere in the universe. But that's a conversation for another time.)
All the flowers are needed, necessary and equally beautiful. Because they are flowers.
(By the way, that's a coded message. Flowers also = people!)
There's power in knowing — and celebrating — the flower you are.
When columbine...you...me...everyone...can own the gift, beauty, uniqueness that we each are, there is freedom, power, strength and glorious magic that emerges.
Because when we stand in the flower we are and live from it…with no apologies…no holding back our beautiful bloom…no shirking from the unique and precious spirit we are...then we are truly expressing the gift we were put here on this planet to be.
We must never forget that flowers (and each of us) are put here to be the bloom we are.
So, today, I invite you take notice of the kind of flower you are.
What bloom are you called to create in the world? What shape, color and size does your bloom take? What are the best soil and conditions for your blooming?
Remember, There is no right or wrong answer here.
Just what's true for you and the seeds you came here to plant and grow into full flower.
Once you've taken note of the flower you are, take a moment to celebrate this.
(Maybe a little happy dance is in order. Or a prayer of gratitude. Or a new bouquet of, um, flowers.)
Whatever you choose, remember — today and every day — to go forth and bloom big in your life.
Tell me, what do you celebrate about yourself today?
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Flowering Fridays is a weekly look at flowers through the lens of what they might teach us about flowering fully in our life. Past editions are here.
Reader Comments (4)
What a lovely post, Shannon...I can SO relate to this idea. I have long had a list of my favorite flowers (lilac, lily of the valley) but never thought about what flower symbolizes me. My intuitive response is foxglove: they are my favorite color--purple--& they're wild here in the northwest, where they grow tall and bloom from spring into fall. They are flexible and sway in the wind. They are widest in the middle and contain hundreds of florets that are all receptive to input--though you could say that makes them more gregarious than I am. I love that they are not annuals--they live on and on, coming back stronger and taller each season. I have several in a pot on my deck that are probably 8 or 9 years old, and last year they grew way beyond my own reach. So they are ever reaching upward, always setting--and reaching--new goals. They also have a fun polka-dotted pattern on each floret, which gives them a playful appearance. That sounds like me, as I am always wishing for a croquet or Scrabble partner. Thanks for such a fun exercise.
Thank you Shannon for Flowering Friday. My intuitive response was california poppy... loves the sun, grows in out-of-the-way places, and finds water where others can't. It is native to california and is the keeper of much california history.
In asking my wife what flower she considers me to be, she responded sage. hummm. So today the white sage is flowering. Very happily bumble bees are enjoying their nectar, and the flowering stems will soon produce thousands, if not, millions of seeds from one plant.
White sage is not native to this region of california, and this plant, started from seed, has been transplanted twice, at my last home, and now here. Growing on hillsides and rocky areas of southern california, people are known to "harvest" the plant for quick profit as "smudge sticks." Though the plant lovingly shares its magic and cleansing of space, it is important for people harvesting the plant to know that it is very sensitive, and that improper harvesting is resulting in the loss of this plant to many areas of california.
The seeds do not propagate easily (at least in my experience), thus the high number of seeds which it produces. (i think)
I am including a link to today's white sage flowers and send with it a prayer of gratitude for the White Sage Springtime Flower Celebration, and for people to appreciate and care for them throughout the coming year.
This made me smile because I had a similar thought not long ago... http://fumblingforwords.blogspot.com/2009/03/in-bloom.html
Oriana,
Foxglove! How perfect. I love your description of it and how it is always grower taller and taller.…ever-striving! And your gorgeously grand foxglove photo is stunning!!! (love your photos!!)
Bill, Well, I ilked poppy for you, but white sage is even better, given your social activism and the power of one to influence many…And the cleansing piece of white sage, for me, ties in so beautifully to your salmon dedication…(How wise and insightful our spouses can be. My husband told me I was like a wildflower — now to decipher which one!) Thanks also for sharing the picture of the bees witht the sage…
& Heather thanks for visiting and sharing your blog…I loved your post — and the early spring flowers you captured!! Love that you too see the gift flowers can offer us, too
Love and light to you all
Shannon