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.