What IS Blooming In Existence?

It's a way of being in the moment and in your life.

It's getting what you want out of life.

It's not letting life happen to you.

It's being able to say you're happy.

It's showing up in the world in way that you're proud of.

It's: KNOWINGNESS  +  LIFE RITUAL  + ACTON

A Story Is Always Waiting

writing it now

The Way My Brain Works

From: Walker Sculpture Garden
September 25, 2012

My phone had gone dead and I forgot my camera, so I couldn't take pictures.
I was going to leave. I had even gotten into my car and shifted it into drive.
Then I thought, "No. Stay. Take your notebook. Write. Sit in the sunlight. Be slow."
So, I did.

What if I just wrote what I thought?

Yes, I want to take pictures of my tennis shoes in the sunlight because all things look beautiful in the sunlight. No, not all. It's most. I bet death doesn't look good in the sunlight.

Hmmmm. Waiting for things to speak to me.

Look at the small kids in the distance choosing to dance around while surrounded by benches. They're rebels and they don't know it. I want to sit on those benches! Each one of them. And see how the world looks different from each one.

I live the combination of industrial and nature. The combination of them pitted against each other. I wonder if it's the same reason why I like when people force organization and patterns into nature, like rows of trees. Something about the duality. Maybe there's something about the collaboration of order and freedom. Tamed chaos. I don't know. Structure combined with freedom to create beauty?

I see a question box on a post. I wonder if it has pencils in it or if they expect people just to have a writing utensil with them. I want to put a question box in my front yard. I wonder what questions I would get. Would it be filled with foul teenage comments. Maybe I'll put my own questions in it and answer them. Would I feel more obligated to come up with answers if I had to go through that process? If I put up a question box, I should put up one of those micro-libraries on a post too. I love that idea. I wonder if anyone would use it.

There is a couple walking by me. The woman is very pregnant. They're about to be three, three of them. It's strange that they don't know what that will be like. Forever changed. Lives. Bodies. Moments. Love. Freedom. Risk.

I only see one other person. Strange for such a beautiful day and beautiful place. I'm mentally claiming the gardens as mine. It IS.....ALL MINE. Ta da. Now, there is no one here. Haha. It's me and the spoon and the cherry.

I decided to check out those benches. Ohhhh. They're engraved! There  are 28, 7 on each side of the square. I'm going to read each one of them.

#2 "It takes a while before you can step over inert bodies and go ahead with what you were trying to do."..............especially if the inert body is you! I'm sitting on this bench for a while. Is that Freudian?

#6 "There is a period when it is clear that you have gone wrong but you continue. Sometimes there is a luxurious amount of time before anything bad happens." Hmmmmm. Wonder how many people are waiting for something bad to happen. Probably should sit on this one too.

Uhhhh. Who invited you? Didn't you hear the declaration that the gardens were mine? And you're reading the benches very slowly. You're really going to slow me down!

#12 "You should limit the number of times you act against your nature like sleeping with people you hate. It's interesting to test your capabilities for a while but too much will cause damage." Ok, love the first part but that was a surprising twist. Wait, I bet there are more people sleeping with people they hate than I originally thought. Think about all those deteriorating marriages and relationships. Yep, that's not uncommon.

#28 "Some days you wake and immediately start to worry. Nothing in particular is wrong. It's just the suspicion that forces are aligning quietly and there will be trouble." Yeah, everyone needs to stop doing this right now. Make up the opposite.

I wonder why no one reads all of the benches. They come, read a few, leave. What if I laid down on a bench and then people couldn't read it. They'd have to go their whole life wondering what was on it.

That is one fat chipmunk. There's another chipmunk. Are there anymore. Wow. They're fast.

We all teach the world about us even just as we walk by them. I'm going to watch people.

• Your shirt around your waist, flowing in the wind, taking care not to spill your Starbuck, sunglasses on your head. Relaxed, catching up with you mom.
• Khaki pressed shorts, baby blue cardigan, determined focused walk
• Tripod on your shoulder...............  he's stopped in front of me.........here's that story

Alone

I woke up from the anesthesia.

My husband sat in a chair against the wall at the far right end of my bed.

I'm sure my memory isn't 100% accurate but I do remember looking up at him and seeing him shake his head as if speaking some universal language that I should understand. I don't remember exactly what was said, something along the lines of, "They found something they weren't expecting to." or "It didn't go as planned." I just remember that is was all from a distance. 

What? It was just supposed to be a simple procedure. They were just removing a cyst.

The doctor came in and sat on the side of my bed.

"Michele, I'm so sorry and I was not expecting this but we think it was a malignant tumor. The pathologists can't agree, so they've sent specimens to Mayo Clinic to be tested there but we're fairly sure that it's ovarian cancer."

The doctor left.
My husband sat in a chair.

3 Things To Do When You're Trying to Let Someone Go

1. At the end of each day, record whether it was a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" day. Keep this somewhere so you can see the data. Sometimes, we let moments of goodness persuade us the relationship is getting better but find the same problems cropping up the next day. This can be a high level guide on whether it's really getting better.
2. Tell yourself that you deserve to be happy. Relationships should be your refuge from the outside world; the place you know that you can go to for support and comfort. They require work but they shouldn't be a constant battleground.
3. Tell yourself that your partner deserves to be happy. Don't kid yourself. If you are feeling the disconnection, so are they. Just like you, they deserve someone that cherishes them. Don't waste their time.

DON'T KEEP PROTECTING SOMETHING THAT'S BROKEN.

What are you leaving in hearts?

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."

It might sound odd but I like to go to cemeteries. I feel like they represent the "boiled down" version of a person's life; the recap, the summary, the last whisper of what they were and how others see them. 

.......how others see them. Notice, that phrase isn't in the past tense.

What are we, if not what is left behind in the hearts and minds of those we leave behind?

I believe that it's the ONLY thing we are.
And yet, I believe it's NONE of what we are.
 

Me: You shouldn't care what others think. What others think of you is none of your business. The only reality that exists is the one in your mind.
Me, again: Yes, but part of how I want to show up in life is about how I interact with others, what I am to them. When my mind no longer exists, theirs will carry who I was.

                      Which camp are you in? 

                                                               To care or not to care?

5 Ways to Attack Your Funk That Will Have Immediate Impact

Recently, I've been feeling my world get smaller. Doing less. Interacting less. Exploring less.

This morning, I woke up and noticed the dark shade hanging in my bedroom window to keep the light out and I realized that it had been doing exactly that.....and so had I.

So, I opened it.

It seemed like a simple thing but it felt simply right.

Attack your FUNK!!

1. Let the light in. LITERALLY. Find the light.
2. Go outside. Go for a walk. Look at the sky. Find a bumblebee. Notice the trees sway.
3. Talk to someone else.
4. Listen to someone else.
5. Do SOMETHING different. Drive to work a new way. Go to a new grocery store.

Perfecting the Art of Failing Quickly In 5 Steps

1. Skip the conversation that YOU aren't good.
2. Realize you can't be good at everything.
3. Decide if you want to be better next time. If yes, move to step #4. If no, let it go.
4. Figure out what it will take to be better.
5. Do the things it will take to be better.

Click here to watch a video by Seth Godin. He's an expert on failure.

5 Ways To Start & End Your Days With Your Kids

It starts at home. We need to TEACH our children HOW to BLOOM. Start with saying these simple things. They encompass the foundational principles of blooming: knowingness, life ritual, and action.

Morning 

1. I love you.
2. You will have a fantastic day.
3. What one thing will you get done today?
4. Help whenever you can.
5. Remember to share your smile. It is a gift to the world.

Evening

1. What was the best part of your day? What was the worst?
2. What are thankful for?
3. Did you get it  done?
4. Are you proud of who you were today? 
5. I love you.

It starts at home.

Braking Your Heart So That It Isn't Broken

For the past few days, I've been having an unusual thought: Be safe with your heart. Protect it. The reason I call this unusual is because my normal philosophy is to give my heart away freely. This thought has even made it beyond my brain and ended up as advice to others and I'm doubly confused on how such a life operating philosophy could be coming from my mouth. Have you ever been in a situation where you're trying to protect your heart? It's hard stuff. The heart wants what the heart wants and no amount of reasoning can usually convince it otherwise.

How do you put the brakes on your heart?

Is Your Love Broken? Change the Game You're Playing

When you find yourself spending most of your conversation trying to prove that the person you're supposedly in love with is wrong, you need to give it up.

Are you pleading your case? Offering evidence in an effort to win? Wanting to be right?

Is that the GAME you REALLY want to win? Being right?

REMEMBER, this is the person you supposedly love.

The ONE you couldn't wait to see.

The ONE whose smell was so hypnotic that you would sleep with a piece of their clothing.

The ONE you loved to make smile, whose touch you could get lost in.

The ONE you started missing even before you left.

The ONE who redefined winning because nothing was won without them feeling like they were winning too.

Why don't you take all that energy you're spending on proving that you're right and put it into the GAMES worth winning - all the things you would do if they were still the ONE:

• Being named their #1 fan
• Finding a way to put a smile on their face
• Always knowing how their day is going
• Sharing your biggest victories and your smallest irritations
• Being the safest place for each other, your shelter, your sanctuary

And if you find yourself explaining why it's impossible to play any of these GAMES because you need to win at being right first, the likelihood is that you don't even like them anymore. THAT IS OKAY!!!! Stop holding onto the need to assign blame or be defensive. Let them go. Stop trying to fix it. There's nothing to fix. There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with them. You just don't fit together. Like puzzle pieces, when they don't fit together, we don't blame them or think they are broken, we just move on in search of the piece that does fit.

WHAT GAME are you playing?