Wednesday Wish (174); Unwrap Your Smiles

Every year I look forward to seeing how my favorite sign is affected by summertime in the South. For anyone who lives in the South, summertime means the return of the jungle, the return of Kudzu.

Most people I know down here, loathe kudzu. One person I met was so convinced it was growing before his eyes that he measured it and discovered it grew almost a whole foot in one day. For people who live in the country, that moves weeding into a whole new category. Along freeways and in forests, entire hillsides are transformed into green sculpture gardens literally overnight. That’s a lot of jungle even to this Pacific Northwest girl from the Evergreen State.

 

So, as I was saying, every summer with the return of the ‘vine that overtook the South’, comes my excitement at seeing how it will transform my favorite sign. For many years, I’d just chuckle as I passed by, but this year, a year that’s felt like an unusually potent year of growth and transformation, I needed a picture. And with that picture, came reflections about why it always makes me smile.

 

*There’s something special about seeing behind the veil to what someone or something really is. And when that veil confirms what’s beneath, well then, in a world filled with a lot of things that don’t always makes sense these days, it’s awfully comforting.  

*Seeing someone’s hidden gifts is satisfying… both for the seeing and the seen. When connection happens, it feels good and right because connection is good and right.

*Secrets hiding in plain sight, especially those you know most people miss, are sweet-bright spots for heavy days.

*Homeopathy, something I’ve been studying for years now, states that ‘like heals like’. From that grows the idea that since the sign heals me with smiles year after year…we must be alike in some way.

*What parts of me are hiding in plain sight? 

*Do I find satisfaction sharing my gifts, but only with those who have eyes, (and hearts) to see?

*Are my outsides aligned with my insides but is that unknown to most people who pass by me? Does that matter to me? Or do I keep shining, regardless of who ‘sees’ me for who I am…simply because I love being me?

 

What about you?

What makes you smile these days? Can you sit with it, can you let the connection that brought about that smile grow even deeper gifts within you, gifts you can unwrap for days?

 

What if you unwrapped one smile and I unwrapped another and everyone around us unwrapped their own… would our world transform? We’d definitely have more to smile about and with more to smile about, maybe we’d even grow the perspectives we need to make our world a kinder, more smile-inducing place.

 

I’m in!

Are you?

Wednesday Wish (173); Glow with Imagination

(photo via stockcake.com)

The first time I saw a golden hue around someone’s head and shoulders, I was thrilled… and genuinely scared. The warm pulsating yellow was as clear as day and yet no one had mentioned to me that they’d ever seen such a thing before. Why then, was I? It was beautiful in a way that felt spiritual. So it had to be good. It touched me deeply, running tingles up my arms and neck. So it had to be right. But it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t expected. It wasn’t part of the world I was raised in. 

I smiled at him serenely as I watched it ebb and flow. I tried to contain my tears at his beauty, to not disturb him by telling him what I was seeing. I didn’t say a word. But I’d sneak a peek any time I could to see if he was still glowing. I wanted to know if I’d imagined it or if it was still there. Sure enough, every time I looked, there it was. The golden glow with tufts of pink warming his head and shoulders before me.

 

 

*          *          *

 

When was it, how old were you, when someone told you how the world works? Do you remember the face that told you trees are green, flowers bloom in the sun, the seasons are the same every year, and your imagination isn’t real? Was it the same person who told you that sentences are read left to right, that each letter has a different sound, and that not only is sugar bad for you, but germs are, too? Or was it a different person, the same one who also told you that love is good, but money is necessary?

 

Did you ever draw a tree in the 80’s only to have your teacher tell you to use your head, that trees aren’t purple?

 

Did you ever try to convince your parents that you really did see colors around that man’s head?

 

Or what about that dream you had? Were you the only one who knew what you felt was real, a foreboding of what was to come?

 

I was raised in mainstream American culture that valued the individual, but more than that, a culture that prized the individual who toed the line, who upheld the tried and true, who continued a pattern set out by those who came before me. 

 

Mavericks were disrupters.

True artists were freaks.

People who didn’t make money didn’t earn equal respect.

 

I saw these things and kept anything outside those lines to myself.

 

Was that ever you, too?

 

Who are we when we don’t fit the mold? Are we disrupters? Antagonistic feather rufflers? Freaks? Or are we moving something invisible toward something brighter? A future that makes our imagination sing even if it makes no sense to the mainstream mind, that mind that keeps threatening to rip the reins from our soulful hands? What if the rule-breakers, the creatives, the dreamers, the You in me and the Me in you, are the few who can get us through these new times with our hearts still intact? Shall we dream that for a minute together…yes, why don’t we? 

 

*          *          *

It feels to me like we’ve stepped into a new era, a flavor of life we haven’t ever tasted before:

 

*An era where colors aren’t just for our eyes, but for ‘seeing’ deeper things.

*An era where flowers don’t just bloom to look pretty, but where they are needed. With energetic messages. For those open enough to hear.

*An era where seasons are no longer predictable, but reflect the state of our being, showing us what we need and what we don’t need. As a people. On a deeper level.

*An era where imagination is the only path forward, for if we cannot imagine it, how can it be?

*An era where sugar grounds the soaring and homeopathic germs free us from our unhealthy ways.

*An era where…love is the new sun to realign ourselves with, to revolve around, because nothing else matters more.

 

If we imagine this, together, what then will you be in this new era gifted to both you and me?

 

What color will you glow?

What flower will be your guide?

What will you imagine into being?

And what, pray tell, will your love do if

Love itself is given full reign?