Happy Anniversary Flower Bear

Five years ago this week, I called in to a radio show on Hay House Radio. The host of the show was meditation teacher and New York Times Best Selling Author, Davidji. I had been following his work for some time and through his advice and teachings on making meditation available to everyone, I had incorporated a daily practice into my life that had changed it in ways I couldn't even imagine at the time. On this particular day, the weekly show was focusing on our chakras, or energy points, and I was having a problem with the third chakra, or, as Davidji describes it, our "get it done power center." I decided to call into the show. After explaining my dilemma, Davidji asked a few questions to clarify the issue and then proceeded to tell me that I needed to trust my intuition. He said that if I trusted that my inner guidance, my intuition, knew what to do, then doing it would come easily, without the struggle. So I followed his advice, and Flower Bear's Garden was born.

For the past five years, I have had the pleasure of using this platform as a way to reach out to people who had arrived at a time in their lives where their own intuition was telling them, "there's got to be more to life than this." They've paid their dues, filled out all the forms, done all of the right things, and now the job, the kids, and perhaps even the spouses, are gone, and the best years of their lives are ahead of them! We, the Baby Boomers and Wisdom Elders, can go anywhere, do anything, create whole new lives for ourselves, and it all begins with listening to our inner guidance, planting the seeds, and watching what grows.

I chose the idea of using gardening and nature as a metaphor for creating these new lives because it is there that we have all of the examples of how to grow an authentic life right before our eyes. I came to gardening later in life, when I was in my mid-forties, and it was there that I came to understand that with the right soil, the right seeds, and the right nurturing, we can grow anything. My sweet avatar, Flower Bear, was the idea of some dear friends who knew that besides gardening, my other passion was collecting teddy bears. Flower Bear actually exists. She was given to my mother years ago and when my mother passed, she came to me. She sits in a place of honor next to my bed and whenever I look at her, I remember Mom. I think in some way this blog is dedicated to her, a woman who never got the chance to create her own authentic life at a time when such things just weren't acceptable.

So on this, Flower Bear's fifth anniversary, I want to thank all of you who have been with me from the beginning, and all of our new friends who have joined us more recently. Never, ever, let anyone tell you that you can't have the life you dream of regardless of how old you are, where you are, and what you do or don't have. All it takes is a dream, a seed, and the ability to listen to your intuition. Follow it, and you will grow a life beyond your wildest dreams. Peace, blessings, and lots of teddy bear hugs!

And so it is.