Dear Mother Nature: What's Up?

Dear Mother Nature:

First of all, let be begin by saying that I think you are doing a magnificent job. Your flowers this spring and summer were beyond spectacular, and over the last few weeks it is obvious that you will once again outdo yourself with the fall colors. I can't wait until the trees are at their peak and you pull out all the stops.

However, the reason I am writing to you is because there seems to be a bit of indecision on your part concerning what season we're actually in. In August, instead of your usual "Dog Days of August," we had rainy, cool weather, more like fall weather than summer. Then in September we had a few fall-like days with cooler and sunnier weather. However, since the official first day of Autumn, we have had temperatures in the high 80's and broke records by hitting 90 last week. Autumn did return last Thursday and we even had a frost warning last night, but when I checked the forecast for this coming week, the prediction is for temperatures to be be back in the 70's. So my question to you is: what's up?

Now, I would never, never presume to tell you how to do your job. After all, who can argue with millions of years of work experience under their belts? It's just that I was wondering if perhaps there was something wrong? Maybe you are over due for a vacation? When was the last time you took a day off and just enjoyed yourself, maybe indulging yourself with a day at the spa? A makeover? Everyone needs to employ a little self-care once in a while. In addition, while I hesitate to bring up the subject of age, I can speak from personal experience when I say that there's no shame is admitting that you need a little help once in a while. After all, changing seasons four times a year on opposite sides of the earth, and not getting Australia mixed up with Atlanta is no easy job

So I am volunteering my services. I would be honored to offer you my own years of gardening experience and my love of nature in order to give you a break and, as the guys always say, get your game back. There is nowhere I'd rather be at this time of year than walking in nature and letting the smells, sights and colors feed my soul. Think of it as my way of saying thank you for all of the joy you have brought into my life. It's the least I can do. I'm willing to work for free, but if you wanted to pay me in apples I wouldn't complain ... my applesauce stock has run out.

At least give it some thought and let me know. I am available at a moment's notice. In the meantime, could you please bring back the fall weather? As a football fan, there is something almost sacrilegious about watching football in shorts and sandals. I really, really need to wear my lucky team jersey.

Thank you for your time, and Happy Halloween in advance,
Flower Bear

And so it is.

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.

As Clouds Go By

I have become something of a cloud watcher over the last few years. Now that I have a big window with a fabulous view that takes in vast amounts of sky, I find myself being distracted from my writing by the performance that is going on above me. Admittedly, a crystal clear blue sky is surely a thing to behold, but I much prefer watching the personalities of the different kinds of clouds that float by. Each cloud elicits a different reaction from me as if it is trying to convey some special message that is only for me.

There are big, fat, fluffy clouds, the kind that are playful and that make up all those shapes we imagine we see hidden within them. They remind me of a pile of pillows just waiting for some puppies to romp among them. Then there are the thin, wispy clouds, the ones that float by carelessly as if their sole purpose was simply to break up all that blue sky and add a little depth to it. Big, fat, bands of clouds remind me of celestial islands floating above. I like to think it's where the angels live in their billowy homes.

Then there are the blankets of  ominous clouds, the ones with the dark under-bellies bringing with them feelings of foreboding, of storms ahead. They both fascinate and frighten me sometimes. On the one hand, I do not want to know what bad news they are bringing as they make their way across the sky. On the other hand, I know that they are, indeed, just clouds passing by and will take whatever storm they are carrying with them when they go.

I grew up with an obsessive fear of heights as a child. I do not know its origins. My mother was fearful of so many things and it is quite possible I got that fear from her. It wasn't until I was in my 50's that I got on my first plane and rose above the clouds. Filled with both fear and exhilaration, I knew for the first time what eagles must feel like to soar above the clouds, playing a game of hide and seek with them. How wonderful it must be to be able to soar like that every day!

Life, like that blank, blue sky, brings with it many different experiences and not all of them are happy ones. Sometimes life is playful and happy, sometimes innocently searching for something to give it depth and meaning, and, more often than we'd like, can also be dark and scary. We just need to realize that, like the clouds, these experiences will pass and, like the eagles, we have the ability to soar above them to bask in the warmth and glow of the sun on the other side. All we have to do is aim ourselves in the right direction, spread our wings, and fly.

Excuse me, but I have to go now. I think I just saw the angels float by.

And so it is.

A Lust For Learning

My grandchildren weren't the only ones stocking up on school supplies this week. At the start of each school year I pick a subject I want to know more about, a skill I want to learn, or a totally new idea I want to explore. Thanks to the miracle of the internet and the availability of online learning, there is nothing I can't learn or explore. For someone who has loved learning all my life, September feels like Christmas to me.

My mother always used to tell me that "why" was my favorite word. My dad was a auto mechanic and when I had a problem with my car, it wasn't enough for him to just tell me what the problem was. I needed all the facts. My dad even went so far as to draw me a picture when I wasn't grasping the problem. When my teachers would present something as fact, I was the only kid in the class to challenge the validity of her statement ... even in 1st grade!

Years later, when I returned to school in my 30's to get my Bachelors Degree in Comparative Religion, all of my professors would point to me as an example of what education was all about. It wasn't just about passing tests and getting a good job. It was about not being afraid to challenge the status quo. It was about building a meaningful life.

As I've gotten older, learning new things and exploring new ideas keeps me young in body, mind and spirit. I like to be challenged, even if I find out I've been mistaken about something. We're never really wrong, we're just doing the best we can with the knowledge and experience we have at the time, and as my beloved Maya Angelo always said: "When you knew better, you did better,"

This year I want to "know better" about alternative methods and ideas about healthy aging in body, mind, and spirit. I want to explore herbal medicine, healthy mind sets, and what folks living in "Blue Zones," - places in the world where people live longer and healthier than their counterparts in the west - know that we don't. In the meantime, I'm sharpening my pencils and picking up some more spiral notebooks. Something tells me this is going to be a BIG subject!

And so it is

Laborless Labor Day

Many years ago, when I was living in Pennsylvania and studying to become a minister (another story for another blog some day), I filled in for a local pastor who was on vacation. It happened to be the day before Labor Day and the title of my sermon was "Labor-less Labor Day." I spoke about how I grew up thinking that Labor Day wasn't just the official end of summer vacation, but also the day that my Dad, and the dads of all of my friends, used to get stuff done around the house that they hadn't gotten to all summer, including putting away the summer outdoor furniture, giving things a coat of fresh paint before the start of winter, and cutting back foliage in the yard that had gotten out of control. In my sermon, I shared the fact that while the holiday was established to honor the working men and women of this country, it wasn't, in fact, a special day set aside to, well ... labor! I suggested that we should use the day to honor each other and all of the long hours each week we all spend working to provide for our families as well as contributing to our communities and our nation. These are the true fruits of our labors and they are right under our noses. Unfortunately, that's the last place most of us look for them.

The irony of this came to me the other day when I was over at my daughter's house looking to see if anything at all had come from all of our hard work to try and turn her yard into a real garden. It was obvious that it would take much more than the labor of me, my daughter, and my grandchildren to make a paradise out of a jungle that had been neglected for decades (more like a backhoe, five very strong men, and a bottomless wallet). I found that I would probably be able to harvest a little something from my lavender plant, and the Forget-Me-Nots, which had managed to hang in there, might come back next spring. That was about it. All the rest had simply not survived. There would have to be a complete tear down and massive soil amendment before anything but mutant weeds would grow there. Food for thought for next spring.

I went home with some of the cuttings from my lavender plant and was looking for some string to tie them up to dry with when I caught sight of the table-top fairy garden my daughter and grandkids had made for me for Mother's Day. It came complete with a tiny outhouse, birds, a welcome sign, a stone path, and room for a few tiny fairies. I had kept it watered over the summer as it sat next to my writing desk and then had turned my attention to whatever I was currently working on. Today, however, I took a really good look at it and, much to my surprise, realized that the fairies had certainly called in some extra fairy help because it had grown so much that it was hard to find the outhouse, the birds and the stone path.

All I had done was to put my little garden next to my very favorite spot in my home, my writing desk in front of the big window that overlooked the hills beyond, kept it watered, and put on a light over the table on cloudy days. Mother Nature (and the fairies) had taken care of the rest. By giving it a place of honor in a place that I loved, and providing for its' needs, my labor-less labor had produced with abundance and then some!

Sometimes the best work we can do is to set our intentions, have faith in knowing that what is meant to work will work, and what isn't meant to work, won't, and leave the rest up to the Universe to work it's own brand of magic. A little help from the garden fairies always helps, too.

As soon as I am done here, I have to prune back my tiny forest. I'll take the cuttings and root them so that I can replant them in tiny pots and start another tiny garden. Obviously, things grow well that are planted where love is.

And so it is.

And The Days Dwindle Down To A Precious Few

"For it's a long, long while, from May to December,

but the days grow short when you reach September ..."

It's hard to believe that we are heading into the last week of August. Even though Fall does not officially start for a few weeks, most folks look at this time as the actual end of summer, when the kids start back to school and the days grow cooler. Where I live in the northeast, the early mornings begin to start off very foggy right about now, a chilly mist that burns off by around 8 or 9 o'clock. The air, too, takes on a different feel, a different smell. When I was a little girl, I used to tell my mom that it "smelled like time to go back to school."

Where did this summer go? I don't know if it is because this summer in our area was very wet and cooler than normal - I don't think we had more than a couple of days that actually reached 90 - or because the older I get, the faster the seasons seem to come and go. All I know is that one minute I was waiting for the buds on the trees to put in an appearance, and the next minute I looked in amazement as the first tinge of color appeared on the distant hill tops. It felt like summer and I had been speed dating this year. Yesterday when I went out to put my recyclables in the bin behind our complex, several dried, yellow leaves came floating down to land on my head. Sigh!

I have no doubt that we will have a last surge of summer weather before autumn officially gets here, a taste of Indian Summer, as it's called. Still, something tells me that autumn will settle in early this year, not that I'm complaining. Autumn is my very favorite season of the whole year and with its arrival comes all things pumpkin: coffee, muffins, pies, you name it - if it's pumpkin, it's mine! Still, it's always sad to see summer come to an end. It takes me back to my youth when summer spelled freedom, and when it ended, so did my freedom, or, at least that's what it felt like.

I remember one end of August in particular some years ago when I took a late-season trip to the beach. There was literally no one there except for a few die-hards and the locals who were finally enjoying their surroundings without all of the crowds and noise. Standing at the shoreline with my toes in the sand, even the ocean seemed a little sadder, a little lonelier, without the excited shouts of the children splashing and building sand castles, and the music from the boardwalk carrying out over the waves. Can an ocean feel sadness? I wonder.

So I say good-bye to August this week, and to summer in general. Next week my precious "almost 11 year old" granddaughter (she would be insulted if I didn't say that) starts junior high. Where did all of those years go? I expect they went the same way as the waves at the beach and the summer fun, into my book of memories.

And so it is.

Messages From Above

This is going to be a short post today. My laptop is having a problem connecting to Blogger's server. Maybe the Eclipse is messing with The Cloud, or however it all works. In any case, I am writing this on my tablet, and I am not the fastest or most patient one - finger typist in the world. I am accepting this as a message from above to not stress out over it, but to just go with the flow and type on.

I've been getting a lot of messages from above lately.  I found a blue jay feather the other day. Blue Jays are my favorite birds. They represent adaptability, something I can certainly use more of in my life. Then I found a nickel on the ground. Whenever I find money, even a penny, I always say the affirmation I learned from Wayne Dyer: "Thank you for this symbol of abundance that flows into my life each and every day." I never take these things for granted. There are messages from above all around us but we're often too busy running around, or looking down at our IPHONE instead of up at the world, to see them. I read a blog post the other day that said if you see someone washing windows while you're out and about, it could mean you need to "get clear" on you priorities and goals. Anything can be a message from above if we just stay awake and present in our lives.

I thought I was getting a message from above over the weekend. Our little town of Endicott, New York, was host to the Dick's Sporting Goods PGA Tournament at the Enjoy Golf Club which is just a few blocks from my home. Thousands of folks rolled past my windows, especially on Friday night when Bon Jovi was there for a concert. Anyway, a small plane was flying around over the area all weekend pulling a banner behind it with some writing on it, but it was too high for me to read. I felt sure that the message held some significance for me. On Sunday, as all the people and news trucks were pulling out and going home, the plane finally flew low enough for me to read the message: "Superior Light Beer." Hey, maybe it's a message about healthy drinking?

And so it is,