Flourish

To flourish:

verb: to live in a healthy, vigorous way.

Noun: A bold, extravagant gesture, an impressive act or way of doing something.

Last month we embraced the act of destruction as a way to cultivate our creativity and ourselves. We paid attention to the ways in which fire, flood, and wind can remove what is no longer serving, thereby making space for new growth and fertilizing the proverbial soil in the process.

This month, we turn our eye to what happens the results of the cultivation: flourishing.

I like this word, probably because the etymology is, unsurprisingly, rooted in the Latin florere: to bloom, blossom or flower. I also love words that work as nouns and verbs, particularly when their meanings are so complementary.

How do we identify or interpret flourishing in the world around us? How do we observe it in ourselves? Typically, it takes a bit of hindsight to notice our progress or growth. But when we do note where our lives are full of “health and vigor” we can take it as evidence that, hey, whatever we did worked, right? We composted, fertilized and now we can enjoy the harvest.

It requires some introspection to recognize growth, and even more to pinpoint how we did it. Is it an organic process? Was it the result of practice, intention and/or commitment? What combo of the above is the magic sauce?

Of equal importance: celebrating that we did, indeed, get here! We have grown, our practices have taken shape, we’ve reached a milestone of some kind. How do you mark that occasion?

We will talk all of the above and more at our regularly scheduled Open Studio Session on June 28 from 7-8 pm via Zoom. See you there!