Poetic Revelations: Facing towards the Sun
Its the Up Lift
“That is why we shouldn’t wait until we see big yellow flowers blooming in the fields to say that the sunflowers are there. They are there, just hidden, and whether or not we see them is only a matter of time and latent conditions.”
~ Thict Nhat Hanh, See the Universe in a Sunflower
This is a weekly publication for heart-centered warriors, trying to make it through this thing we call life with an intact, open heart (and strong voice).
SELECTED POEMS
Empty Chairs, Lua Xia
Van Gogh, Jeanne Murray Walker
Dear Embodied Hearts and Dancing Souls,
This entire letter could be called Meditations on a Sunflower. I woke up drawing a sunflower whose picture I could see in my head and one thing led to another. There are lots of links that popped up this week to weave together this story. Link to new podcast activation here.
Sunflower: I woke up wanting to draw a sunflower in great detail. I could see its wide tufted-center, each yellow-petal peeking along the rim. The largest detail coming through was the green-leaves forming a cup on the back of the sunflower and the distinct dome-shape of those leaves. As I drew it, I noticed the position of the sunflower - where and how it wanted to face. Its as if it wanted to show me that it wanted to be turned right, facing into the fullness of the sun. In fact I had to re-do the stalk for it. My usual habit is to draw curvy lines. This sunflower wanted a strong straight stalk so it could stand of its own accord, upright, facing the sun.
Later in the day I learned that immature sunflowers move with the sun, turning their heads from east to west marking their days. (The whole trajectory reminds me of one of my favorite book titles ever, A Swiftly Tilting Planet.) But mature sunflowers….well…these lovelies slow their roll and steadfastly only face East. Separately, my husband pointed out that the fiddle-leaf fig in our bedroom had completely changed its leaves, so it was receiving more (maximum?) light vis-a-vis the windows.
“The leaves have turned towards the light.” he said. “We all do,” I muttered.
Summer Aunts: I’ve found myself fantasizing more than usual during the laze of the past six weeks. Wanting to contrast my actual existence with imagined excursions to a lake house, ocean front, luxury train rides. I sometimes seal the deal in abdicating my Now by jogging over to celebrity news for an escapist point of view. For where else can one be cool, be fed, and have all the right factors to …. what?
Here is the rub. Its an imagined form of productivity which wasn’t actually occurring here.
Yet, life finds a way IN to nudge us in the direction of our soul’s evolution no matter what. Last Sunday, I met my Aunti’s dear friend who had spent the bulk of her life co-helming a family-run convenience store. I watched her speaking as she sat on a blue armchair, telling me stories of all these people who would come up to talk with her about their problems. Parents would come in telling her how their children couldn’t wait to come to the store to see her. The building owner noticing there was never a time someone wasn’t speaking with her suggested that she open a counseling kiosk. This otherwise ordinary life of a tiny (less than 5 feet) brown woman who got up every morning and provided for her family through this store (in an area that is 95% white no less). Yet, shining her light, She Lifted People up. Every Day.
Its like seeing someone in their proper context. This is how we create little orbits around ourselves…a little solar system in which we are the centered sun.
Summer Nights: Right now my life is nudging me towards my true focus through my dreams. Each of these mornings I wake with an energy and draw what I’m feeling. Like the sunflower. Like a friend’s father who believed in me when I came of age, whose caring let me dare lift up my heart to the world.
When I start my days leaning into my dreams, I notice how my life is here For Me. By Friday evening, I am playing hide and seek with my 5 year old neighbor outside in her yard. As she counted, I am surprised to find my hips remember the delight of that distinctive hustle lasting just a few seconds as I run pell-mell into a hiding spot. The dusk fell bringing out tiny bats and lightning bugs. Here it was, a full-on summer moment right where I live. What I am trying to say is we can trust the life that’s living through us.
I didn’t form a connection to Van Gogh until speaking to my father-in-law. I told him about the volunteer sunflower which had popped up in the same flower pot we found the snake egg. He brought up Van Gogh and said this beautiful thing. “Van Gogh could see the personality in the thing,” he said.
To him, it wasn’t about having a painting at the end. He painted because he wanted to be with the personality…he saw in the thing he was painting. (My FIL)
I see an image of Van Gogh pulling up a chair, standing up an easle, getting out his implements simply to get closer to what he saw. The personality…is also a process… in the bullock cart, the sunflower, the sky.
And this is how we can see our life. Being woke to every little bit of it.
Do read the poems above. Fantastic finds. Van Gogh has his own fandom and they have done him proud.
Dreams, Desires, and Daring. We too are heliotropic like the sunflower. When a sunbeam warms my shoulder slowly, it makes me look up to what’s warming me.
But there is another kind of light that we respond to: the desire that dreamed us in. It’s embedded in our hearts. Just because our desires are not fully realized in the world, doesn’t mean they don’t already exist (see quote on top).
Take the time to tap into your heart’s true desires. Feel them. Draw them. Write them. Sound them. The Universe wants to know.
What if it was OK to breathe into our true heart’s desires? To fill ourselves up with them, activate this heart-beam and position it to shine out in the world?
I have recorded an activation inspired by the sunflower for you to experience your own light, in communion with your lightscape. Have a listen to this lovely tune and then kick back to start dreaming anew.
Stay #heartwoke. To your exquisite unfolding.
Monisha
P.S. I found this hilairous reading by Olivia Colman if you really want get jou jou going on your abundance meter. The key word is “Also...”