blossoming

"When the flower blossoms, the bees come uninvited." ~ Ramakrishna

In this shift in consciousness ~ consciousness realizing itself ~ the flowering, as Eckhart calls it, there is a noticing of how it seems that everything is longing for itself, longing to be known. Truly known ~ known at its essence. Everything appears for this sacred meeting. Everything. Everything that moves is longing to be known by that which never moves. By Stillness. All the bees long to find the pollen in the open flower, and then bathe in it.

The thinking mind can read these words ~ consciousness realizing itself ~ and gloss over them. It claims to know the words, has either heard them before or read them somewhere or agrees or disagrees with them. These words are pointing to something, well rather, they are pointing to nothing! The nothingness that we are. The no-thing-ness that is disguised in every-thing.

This realization is the blossoming... the blossoming into awareness, into peace, into stillness, into love.

There is a distant memory of being a bee (well, pretending to be!) and discovering a rare flower. A memory of bathing in the pollen, becoming so infused with it that there was no difference between what appeared to be the bee and what appeared to be the flower. The memory includes the continuous flying away from the flower insisting that I was a bee... and then the returning, returning, returning... Many other bees were brought to that same flower ~ it seemed to have enough pollen for all to bathe in! And then the noticing that we who seemed to be the bees were losing our bee-like qualities and appearances. We didn't seem to be able to fly away anymore. We seemed to be transforming into flowers.

Who knows the mystery of how this happened ~ this shift in consciousness ~ and the magic of the pollen. And yet, this continues to happen everywhere. The mystery is at play! The busy buzzing bees are transforming into beautiful still flowers ~ open and fragrant, receiving all that appears. Well, actually, the bees are realizing that they were flowers all along!

A beautiful blossoming transpired over the weekend retreat ~ a blossoming of love. So evident and obvious. Love meeting itself everywhere and loving itself ~ for no reason at all. Love being itself as kindness, as compassion, as inclusion, as allowing, as generosity, as playfulness, as joy... aahhhhhhh... an abundance of blessings! Much gratitude to all who joined us.